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She's Madonna
by Robbie Williams with Pet Shop Boys

Writers - Williams/Tennant/Lowe
First released - 2006
Original album - Rudebox (Williams)
Producer - Pet Shop Boys
Subsequent albums - In and Out of Consciousness: Greatest Hits 1990–2010 (Williams)
Other releases - single (UK #16, U.S. Dance #12)

Based on Robbie's original concept, Chris and Neil wrote and performed this song with Mr. Williams for his album Rudebox, released in late October 2006. (Even though it's Robbie's album, this track is credited to "Robbie Williams with Pet Shop Boys.") Robbie, as quoted on the Popjustice website, said that he played Kraftwerk's "Tour De France" for the Boys and then asked if they could "do something like this, but not much like this." In working together on this song, the Pet Shop Boys and Robbie both contributed to the music and lyrics alike. Neil is also quite noticeable within the background vocals. (Incidentally, "She's Madonna" was only one of two tracks on Rudebox on which Robbie collaborated with PSB, the other being "We're the Pet Shop Boys," which Neil and Chris had themselves previously covered.)

Even pre-release, the song was, like Madonna herself, surrounded by controversy. Robbie denied print rumors that the song stemmed from the fact that both he and Madge's husband Guy Ritchie at one time dated UK TV personality Tania Strecker—Ritchie before he met Madonna and Robbie afterward, in 2000. The gossip was that "She's Madonna" is based on Tania's telling Robbie about a conversation that Guy allegedly had with her when they broke up. Ritchie reportedly said, "Look, you know I really love you, but she's Madonna." But Robbie rejects this story completely, asserting that the song is simply a tribute to Mrs. Ritchie.

Adding to the controversy is the fact that actor/musician Ashley Hamilton (Rod Stewart's stepson—or perhaps "ex-stepson" considering that Rod is divorced from his mother) claimed to have collaborated with Robbie on the lyrics years before the Boys got involved with it. This latter allegation may lead to a court battle. Speaking of lyrics, the best line in the song is the wondrous pun "She has to be obscene to be believed." If Neil didn't have a hand in writing that, he probably wishes he had, potential lawsuits notwithstanding.

And then there's the video, which includes sequences with Robbie in drag for no discernable reason except perhaps sheer outrageousness. More than one commentator has observed that this did nothing to enhance its chances of commercial success when it was released as a joint Robbie/PSB single in March 2007. Indeed, it peaked at only #16 on the U.K. singles chart, though it fared much better in various other countries.

All controversy aside, Neil has noted that Madonna heard the song pre-release and likes it, although Robbie was initially a bit reluctant to release it since he "feared she'd think he was stalking her." A midtempo number with a rich synth and vocal arrangement and a frankly lovely melody, its lyrics are written cleverly enough that they can be read both literally and figuratively. Yes, in a literal sense, it's about a guy (pun intended) dumping his girl for Madge. On the other hand, the "Madonna" here can be viewed as a metaphor for any irresistibly charismatic woman that a man—and, considering that "she's Madonna," perhaps not only a heterosexual man—would find it extremely difficult to say "No" to. It's simply a matter of using a direct metaphor rather than a mere simile ("she's like Madonna").

Either way, literally or metaphorically, it's a superb track, one of the high points of the album on which it appears.

Annotations

• As if most of the globe would need to be told this, "Madonna" here is Madonna Louise Ciccone (born 1958), the American singer-songwriter who became one of the world's biggest music stars in the 1980s and has sustained a tremendous level of fame and success well into the 2000s. By more than one account she's the best-selling female recording artist of all time. Her first name means "My Lady" (Ma Donna) in Italian and has for centuries been specifically used to refer to the Virgin Mary.
  
  
• The lyrics make allusions to several of Madonna's hits:
  
  
  • "You're frozen now" – An allusion to her 1998 hit "Frozen."
  • "She's got her groove on" – An allusion to her 1985 hit "Into the Groove."
  • "I want to tell you a secret" – A whispered allusion to her 1994 hit "Secret" and/or her 2005 film documentary I'm Going to Tell You a Secret (which focused on her 2004 Re-Invention Tour).
    
    
• "She's got to be obscene to be believed" - This clever pun is clearly derived from the old English expression about how something unusual "must be seen to be believed"—itself based on the axiom "Seeing is believing," which dates back at least to the 1600s. But from another angle it also vaguely echoes the infamous one-liner "Women should be obscene and not heard" apparently uttered by both Groucho Marx and John Lennon, the latter apparently having borrowed it from the former. (Actually, that line was itself a pun on the expression "Children should be seen and not heard"—which, almost ironically, in its original Middle English form, circa 1400, applied specifically to young women: "A mayde schuld be seen, but not herd.") Lennon later expressed his regrets and apologized for the remark. Groucho, however, surely didn't.
  
  
• "We're having drinks with Kate and Stella" – References to British model Kate Moss and British fashion designer Stella McCartney (Paul McCartney's daughter), both of whom were in Madonna's social circle when she lived in the U.K. for most of the 2000s.
  
  
• "Gwyneth's here, she's brought her fella" – A reference to American actress and singer Gwyneth Paltrow. She also lived in the U.K. for a time in the 2000s and similarly became part of Madonna's social set. Although she's had several "fellas" along the way (including Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck), the man referred to in the song is most likely Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin, whom Paltrow began seeing in 2002 and married the following year.
  
  
• The foreign-language (Italian?) "commentator" voiceover during the fadeout mentions British filmwriter and director Guy Ritchie, to whom Madonna was married from 2000 to 2008. It also begins with the words "Bono estente," which is a bit of "nonsense Spanish" made famous in a popular sketch, "Chanel 9 Neus"—a parody of a Spanish news program—on the 1990s U.K. sketch comedy show The Fast Show.
  
  
• The Rudebox album also features a song that clearly refers by adaptation to a line from "West End Girls." The song "Viva Life on Mars" includes a stanza that first paraphrases part of George Michael's "I Want Your Sex" (Robbie sings, "Love is natural, love is good / Not everybody does it, but everybody should"). Then, a few lines later, it paraphrases the famous "From Lake Geneva to the Finland Station" line from "West End Girls." Only in Robbie's song, he instead sings, "From Lake Geneva to the Freeland Station," whatever that is. (There's a place in Tennessee called Freeland Station, but I'd be surprised if Williams is referring to that.) Most intriguing—although, to be honest, I'm not sure what to make of it. 

Mixes/Versions

Officially released

• Mixer: Tim Weidner
  • Album version (4:16)
  • Radio Edit (4:02)
  • Instrumental (4:19)
• Mixer: Kris Menace
  • Kris Menace Remix (5:36)
  • Kris Menace Vocal Re-interpretation (4:23)
  • Kris Menace Dub (5:38)
• Mixer: Chris Lake
  • Chris Lake Remix (7:57)
• Mixer: [unknown at this time]
  • Extended Mix (6:34)
    • On a rare single-track U.S. promo CD released by Chrysalis Records

List cross-references

• Artists with whom PSB have collaborated
• The key signatures of selected PSB songs
• Pop songs mentioned by title in the lyrics of PSB songs
• Real people mentioned by name or title in PSB lyrics
• Notorious rumors about the Pet Shop Boys
• How PSB singles differ (if at all) from the album versions
• Singles that weren't included on Smash and the likely reasons for their exclusion

 

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