Inside the making of Madonna’s stormy ‘divorce album’
March 1989, I open a large record envelope and a waft of patchouli oil hits my nostrils. Inside is the new Madonna album. The cover art features hippy beads and her crotch in jeans. This image is a nod to her mother, a devout Catholic of French-Canadian stock, who covered up their Sacred Heart statue when a woman came round the house wearing zip-up jeans. “In Catholicism you are born a sinner … the sin is within you the whole time,” Madonna said at the time. Dedicated to the memory of her mother, Like a Prayer explores the impact of her Catholic girlhood, disappointment in love and transformation of self. Compared to the sugar-sweet True Blue, this is a startling reinvention.
During recording, from September 1988 to January 1989 at Johnny Yuma studios in LA, Madonna was at the worst point in her marriage to Sean Penn. She, the film she starred in with Penn, and Who’s That Girl, a comedy heist movie with a patchy soundtrack. Madonna found a focus for her divorce madness in the new album.
