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The Brilliance of 'Rescue Me'


Arckangel
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I had been wanting to make this thread for awhile. So here we go... 
Rescue Me. To me, this song is up there w/ Like A Prayer and Vogue. It was released as a single, got the remix treatment (great remixes), but it only got a montage video (WTG Tour clips) and no actual live performance.

Apparently, the Madame X performance would have been too long... Couldn't they shorten it? That interlude was better than nothing but not enough.
Why has Madonna paid this song dust? Doesn't she realize its brilliance?

Rescue Me could seriously have become a well-known hit, one of her top classics. It is among fans, but can you picture what an actual music video would have been? With a video, TV performances and more tour performances, it would have been a lot more impactful. Missed opportunity.
 

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“Rescue Me” remains one of my favourite Madonna songs, and I was so excited when she previewed a performance of it on her Instagram and I was so disappointed when she demoted it to being an interlude. Such a shame it didn’t get the full video and promotion treatment because I agree that it could have and should have become one of her most well-known.  

I always picture a David Fincher directed video for it keeping the circus theme she did in that Japanese commercial in 1991.

 

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Its definitely a song that is in my top5 favourite Madonna songs. Love it equally today asI did in 1991.... Great song, great remixes. Sadly, it has been criminally ignored... no real video, no promo, no live performances... and when Madonna finally did notice it again, it was sliced up and relegated to a shitty tour interlude. The song is a masterpiece in her back catalogue.

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1 hour ago, PWCCA said:

Its definitely a song that is in my top5 favourite Madonna songs. Love it equally today asI did in 1991.... Great song, great remixes. Sadly, it has been criminally ignored... no real video, no promo, no live performances... and when Madonna finally did notice it again, it was sliced up and relegated to a shitty tour interlude. The song is a masterpiece in her back catalogue.

Is it ?
It is that Other One re-written though.
But yes it's chuffing brilliant.

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12 minutes ago, drcosmonauta said:

we see she do this and in the end is a boring interlude. sad.

 

Honestly, we all have our different opinions about some of the choices she makes, but the fact is:

That was cruel.

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1 hour ago, Nobody Knows Me said:

Honestly, we all have our different opinions about some of the choices she makes, but the fact is:

That was cruel.

Totally agree - I wonder what song replaced rescue me or if it was ever going to be on the set list ? Whilst I wasn’t bothered she dropped impressive instant from sticky and sweet tour or I’m so stupid from RIT I think it was a bad idea to drop Rescue Me - there must be at least a full rehearsal audio but I’m sure it won’t surface ?

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1 hour ago, wtg1987 said:

Totally agree - I wonder what song replaced rescue me or if it was ever going to be on the set list ? Whilst I wasn’t bothered she dropped impressive instant from sticky and sweet tour or I’m so stupid from RIT I think it was a bad idea to drop Rescue Me - there must be at least a full rehearsal audio but I’m sure it won’t surface ?

I remember reading she dropped it in favour of La Isla Bonita. Honestly I’d prefer not to know because if that’s true...:Madonna051:

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12 hours ago, Enrico said:

The chorus was too vocally demanding for Madonna.

And too many lyrics to remember!!

Too vocally demanding? I don't think so. And performing it live, she would have been aided by backing tracks in the verses, the choruses (the chorus has parts overlapping) and background singers.

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6 hours ago, Nobody Knows Me said:

Honestly, we all have our different opinions about some of the choices she makes, but the fact is:

That was cruel.

The intent was there, but it just didn't work out.  I'm sure she wasn't sitting around finding a way to torture her fans. :lol:

And to be honest, the song is hardly a song people even remember by Madonna. Yes, that may be due to the fact she never released a video or performed it on tour, but it's a song that demands a huge vocal. Trying to sing that night after night, would be horrid.  Even if she changed it up to fit her range, etc., fans would be disappointed with. 

Singles are to promote a bigger work.  The Immaculate Collection already was doing quite well that spending money on a video at that would be wasteful.  I'd like to think that the money was saved for her to put in her next projects/album such as SEX and EROTICA.  Then again, she's allowed to profit from what she does without always pouring the money back into something.  It's not like she didn't give us a lot up to that point. 

