"Express Yourself" is Lust Icon Madonna's second single from the Like A Prayer album. The queen of reinvention flips the script on us. The opening lines of the song take us in the complete opposite direction of "Material Girl" in which she sings, "you don't need diamond rings or eighteen karat gold".
In fact, the main inspiration behind "Express Yourself" is female empowerment, urging women never to "go for second-best" and to put their love "to the test". We all dig the guy with satin sheets, but what happens when you're not in his bed?
Madonna tells Rolling Stone, "the ultimate thing behind the song is that if you don't express yourself, if you don't say what you want, then you're not going to get it. And in effect you are chained down by your inability to say what you feel or go after what you want. No matter how in control you think are about sexuality in a relationship there is always the power struggle...always a certain amount of compromise. Of being beholden, if you love them. You do it because you choose to. No one put the chain around this neck but me. I wrote 'Express Yourself' to tell women around the world that pick and choose the best for yourself, before that chain around your neck, kills you instead. Its my take on how man can express what they want, the same prerogative should be there for a woman too."
The video is set in a dark and busy metropolis where muscular men work in the steam and rain. Madonna appears as a lonely but strong figure of beauty and grace in double-breasted suits, silk nightgowns, nude corsets, and nothing at all. One analysis explains that Madonna is shown in a seductive manner and chained to her bed not to portray women in an empowering position, but rather to emphasize the fact that women can be in control because of their sexual prowess.
Lust with your eyes below and put your style to the test at LuStylist.
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