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Tag: Madonna Your Honesty

  • Comparing Madonna’s “Right On Time” to the Nature of Some of Taylor Swift’s Recent Lyrical Offerings

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    At a time when Taylor Swift’s lyrics have never been so glaringly cringe, Madonna, funnily enough, chose to release one of her own “From the Vault” tracks (though, of course, that’s not what she calls them) from 1994’s Bedtime Stories. This in honor of the forthcoming EP celebrating the album’s thirtieth anniversary, Bedtime Stories: The Untold Chapter. And, of “all” the songs (though the word “all” makes it sound as if the album is far more robust than its mere eight tracks) Madonna might have chosen to release from it as a single, she opted for the hyper-mushy “Right On Time.” This being more than likely because the other songs on it have been released/heard before by the die-hard fans in some way or another, including the supposed fellow “rarities” on it: “Freedom,” “Let Down Your Guard” and “Love Won’t Wait.” And what all of these previously unreleased tracks have in common with the ones that actually made the cut for Bedtime Stories is that the overarching motif is one of love, amorousness. Which was very much aligned with the fact that she met Carlos Leon in September of ‘94, a month before the album would come out.

    So, although, logically speaking, Leon might not have been a direct influence on the lyrics of the songs seeing as how Madonna had been working on them prior to meeting him, it was almost as though she “conjured” him with such lyrics as, “Who needs the sun/When the rain’s so full of life?/Who needs the sky?/It’s here in your arms/I want to be buried/You are/My sanctuary.” Quoting Walt Whitman (for she was also doing that long before Lana Del Rey), Madonna speaks an intro to the track from “Leaves of Grass”: “Surely, whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her I shall follow.” Evidently, it was Leon who spoke to her in the right voice that September day in Central Park. As the lore goes, he was on his bike and she was running. He had noticed her a few times prior to this day before deciding to approach her. Ah, the glory days of when a person could get cruised, with no apps to make it “easy” (though actually much harder) to meet someone.

    And perhaps in that instant, Madonna really did think to herself, “It seems like I’ve been waiting/All my life for you to rescue me [a blatant nod to her 1990 track of the same name]/And there ain’t no hesitating/This is right/Boy, I was meant to be/With you.” Which does somewhat beg the question of when “Right On Time” was actually written—perhaps not “tacked on” to the album because it was too rushed. Then again, the generic sentiments of the lyrics don’t necessarily mean Leon was the catalyst for them at all. Not like Swift being oh so specific about Travis Kelce’s supposed “redwood” of a wang on The Life of a Showgirl’s “Wood” (arguably the most challenging track to endure). Or just about any other over-the-top-in-its-corniness song that’s aimed at him.

    Even though, in truth, Kelce is ultimately a blurred-out shape to Swift, who can use just about any of the men from her past as a composite for describing “love,” whether in its “positive” state (e.g., “Lover”) or its heart-wrenching, post-breakup one (e.g., “All Too Well”). But with the content (and that is the word to describe it, for every song on the album sounds decidedly “churned out”) on The Life of a Showgirl, Swift is worse off for trying to be “specific in her generalness.” For example, the unfortunate part during “The Fate of Ophelia” during which she sings, “Pledge allegiance to your hands, your team, your vibes.” The only thing “specific” about that might be alluding to, as usual, how Kelce plays football, but it’s certainly enough to amplify the ick factor.

    In (very slight) contrast, Madonna decides to keep her mawkishness more “catch-all” when she sings something like, “With you, you’re like a lucky charm that I just found/You, you’re like a ray of sunshine [so close to ‘ray of light’] on a cloudy/Day, you always make the darkness lighter/You, you’re right on time.” And yes, there’s no denying that if someone saw those lyrics without being aware that Madonna had penned them, they could easily attribute it to Swift. While some M fans might take that as an insult, perhaps it’s actually more of a testament to how underrated the Queen of Pop has been when it comes to writing “romantic” songs. Indeed, for the most part, she’s flown under the radar as a romantic because the majority of love songs by her that have been her biggest hits are more about unrequitedness and/or tragic loss (hear: “Live to Tell,” “Take A Bow” and “The Power of Goodbye”). It’s been very rare for Madonna to ever go totally “all in” on the saccharine front. Unless, of course, one is talking about her early 80s-era work, when she was more willing to play the “slighted ingenue” (case in point, “Burning Up,” “Think of Me” and “Pretender”).

