Madonna Like a Prayer demos. All details from Patrick Leonard
Patrick Leonard has posted a pic of the cassette with the original Like a Prayer demos. And of course we are excited!
The cassette contains 10 tracks. Three are only instrumentals. 6 songs made the final tracklist of Like a Prayer. Two titles were different: “Little Girl” is “Promise to Try”, while “Out of Time” became “Till Death Do Us Part”.
“‘Little Girl’ is ‘Promise to Try’. Piano vocal like the record but not that version.” – Patrick Leonard.
The real juicy news is the definitive confirmation of the song “Angels with Dirty Faces”, which here is labelled just as “Angels”. Previously also Bruce Gaitch confirmed this track.
“‘Angels’ is a song called ‘Angels with Dirty Faces’ that Madonna and I wrote for the [Like a Prayer] album and ultimately must have decided that wasn’t good enough,” Patrick Leonard explains. “It’s a finished song with her vocal that no one has ever heard and it’s pretty damn good.”
The title “Angels with Dirty Faces” was previously known amoung the biggest fans. It is also a title of a James Cagney movie from 1938. Also “White Heat” from True Blue took its name from a James Cagney movie. That probably made everything suppose that “Angels with Dirty Faces” was written for True Blue abum. But Patrick Leonard denied it, and said that it is a track written for Like a Prayer.
“‘Boss’s Nova’ is a Latin feel idea that never got there. No vocal. Just an idea,” reveals Leonard. “’20’s Jazz’, the same, as is ‘Mid Tempo’. Sparks that made no fire. It happens. Side two of the tape is blank so #11, #12 and Dance don’t exist.”
“They’re first day versions, so the day we wrote them,” says Leonard. “They have a lead vocal and some backgrounds. Not produced. Without live players and strings and choirs etc. We worked from these versions and they became the records.”
“Oh Father” is not on this cassette. “It was written before all of this”, Patrick Leonard reveals.
Also “Supernatural” is not on this tape. It is yet not clear when it was exactly written.
“Express Yourself”, “Keep it Together” and “Love Song” are not on this tape neither because Madonna wrote them with Steve Bray and Prince.
The cassette with the demos of Madonna’s Like a Prayer album has been sent to Patrick Leonard from Bruce Gaitch, who took part in the recordings of the album and previously co-wrote La Isla Bonita with Madonna. “Haven’t heard them since we did them,” said Leonard.
