“Like a Prayer”
by Bigod 20 (originally by Madonna)
from the album On the Run
1992
Buy the album on Amazon
To show how bad my memory is, I didn’t remember I posted a Madonna cover last week as well until I came to post this.
I’ve never enjoyed going to a dance club that just plays electronic music, but, though I haven’t done it in years, I used to love going to dance at clubs with industrial/goth/alternative nights. I like to dance but I want music that has words, that I can sing along to (even if it’s just in my head), that I know has an end and that I know well enough to dance to the timing of it. This is one of the songs I used to love hearing and dancing to. It’s such a great dance song and also such a great subversion of the original. The original was the only Madonna single I ever bought, and I listened to it a ton, so it made me love this version more.
I think I was in my first year of college when a friend took me to Ground Zero, a dance club in Boulder. I had never been before, and was with another friend who was very anti-dancing, so the first time I decided it was safer to stick with him on the sidelines. Either later that night or the second time we went, I decided (because I had paid to get in and realized it was stupid to pay and then sit at a table, combined with some female encouragement) to go for it, and loved it. This was a lot of the music that I loved (Depeche Mode, Nitzer Ebb, New Order, etc.) and with other people like me. I was probably one of the most under-dressed there (I’ll take an order of goth music, but hold the makeup and disposition) but it didn’t matter – I was out there dancing with the best of the them. I also got exposed to a lot of other music that I might not have otherwise (like Sisters of Mercy, The Cranes, Type O Negative – note to self – claiming a future post of “Black No. 1”).
We started going somewhat regularly whenever we would go to Boulder on the weekends, and then I continued going once I moved to Savannah (not a lot of options there at the time with this kind of music, but the gay clubs would usually have one industrial night a week). When I moved to New York I stopped just because I never knew where to go, and didn’t want to go someplace where the goths took themselves too seriously (also, by then and especially now, the music I would want to dance to would only happen on a “retro” night, which is depressing to admit). Plus, I switched to going to swing dance clubs instead.
Still, so many good memories related to songs like this, and now excuse me as I go down the YouTube rabbit hole of more Bigod 20 and related songs…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuYX16dVqPg
Have to include the original. Still so good also:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDnUIXF2ly8