Taken From Songwriting Interview 1989:

Interviewer: You and Prince wrote "Love Song" together, which is a wonderful
song. Did you and he work together or did he give you a track?

Madonna: No, he didn't give me a track. We sat down and just started fooling
around. We had a lot of fun. What happened is that he played the drums and I
played the synthesizer and we came up with the original melody line; I just,
off the top of my head, started singing lyrics into the microphone. And then he
overdubbed some guitar stuff and made a loop of it and sent it to me, and then
I just started adding sections to it and singing parts to it. And then I sent
it back to him, and he'd sing a part to it and add another instrument and send
it back to me...it was like this sentence that turned into a paragraph that
turned into a little miniseries. So it was great. It was a completely different
way to work. And because of our schedules and everything, and he was in
Minnesota and he likes to work there and I like to work here. So we kind of
sent it back and forth. He's great. He's a real interesting...unique talent.

Interviewer: And it was an easy connection from the beginning for the two of
you?

Madonna: Yeah, it was. We started out being real admirers of each other's work.
And, you know, we're already successful so we didn't have to prove anything to
each other. We were on the same level. And I don't think he's had that same
opportunity with other people that he's worked with. Because generally he tends
to dominate everything.

Interviewer: "Act of Contrition," the closing track of Like a Prayer, has
backwards masking and other mysterious elements. Did he have anything to do
with that one as well? The credits only say, "Produced by the powers that be."

Madonna: Yeah, he did. He played guitar on it. He also played guitar on "Keep
it Together."

Interviewer: I noticed on "Act of Contrition" that you have the choir from
"Like a Prayer" reversed on that.

Madonna: Yeah, we turned the tape and played everything backwards.

Interviewer: Your idea?

Madonna: Yeah. And then, of course, the whole thing, the saying of the prayer
(on "Act of Contrition") and everything, that was totally conceived of in the
studio, in the control room. Pat put out a microphone, and I just started
fooling around; and that was free-form, too. Whatever was on my head. It's
totally unedited.

act of contrition...

keep it together..(guitar only)....


thats it...

oh, and on a remix of like a prayer..but not the actual album version..


am i right davideye?

There was a thread about it just the other week.

I can't find it, but found a similar one over at HQ:

http://www.housequake.com...adid=34337



So there you go - confirmation from Madonna's own mouth

Since when does Madonna "play synthesizer"?

IS the like here "playing drums and guitar" before her big break? (i.e. before she took lessons for the most recent tour).