    Yet such a “persona” never really “fit” Madonna to a tee the way that it has for Swift (and served her so well, too). Because Madonna’s message was always one that fundamentally traced back to empowerment. And for most women (who aren’t lying to themselves), a sense of true empowerment usually means being single. Or “going through men” the way that Madonna does now with her rotating crop of boy toys. This in itself being so much different that Swift’s “serial monogamy” style. And then, of course, when one thinks of Madonna’s most well-known hits, none of them are pining and whining anthems in the Swift vein. “Like A Virgin,” “Express Yourself,” “Vogue,” “Ray of Light,” and “Music” are just a few of the non-woe-is-me instances of Madonna’s typical form of chart success.

    And this is, in large part, what made (and makes) Bedtime Stories such a departure from most of the other work in her catalogue. One that is, inarguably, much more varied (both musically and lyrically) than what Swift’s usual themes have to offer. Yet with the release of “Right On Time,” it’s difficult not to feel as though this is one song that’s perhaps better left in “the vault.” For it doesn’t show off Madonna’s standard deviation from what pop stars like Swift tend to come up with when it comes to describing newfound love. In other words, listeners aren’t getting a track that innovatively compares this “tingly feeling,” as it were, to being “like a virgin.” Instead, the lyrics sound as though they were made to complement the possibility of Madonna synergistically promoting a watch brand. Which would also be very Swift-ish in nature.

    But, again, this is where it bears reminding that Madonna was doing “Swift shit” long before it all seemed to become attributed solely to said “Boring Barbie,” with M not only perfecting the art of marketing and PR, but also self-branding when it was still in its infancy for musicians (and celebrities in general). And, of course, commodifying something “underground” and making it mainstream (as Swift is trying to do with this whole showgirl shtick; granted, such a shtick is far less “underground” than vogueing was at the time when Madonna released the signature song paying homage to it).

    Perhaps by unleashing “Right On Time” just after The Life of a Showgirl, Madonna also wants to remind the masses that she was writing these types of mushy, “so in love” lyrics before her as well. Except, unlike Swift, Madonna had the good sense not to release the track until now. As a kind of afterthought. A “postscript” on her varied, typically overlooked range. But even Madonna wouldn’t have the audacity to put out the voice memos that Swift has for certain The Life of a Showgirl variants (oh so many variants) and sell them to an increasingly skeptical fanbase.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Madonna Chooses the Right Time to Release “Right On Time”—Because It Would Have Been a Disservice for Her to Include It on Bedtime Stories in 1994

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    On the same day as announcing that her Bedtime Stories: The Final Chapter EP is actually real, and not just another tease (like, thus far, her much-talked about biopic, in all its various iterations), Madonna opted to casually drop one of the “rarities” from the record (of which there are actually none apart from this), “Right On Time.” A title that, in many ways, is only too appropriate for someone like her, who not only “burst onto the scene” just as the world needed/was ready for the first modern female pop star, but whose entire career has generally been guided by a “right place, right time” kind of luck. 

    “Right On Time,” however, seems to indicate that Madonna was aware it wasn’t the right time at all to release a track like this, awash as it is in the kind of syrupy lyrics that she might have been sooner caught singing in the early and mid-80s (e.g., the unbridled saccharineness of 1984’s “Shoo-Bee-Doo,” during which she sings, “Why don’t you dry your eyes, try and realize?/Love can open any door, and maybe/If you trust in me I can make you see/Shoo-bee-doo-bee-doo, ooh la la, come to me, baby/Shoo-bee-doo-bee-doo, ooh la la, don’t say maybe”). And although her intent with Bedtime Stories was to veer away from the oversexed aura that pulsated from Erotica’s very core, she probably didn’t really want to go this far on the other side of the spectrum. Hence, waiting only until now to show the extent of what she was willing to do in order to win back the favor of John Q. Public (namely, the type of people that could be classified as her own Midwestern brethren). Or rather, prove to the critics and the masses at large that, as she once pointed out, they couldn’t handle dealing with their own sexual fantasies, let alone talking frankly about sex at all. And so, as it was once said on VH1, Madonna, to paraphrase, simply picked up her clothes and put them back on. 

