I absolutely love this song!

It's actually one of best songs Prince ever wrote or co- wrote and I love the performance.

I was a fairly new diehard Prince fan (Lovesexy convert) when this came out and I loved it immediately. In retrospect, I like that they didn't go the obvious route by doing a radio-friendly "hit." Instead, they kind of made an oddball track together, and I respect that. It was certainly in Prince's wheelhouse to do something left-of-center, but not in Madonna's. I'm sure the WB execs were a bit disappointed.

Its a cool song. I like how he got Madonna to do the rock star wailing voice. She doesn't really do that often, maybe Gambler and I'm In Love With Love.

Love Song is a great track, I love it. Love all of Prince's contributed parts to the album.

speaking of that, the Cherish b-side "Supernatural" always sounded a bit like a prince song,
or at least prince inspired to me. like one of those mavis tracks that were written by him or
co-written but later recorded with a different band.

but so, Love Song, it's an odd track but I love it, especially that it's not an obvious choice
for a duet between them at that time.

I go back and forth with this song. Sometimes I appreciate the sheer quirkiness of it. Other times, it feels cringe and forced. Like, "look, we're finally singing together!"

I'm also never sure if it really fits on Like A Prayer. But I do see the similarities to Lovesexy and "Pink Cashmere." Mostly in its sparse production, moody whooshing sounds, and mid-tempo. It's right in line with something like "Father Figure" from GM in some of those respects.

LAP's production is so spot on, lush, almost meticulous. "Love Song" is ...well, there it is. Third song in, a ballad.

In some regards, it's perfectly Madonna and perfectly Prince (moreso him), but together it's something else entirely. M hadn't done that many weird songs to that point per se. Prince certainly had dipped his toe in nuance plenty.

It reminds me most of "Positivity," (another nuance song). You can almost hear them saying, "you fly right by Spooky and all that crawls for..." in parts of the song. I'm frankly surprised someone's not meshed those two together in some fashion.

It certainly feels more like a Prince song. It also feels cheeky or shady when he says, "What???" in the song, almost like, "what the hell is she doing now?"

johnpiex said:

I was a fairly new diehard Prince fan (Lovesexy convert) when this came out and I loved it immediately. In retrospect, I like that they didn't go the obvious route by doing a radio-friendly "hit." Instead, they kind of made an oddball track together, and I respect that. It was certainly in Prince's wheelhouse to do something left-of-center, but not in Madonna's. I'm sure the WB execs were a bit disappointed.

I think that was about the time that I got on board the Purple Train. I also agree that WB must have been perplexed that their two biggest artists delivered such a quirky song. Maybe they did that intentionally.

Phase3 said:

So I have been getting into madonnas 90's music lately and while searching for the videos to the songs on YouTube I came across their "Love song" duet Which I had already knew about but completely forget it existed I think I remember last hearing it maybe 10 years ago.. And I thought it was absolutely terrible and wasn't as good as it should have been for a song for 2 talented artists as prince and madonna Now I admit it is pretty catchy and it sounds great to my ears Maybe my taste is improving What do you all think of this song? Do you think they could have made a better collaboration? This reminds me,maybe one day we will get that version of "like a prayer" with Prince on lead vocals. I know it exists

I think you should trust your first impressions

interesting so many people seem to like it. I'll have to try again.

Ymaginatif said:

Phase3 said:

So I have been getting into madonnas 90's music lately and while searching for the videos to the songs on YouTube I came across their "Love song" duet Which I had already knew about but completely forget it existed I think I remember last hearing it maybe 10 years ago.. And I thought it was absolutely terrible and wasn't as good as it should have been for a song for 2 talented artists as prince and madonna Now I admit it is pretty catchy and it sounds great to my ears Maybe my taste is improving What do you all think of this song? Do you think they could have made a better collaboration? This reminds me,maybe one day we will get that version of "like a prayer" with Prince on lead vocals. I know it exists

I think you should trust your first impressions

interesting so many people seem to like it. I'll have to try again.

You seem to be doubting your first impression

I have gone back to it a few times. Each time, I have the same conclusion. They do not work well together. I think they did a few demoes and this is what came out of the sessions.

Madonna even says 'This is not a love song that I want to sing'.

Love it !

I really appreciated that it wasn't made to be a big hit single. So often, the collaborations between two major artists seems so calculated to make a big single, and the results are usually uninspired. So, I was actually surprised and imagined that perhaps Prince was the one who led it to be a quirky song given that it was a forte of his. Madonna has said that they wrote other songs but that this is the only one she ultimately liked. She said she went through some type of songwriting block while up there in frigid Minneapolis. I liked it as well in that I prefer albums that aren't just a collection of possible hit singsles, and this gave Like A Prayer a break from the commercial songs (though they were good as well).