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5 minutes ago, MarXus said:

The intent was there, but it just didn't work out.  I'm sure she wasn't sitting around finding a way to torture her fans. :lol:

Well I was joking, I think it’s fair to say she’s not out to torture us. 

6 minutes ago, MarXus said:

And to be honest, the song is hardly a song people even remember by Madonna.

That’s never really been an issue for her though. If she cared about what songs people did and didn’t know then she wouldn’t have filled most of the setlist with songs from Madame X. It is a beloved song among fans and I think the general public are more likely to remember Rescue Me, the final track on her most successful album ever, than other songs that did appear on the tour. It’s just a shame she teased it for so long and nothing really came of it. 

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19 minutes ago, Nobody Knows Me said:

Well I was joking, I think it’s fair to say she’s not out to torture us. 

That’s never really been an issue for her though. If she cared about what songs people did and didn’t know then she wouldn’t have filled most of the setlist with songs from Madame X. It is a beloved song among fans and I think the general public are more likely to remember Rescue Me, the final track on her most successful album ever, than other songs that did appear on the tour. It’s just a shame she teased it for so long and nothing really came of it. 

Well, how dare she fill most of the setlist of Madame x Tour with songs from her recent album of the same name.  LOL!  It's not uncommon for Madonna's tours to be filled with her latest album's songs.

And let's give her a break. It's not like she didn't try to include it.  There was an intention to perform it live, and she did eventually make an interlude of it.  So I would think she did care.  I think people forget when she and most other artists begin to put together a tour setlist, they go through much of their catalog to see what fits.  It's only because of social media we know so much what she rehearses now then in the past.

And I don't believe Rescue Me is a song known by the general public. Just because it's your favorite, doesn't make it more popular than it was.  The song simply did as well as it did because it was part of her first Greatest Hits (and her biggest selling album as you stated).  However, the song quickly ascended to the top ten and quickly fell out.  The same for Hanky Panky.  It was a top ten in some regions, but most people don't remember that song from her and it came right after one of her biggest selling and most popular singles, Vogue. 

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57 minutes ago, MarXus said:

Well, how dare she fill most of the setlist of Madame x Tour with songs from her recent album of the same name.  LOL!  It's not uncommon for Madonna's tours to be filled with her latest album's songs.

I’m not criticising her for it, there’s no ‘how dare she’ about it, but she has filled the setlist with more songs from the album than usual. Which is fine since I love the album, but the fact that you pointed out that Rescue Me is a song that no one remembers could be argued about so many songs she performs live. 

59 minutes ago, MarXus said:

And I don't believe Rescue Me is a song known by the general public. Just because it's your favorite, doesn't make it more popular than it was.  

I...never said that? I just mentioned that people may have more of a chance of remembering it due to it being included on a very popular album, being played in clubs and on radio etc.

1 hour ago, MarXus said:

I think people forget when she and most other artists begin to put together a tour setlist, they go through much of their catalog to see what fits.

True, but the song was rehearsed for a while, so she must have thought at some point it did fit. My point was that it’s just a shame she didn’t perform the song for the first time, given it’s such a fan favourite, and she always says she doesn’t enjoy performing her most well-known songs as much, so perhaps it could’ve been enjoyable for hard core fans and herself. 

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It's a great song. I was also disappointed by the interlude she let the dancers take care of. Although their performance was physically demanding, I can't say I didn't prefer a full song with her behind the mic instead. And that's what happens with Madonna: she always keeps you wanting mooooooooooooooooooooooooooore.

:smokey:

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21 hours ago, Arckangel said:

This song could seriously have become a well-known hit, one of her top classics. It is among fans, but can you picture what an actual music video would have been? With a video, TV performances and more tour performances, it would have been a lot more impactful. Missed opportunity.
 

This song was actually a hit in 1991 and a huge success without video or huge promotion. This song marked a record a this time. At this time, this will be the higher debut in the US charts of history at this time, debuting in number 15. The song peaked finally number 9 three weeks after her entry.

Edited by William Côté-Deblois (see edit history)
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39 minutes ago, Jet said:

Couldn’t agree more and I keep saying it on various posts-imagine it being the opening number to a show...with all the thunder and lightening and spoken intro...Shivers!

It would be such a moment. Part of me was (unrealistically) wishing she’d open the Madame X Tour with it :Madonna041:

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