I don’t know how I stumbled on this great cover of Madonna’s “Justify My Love” – I think it was on a YouTube auto-play. I was blown away by it but it took me a while to dive further into the works of Front Line Assembly (FLA). Now, I have yet to hear a song by them that I haven’t liked.
Before doing the tiny bit of research needed for this post, I imagined that this tribute album came about by Madonna commissioning a bunch of electronic bands to cover selections from her oeuvre with the secret intention of awarding someone with an offer to produce her greatest album ever, Ray of Light. I believed the winners of this low-key contest to have been the British duo, Orbital, despite KMFDM and FLA turning in terrific interpretations of “Material Girl” and “Justify My Love”, respectively.
Nine seconds of research disabused me of this ridiculous idea, as the tribute was released the year after Ray of Light and features covers of songs from it. Further research reveals my having confused Orbital with William Orbit.
So now that I’ve cleared that up, I can explore this cover’s deconstructive focus on one lyric in particular – one whose sinister nature I might never have picked out were it not for FLA’s interpretation.
The original song is titillating, sounding not as if it could be mere background music for porn, but a soft-core porn experience in and of itself. Produced by Lenny Kravitz and appropriating most of its lyrics from a poem Ingrid Chavez wrote and performed for him (she later had to sue Kravitz for a song writing credit), the track is one of the most erotic in Madonna’s catalog.
Listing off romantic fantasies in a breathy voice that evokes two bodies already engaged in a slow grind, the lines present what I imagine to be a private mating display; intimate, intended only for a lover with whom the speaker has established enough trust to share fantasies with in the first place.
The track then is a sexual exhibition on the part of the authors, making the audience a third participant in the experience as voyeur. Of course, a listener could also experience the song as the intended audience – as the “you” Madonna wants to kiss in Paris; the one kissing her already. “Love me, that’s right, love me.”
“I’m not afraid of who you are / we can fly
Poor is the man / whose pleasures depend
on the permission / of another”
<record skip>
Wait, what was that?
Anyone can see the problem here, I hope, plucked from the imaginary container of vaguely implied consent where this intimate instance exists. I mean, consensual non-consent role play is a thing, so in that context, this seems like just another fantasy fired off in the heat of the moment. Totally normal and okay, right?
Front Line Assembly and vocalist Kristy Thirsk (of Delirium) offer a counter argument.
Here, the lyrics are delivered in a tone that starkly contrasts against the original. Where Madonna sounded deeply focused and engaged, Kristy sounds out of it; detached, drugged, even robotic – like a sex doll whose programmers barely bothered to put any effort into having her feign engagement. (She is a literal sex object in this interpretation and has no choice, so why bother?)
The pièce de résistance, however, is the above quoted lyric, which omits the invitational “I’m not afraid of who you are / we can fly” and cuts right to the problem. The beat backs off and clears a space, shining a harsh spotlight on the original authors’ alarming approach to consent: “Poor is the man / whose pleasures depend / on the permission / of another…
“On the permission…
“Permission.”
They let us think about that a hot second. It hits just as the beat drops, returning the song to its previous energy, even bringing back Kristy’s lively soprano. Yet the livid awareness of the preceding line reverberates. We are being challenged to enjoy the rest of this song – and even the original – as we once did. Can we?
The beat-drop sounds kind of triumphant to me, and I imagine that’s because FLA knows we can no longer do so in good conscience. They have successfully highlighted the original authors’ careless disregard for consent by focusing on this contentious lyric. The listener’s awareness now rings like a bell.
Attempting to un-ring that bell wasn’t my aim in writing this, though I’ve accidentally made a half-assed argument for a harmless interpretation of the original. Even so, I love that Front Line Assembly clocked this lyric before consent became a hot topic in the public discourse, and I love the flair with which they did it.
So what else is on y’all’s naughty Valentine’s Day playlist?
BLOG OF RHIANNIMATOR 