    And she did so, you guessed it, right on time. Because it just so happened that she wanted to embody a certain “softer” look and persona in order to throw her hat into the ring for the part of Eva Perón, writing an eight-page letter to Alan Parker in 1994 to express her ardent interest in portraying the simultaneously loved and hated Argentine political icon. To even more succinctly convey her acting abilities on that specific front, the concept behind the “Take A Bow” video would prove to be extremely instrumental. In it, Madonna goes for a 1940s-styled look (from the top [her hat with face veil] to bottom [her Christian Louboutin—then an unknown designer—heels]) meant to channel her inner Evita. A woman who could be both vulnerable, vixen-y and a little wrathful.

    That woman is nowhere to be found at any point during “Right On Time,” wherein Madonna is more unnecessarily worshipful than “vulnerable.” For example, “This is it, I know there’s so much more/With you, you’re like a dream that came true/Oh you, you’re like a fantasy that came into my life/And every day is so much brighter/You, you’re right on time.” And then, of course, there are the very “Till There Was You”-reminiscent lyrics, “Birds are singing just because they’re next to you/Bells are ringing, maybe you’re my dream come true/This groove keeps swinging, all the little things you do/The joy you’re bringing, maybe I’m in love with you.”

    Needless to say, a song like “Right On Time” does not possess the same subtlety or intelligence as some of the other love songs on the record (of which there are many), including “Inside of Me” (produced by Nellee Hooper), “Sanctuary” (produced by Madonna, Hooper and Dallas Austin) and, of course, “Take A Bow” (produced by Babyface, and who many said should have gotten a full-on “featuring” credit). In truth, it has all the lyrical subtlety of an anvil, which is out of character for the Madonna songwriting style of the post-early to mid-80s. And this is part of why “Right On Time” makes it more glaringly apparent than ever before that Bedtime Stories was M’s willful clawing back into the good graces of the public. This while, at the same time, proving her depth of range in musical styles. Glomming onto the R&B sound at a time when most (white people) remained focused on grunge, Madonna was also then still showcasing her ability to have her finger on the pulse of the next trend (meanwhile, Mariah was still either recording cheesy ballads or secret grunge albums). 

    To achieve that sound, Madonna turned to the likes of Dallas Austin to infuse the record with the, let’s call it, “flavor” she wanted (no doubt in part thanks to the influence of “canoodling” with 2Pac during that period). With the previously unreleased tracks from Bedtime Stories that have come out in the years since, it seems that Austin wasn’t in a musical variation kind of mood when it came to producing for M. At least if the backing track similarities between “Your Honesty” (which was unveiled on 2003’s Remixed & Revisited) and “Right On Time” are anything to go by.

    While Austin might have worked with her on this particular track, an official press release announcing the EP was sure to mention, “Madonna collaborated with Stuart Price to shape this EP, editing and mixing previously unreleased versions into a cohesive new chapter.” Price, a fan favorite producer, also worked with Madonna on Confessions on a Dance Floor, and now, for its “sequel,” slated for a 2026 release. And this is a reassuring piece of news, as one can’t help but get afraid when Madonna, who had once always stated that she hated looking back and only wanted to move forward, is in a “revisiting” mood like never before, having also released Veronica Electronica earlier this year. And, looking back on the record that came before Ray of Light, a track like “Right On Time” makes it abundantly clear that Madonna was still finding the “voice” for the next phase in her career. 

    Bedtime Stories was a through line to the recording of the Evita Soundtrack, the recording of which required Madonna to take some rigorous voice lessons in order to project in a certain way (hear: “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina”). Ergo, the noticeable and permanent shift that happened in the sound of her voice when Ray of Light came out. Marking the then longest period of time—four years—that she went without releasing a studio album (though she’s well surpassed that precedent as of 2025, with her last album, Madame X, being released in 2019). 

    That wait, too, was a matter of perfect and right timing on Madonna’s part, who tapped into the electronic music zeitgeist after already doing so with R&B in ‘94. Releasing an “untold chapter” of Bedtime Stories in honor of its thirtieth anniversary also feels like it could be “right on time” in terms of reminding listeners that songs by pop stars not only used to be musically layered and dense, but that they could actually go on for longer than three minutes. Though, fittingly, Madonna’s “Right On Time” is only two minutes and thirty-seven seconds. Perhaps a testament, once again, to how she has her finger on the pulse, knowing full well that nobody, even “older audiences,” has the attention span for a “long” song anymore. Though she doesn’t seem to quite grasp that no one has the wherewithal for a schmaltzy love song either. 

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    Genna Rivieccio

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