I love that it exists, but when I had Like A Prayer on heavy rotation back in the day, it was actually the track I'd skip (and hate myself for skipping cos, obviously, it's P&Madge...) It's always struck me as a bit of a dirge - especially surrounded by the other tracks on the album. It's grown on me since then, but maybe I'd haved liked it more if I'd first heard it on a Prince album.

[Edited 6/11/22 8:51am]

[Edited 6/11/22 8:51am]

I saw a British programme on TV a few years ago where music critics were discussing Prince's career, and they thought Love Song - a duet between two of the biggest pop stars at the time, was disappointing. Maybe they thought it should have been a big deal and a huge hit single? Prince and Madonna went in another direction. I've always liked the song. It's nice.

[Edited 6/11/22 14:02pm]

In reality, it was a disappointment. It does stick out like a sore thumb on LAP, it barely/sorta/kind fits on Lovesexy, which was his aesthetic at the time.

They'd have done better to duet on something like "Til Death Do us Part" or "Keep It Together."

I like it. It's not one of his greatest hits, but it's better than average.

It's a good song.I like the way their voices sound together.As others have said,they could have played it safe and came up with a big,radio-friendly superstar duet....but instead,they chose an odd,subdued litte track.

nextedition said:

I like it as a prince fan, but it is really one of the weaker songs of the album. It's just way too much prince. It doesn't fit on the lap album at all. Maybe that's the thing with doing a song with prince, it's gonna be prince without any influence.

Wasn't it Nelson George who said when you go into work with Prince, you know you're getting a "Prince production." Every Prince song sounds like a Prince song. It was his strength and weakness. You knew his music by its style and production, but you also lost the artist in it. It's only because The Bangles or Kenny Rogers re-recorded their respective songs that they sound like their songs. Had Prince produced them, it'd be Prince featuring The Bangles, or Kenny Rogers.

I dont' know who came up with the first ideas for "Love Song," but I kinda wish Patrick Leonard or Stephen Bray had gotten in there after the fact and embellished it a bit or whatever.

I wonder what Prince presented to Madonna. She said, "I went to MInneapolis to write some stuff with him, but the only thing I really dug was 'Love Song.'" It seems to indicate that either they never wrote anything else she liked, or he was just pulling out songs (during his trippy Lovesexy era) and she wasn't feeling that shit at all.

Princevault mentions the initial tracking took place in March 1988. Maybe that's when she was there. They worked remotely after that because she hated Minneapolis. Per PV, Madonna and her musicians worked on the track later in 1988, and Prince added additional overdubs in mid-November 1988 at Paisley Park. I think about that time because I saw the Lovesexy Tour in November 1988 in Los Angeles. He was doing those long ass monologues about God, etc at the end of the first act. All that heady, overblown quasi-spirituality and aural aesthetic certainly worked its way into "Love Song."

I always wondered if Madonna really liked the song, or she just sorta settled for what he did with it in the end as not to diss him, and to have Prince on her record (a feat that Michael Jackson couldn't even achieve, having tried at least twice).

https://youtu.be/ADn81RyfcUQ

TrivialPursuit said:

I dont' know who came up with the first ideas for "Love Song," but I kinda wish Patrick Leonard or Stephen Bray had gotten in there after the fact and embellished it a bit or whatever.

I read an interview where Bray said he actually wanted to embelish it to make it fit the album better but at the time shied away from messing with a Prince production (someone he really admired)

fernandomachado said:

TrivialPursuit said:

I don't know who came up with the first ideas for "Love Song," but I kinda wish Patrick Leonard or Stephen Bray had gotten in there after the fact and embellished it a bit or whatever.

I read an interview where Bray said he actually wanted to embellish it to make it fit the album better but at the time shied away from messing with a Prince production (someone he really admired)

Man, that would've been nice, I bet. Bray and Leonard certainly had a sound, and worked well with M; clearly hit making teams. It feels like a demo compared to the production on the rest of the album.

Sometimes I've wondered if Prince didn't try to fuck it up for Madonna. He's always had this snide attitude toward her (ie: the VH1 special and his sneer). And I remember her (or Bray or Leonard) talked about how he did some guitar work and he was just all over the place, playing crazy. Some of that is likely on "Act of Contrition." I remember thinking at the time it could've been some of that space where he was on Ecstasy or whatever, doin' weird shit in general. He was just bonked out of his mind, not thinking that clearly and being irratic. But also, possibly just giving her something he didn't think she would like or really use. Yet, she did. And he played on "Keep It Together," which sounds just fine.

‘We argued a lot’: In...e Guardian