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19 years later... "American LIE" discovery!


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Well... it's the first time I hear this after 19 years and it's one of my favorite albums and singles of hers (or everyone!)! Let's see what you all think.

LmpwZWc.jpeg

On the chorus of "American Life", the song, Madonna doesn't actually sing "American Life" but "American Lie":

Whaaat!

It's the same on the live performances...

This makes the song and the message even more connected to 2019's "God Control", where she plays more explicitly with the words "god" and "gun" - didn't realize she did it already in 2003 with "lie" and "life" on "American Life"!

Truth uncovered!

die another day madonna GIF

I don't remember reading anything about this back in 2003 or after...

Did you all know about this?

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  • Prayer changed the title to 19 years later... "American LIE" discovery!
2 hours ago, Prayer said:

Well... it's the first time I hear this after 19 years and it's one of my favorite albums and singles of hers (or everyone!)! Let's see what you all think.

LmpwZWc.jpeg

On the chorus of "American Life", the song, Madonna doesn't actually sing "American Life" but "American Lie":

Whaaat!

It's the same on the live performances...

This makes the song and the message even more connected to 2019's "God Control", where she plays more explicitly with the words "god" and "gun" - didn't realize she did it already in 2003 with "lie" and "life" on "American Life"!

Truth uncovered!

die another day madonna GIF

I don't remember reading anything about this back in 2003 or after...

Did you all know about this?

 

Hmmmmm... While at first I thought u had something... However it seems like it could be just a consequence of Mirwais' chopping of vocals. He also chops the ending of Dream to be just Dreeeeeeee. 

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4 hours ago, Prayer said:

Well... it's the first time I hear this after 19 years and it's one of my favorite albums and singles of hers (or everyone!)! Let's see what you all think.

LmpwZWc.jpeg

On the chorus of "American Life", the song, Madonna doesn't actually sing "American Life" but "American Lie":

Whaaat!

It's the same on the live performances...

This makes the song and the message even more connected to 2019's "God Control", where she plays more explicitly with the words "god" and "gun" - didn't realize she did it already in 2003 with "lie" and "life" on "American Life"!

Truth uncovered!

die another day madonna GIF

I don't remember reading anything about this back in 2003 or after...

Did you all know about this?

It's been here foreverrrrrrrr ! I keep on talking about this since day One and no one ever seems to care... Of course this song is far more interesting than what people think of it... 

You can always hear it on the background vocals.

"American lie, I live the American  dream"

:Madonna041:

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A Masterpiece! I love it, a special time in my life also. I remember it as if it was yesterday. Maybe her last masterpiece album as a whole? I loved her brunette and what she did with the promo and the live performances, sounding very good. Cool tour too. Still I think the album could have given more singles and videoclips, had not she aborted the concept because of being scare of the controversy.

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45 minutes ago, Drownedboy said:

A Masterpiece! I love it, a special time in my life also. I remember it as if it was yesterday. Maybe her last masterpiece album as a whole? I loved her brunette and what she did with the promo and the live performances, sounding very good. Cool tour too. Still I think the album could have given more singles and videoclips, had not she aborted the concept because of being scare of the controversy.

Nothing Fails deserved a full release and proper video.

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Could it be possible that she was trying to play with the words but sometime ago I notice that some artists change the "S" for a "Z" and something similar with other letters like the "F". I asked a friend that works in a studio and he told me that sometimes they do it because the sound of some letters with the microphone is too strong and it's an easy way to make it sound better.

Prayer, you're for Spain so you can listen to "Un hombre de verdad" by Fangoria (not the version of Dinarama) and you can hear clearly that she sings "Cin dudar, ire a buzcar, quiero encontrar, ci..."

 

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Hmmmm. I'm not sure I buy that. If you turn the volume up, you can definitely hear the F in life in the fade-out vocals from 07:25 in that video. I'd say the LIE was just a production chop rather than her actually singing the word "lie" that she was probably aware of when it was done in the studio and thought it was an interesting double-entendre to add tho the track.

Thanks for posting the video though, I had never heard all those individual stems before...

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30 minutes ago, Bjonkers said:

Hmmmm. I'm not sure I buy that. If you turn the volume up, you can definitely hear the F in life in the fade-out vocals from 07:25 in that video. I'd say the LIE was just a production chop rather than her actually singing the word "lie" that she was probably aware of when it was done in the studio and thought it was an interesting double-entendre to add tho the track.

Thanks for posting the video though, I had never heard all those individual stems before...

Yep, I guess "lie" is maybe a result of the vocal chop in the studio and she and Mirwais decided to leave it that way cause it added to the song. However, it's hard to cut the "f" on "life" to make it sound like "lie" so... the "e" is different on those two singing words. And the "e" on the vocal is clearly a "lie" ending, it doesn't seem to be taken from the "e" on "life". No doubt Mirwais can do that trick, though, of course.

On the studio backing vocals she signs "life", that is correct.

Another possibility is that she wrote the song as "American Lie" first but later changed to "American Life" during the process. "American Lie" is a harsh concept per se and hard to market, she (and/or Warner) could have never gone with that for a 1st single.

I was checking live performances yesterday and in most of them she sings "life" on the chorus, not "lie" (you can see the "f" in her mouth) but in some others (not the majority) it looks like she's singing "lie"...

I just love a new possible Madonna discovery, that's all. :angel:

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