Drowned World (Substitute For Love)

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“Drowned World / Substitute for Love” is a pop song written by American singer Madonna, William Orbit, Rod McKuen, Anita Kerr and David Collins for Madonna's seventh album “Ray of Light” (1998). It was produced by Madonna and William Orbit, and received a positive reception from music critics. The song, under the revised title “Drowned World (Substitute for Love)”, was released as a single in the summer of 1998 and was a hit in the United Kingdom, reaching number ten selling 90,651 copies, in Italy and in Spain. The single was not released in the U.S. market. The original title for this song was “No Substitute for Love” which had slightly different lyrics to the completed version. A demo with the original lyrics and different musical set up has been leaked to the internet. Some differences in lyrics are: “Face the truth, No substitute for love”. The final song contains the lyrics “The face of you, My substitute for love”. In 2003, Madonna fans were asked to vote for their Top 20 Madonna singles of all-time by Q. “Drowned World / Substitute for Love” was allocated the #17 spot. Madonna named her “Drowned World Tour 2001” after the song and used it to open the tour as well. Also, the last lyrics from the song (“Now, I find I changed my mind. This is my religion”) were used at the end of the performance of “Ray of Light” in the same tour. “Drowned World / Substitute for Love” was also part of the setlist of her “Confessions Tour” in the summer of 2006. The song was cut from the NBC special, “The Confessions Tour: Live from London” on November 22, 2006 but appeared on the full-length DVD “The Confessions Tour”. The music video was directed by Walter Stern and filmed on June 26–27, 1998 at London's famous Savoy Hotel and Piccadilly Circus. The video features Madonna leaving her home and being chased by paparazzi. She is constantly running, even from the other celebrities in a hotel bar. In this scene all the celebrities' faces, except Madonna's, are distorted to make everyone look demonic. One of the most striking and memorable moments of the video occurs when Madonna passes a hotel maid, smiling at her. Madonna returns the smile. Then the camera goes off; the maid has just taken a picture of her. Madonna flees, running all the way home to her daughter's (not played by Madonna's real daughter, Lourdes) arms, singing that she's “changed her mind” about being a celebrity. The video created a lot of controversy in 1998 due to the scenes that feature Madonna being chased by paparazzi on motor-bikes, a scenario similar to Diana, Princess of Wales's death in 1997. The video premiered in Europe on July 25, 1998 and remained unavailable in North America until the release of Madonna's DVD compilation “The Video Collection 93:99”.

via Last.fm