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The
last notes of "Papa Don't Preach" are over, lights
are dimming and a moved Madonna heads to the right side of the
stage, ready to be elevated over a crowd of adoring fans. "Crazy
For You" is the most intimate moment of the whole
Re-Invention show, the song Madonna dedicates to all of her
fans. This is the story of this enchanted song.
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"I want to dedicate this next song to all my fans who
stuck by me through thick and thin for the last twenty years"
This is what Madonna used to say during her re-Invention tour
concerts before singing Crazy For You, the
song originally released in 1985 as the main theme of the
Warner Bros film Vision Quest.
The movie directed by Harold Becker,
starring Mattew Modine and Linda
Fiorentino, is about a boy that fights for his dreams,
and also marks the cinematic debut of Madonna
herself, playing a cameo as a nightclub singer.
Even if it seems incredible this year marks the 20th anniversary
of this song written in 1984 by Jon Lind in
collaboration with lyricist John Bettis.
Lind was approached to write the love song for the Warner
produced film "Vision Quest" directed
by Harold Becker having in mind that it was meant as a theme
song that could keep recurring throughout the movie.
Bettis and Lind wrote Crazy for You after
reading a copy of the Vision Quest script and lyricist Bettis
thought the best place to let audience hear the song the first
time was the scene where the boy and girl danced together
in a club.
If you pay attention to the words of the song you will notice
that it really tells in a very descriptive way what happens
in that scene.
In a recent interview Jon Lind explained
that the person the producers had in mind to sing it was a
young artist called Madonna.
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"At
the time, no one knew much about her.
She had just released her first record which "Borderline"'
came from.
So John and I weren't really writing for her or her voice; we
were writing a song that was inspired by the script and nourished
by the opportunity we had to work together. "Crazy
for You" is what we came up with."
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Madonna's then boyfriend producer John Jellybean Benitez
produced the studio version of Crazy For You for the movie
soundtrack (the version you hear in the movie is a live version)
which went to Number One in the Us charts
on May 11, 1985.
The song stayed at number one one week but it spent the previous
three weeks at number two.
Bettis and Lind were surprised it went number one replacing
the famous "We Are the World".
Bettis told Billboard: "Going to number one really surprised
me very much because we were out at the same time as "We
Are the World".
Jon and I said, 'If you gotta lose to something, it might
as well be that.'
Luckily enough, in the final week of the upward surge of the
record, we topped "We Are the World",
which lets you know how hot the song and how hot the artist
were."
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A few changes were made to the original track wrote by Lind
and Bettis. The main change cutting down a bridge in the middle
of the song.
Rob Mounsey completely rearranged the original
track adding a new background vocal. He was brought in by
Jellybean Benitez that was producing a ballad for the first
time.
He later recalled: "Prior to that I had only produced
dance/pop songs or dance songs.
It was the first time I ever produced a live session, as opposed
to having synthesizers and drum machines do everything. I
was tense because I had never done a record like this.
Everything I did was totally on instinct. I tried to make
the song stand on it's own, but at the same time work in the
two scenes in which it is used in the movie."
Crazy For You was a good chance for Madonna
to show she could really do other things besides dance music
and it brought her in the Adult Contemporary charts.
Jon Lind later recorded his own version of
the song sounding very similar to the film version and included
the Bridge.
Left out Bridge:
Just leave tomorrow
Until tomorrow
Let's concentrate on what we got
Here and now
I want it all and I want it with you here tonight
All I'm trying to say is that
I'm crazy for you.
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In the Re-Invention Tour "Crazy
For You" receives a brand new yet stripped
down arrangement that gives prominence to Madonna's voice. Some
new background vocals performed by Donna De Lory and Siedah
Garrett have also been introduced during the second half of
verse two.
Re-Invention is not the first tour in which Madonna
sings the song live. "Crazy For You" was included
on her Virgin Tour in 1985.
After the chart success of the original release in 1985 published
on Geffen Records that reached number 2 in the Uk single chart
and was number 1 in Japan and Australia, Crazy For You was later
re-released in 1991 as the second Uk single from Madonna's greatest
hits album The Immaculate Collection.
This time released on the Sire/Warner Label the song was remixed
in Q-sound and released on a nice picture Cd with stills of
the Justify My Love Video.
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The Jon Lind penned love song comes back on a Madonna album
on Something to Remember the 1995 collection
of her most beautiful ballads.
The original studio version by Jellybean is included on this
album that credits the cut as a new "remixed" version.
Crazy For You becomes again part of a soundtrack
this year with "30 years in 30 seconds"
where the song is used in two important scenes of the film
and in the finale, where additional instrumentation with violins
recalls the early Vision Quest version.
"I have a lot of respect for Madonna
particularly after "Crazy For You"
declared Lind in an interview.
"She has in fact set trends, broken rules, changed the
music, and done her own thing".
The Crazy For You author also revealed that Madonna wanted
some of the words changed but "it was so early in her
career, that we were able to stand up to her".
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...it's still brand new, we're crazy for you...
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