Background
In late 1989, after the album Like a Prayer had spawned three U.S. hits—the title track, "Express Yourself" and "Cherish"—and a top-five European single in "Dear Jessie", its fourth US single, "Oh Father", stalled at number 20 in the charts. Perhaps to ensure that the last single release of "Keep It Together" would fare better on the charts, Madonna and producer Shep Pettibone decided to compose a new song to be placed on the flipside of "Keep It Together" and quickly produced "Vogue". The song and video were inspired by the dance of the same name, performed in New York clubs on the underground gay scene, in which dancers used a series of complex hand gestures, body poses and movements to imitate their favourite Hollywood stars (see the list of the names of the Hollywood stars below), as well as the cover models from Vogue magazine. In the film Paris is Burning (film), Luis Xtravaganza explains that original dance form as a way of performing rivalries and take-downs on the dance floor through gender play and irony.
After presenting the song to Warner Bros. executives, all parties involved decided that the song was too good to be wasted on a B-side and that it should be released as a single. Although the song itself had nothing to do with Madonna's then-upcoming Disney movie Dick Tracy, it was included on the album I'm Breathless, which contained songs from and inspired by the film. Madonna altered some of the suggestive lyrics because the song was connected to the Disney film via soundtrack.
Read more about this topic: Vogue (Madonna Song)
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—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
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—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)