Like a Virgin

The songwriting team of Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg wrote "Like A Virgin." Other songs they have written include "Eternal Flame" by the Bangles, "So Emotional" by Whitney Houston, "True Colors" by Cyndi Lauper, and "Alone" by Heart. All were #1 hits in the US featuring female vocalists. Steinberg considers "Virgin" their most famous song.

In a Songfacts interview with Billy Steinberg, he told the story of this song: "My father was a farmer. He was a grape grower in the Coachella Valley and our vineyards were in a little town called Thermal, California. I had a rock band called Billy Thermal and we were signed to Planet Records, Richard Perry's label. That band had just split up, so I was working out in the vineyards with my dad. I remember writing the lyrics to 'Like a Virgin' while driving in a red pickup truck that I owned around our dusty desert vineyards. I had been involved in a very emotionally difficult relationship that had finally ended and I had met somebody new. I remember writing that lyric about feeling shiny and new - I made it through the wilderness, somehow I made it through - I made it through this very difficult time. I took that lyric to Tom, he knew what I had gone through. He read those first lyrics and he sat down at the piano and tried to write a sensitive ballad to them. He'd come up with a few interesting things, but every time we got to the chorus lyric where it said, 'Like a virgin,' it just hit a brick wall - how can you write a tender ballad called 'Like a Virgin'? It just sounded ridiculous. Whereas it was him prodding me with 'True Colors' to finish the lyric, with 'Like a Virgin' I was the one prodding him, saying, 'No, no, no, let's not put this one aside because this is a very special lyric.' I didn't want to let it fall by the wayside. At that time Tom and I were writing rock songs. Tom had this voice that was not unlike Lou Gramm (from Foreigner). Tom had that kind of voice - very high, very powerful range. Out of nothing more than utter frustration, Tom started to play the bass line to 'Like a Virgin' and sing the lyric falsetto to this bass line he was playing. I said, 'That's it!' He stopped and went, 'What?' and I said, 'That's it, that's the song.' He couldn't imagine because he had this style of singing that was usually based on that male rock thing. I think he was trying to imagine doing a falsetto, almost Motown inspired vocal and I said, 'Yeah, that's it.' He went along with it and agreed that that's how the song was working. We did a demo where Tom sang the song falsetto and I added a few background vocal parts. Tom didn't like me to sing because he never liked my singing. He sort of indulged me and I added a few little parts that ended up being used on the Madonna record."

Some Christian listeners felt Madonna was mocking their faith with this song. "Madonna" (Italian for "My Lady") is another name for the Virgin Mary, so when a singer calling herself Madonna recorded a song called "Like A Virgin," it raised some eyebrows. Madonna didn't write the song (which has nothing to do with the Virgin Mary), and her stage moniker is simply part of her birth name (Madonna Louise Ciccone), but she often wore a cross and questioned her Catholic upbringing, later converting to Kabbalah. She never shied away from the controversy, and later courted it by dancing in front of burning crosses in the video for "Like A Prayer" and by naming her 1990 greatest hits album The Immaculate Collection.