“Live To Tell” by Madonna

"Live to Tell" ushered in True Blue, Madonna's third album, going out as its lead single in March 1986, and it came to her secondhand. Patrick Leonard had written it as an instrumental for the film Fire with Fire, Paramount turned it down, and Madonna took it for At Close Range, the crime picture starring Sean Penn, her husband at the time. She wrote the words, put in melodies and a bridge, and produced it with Leonard.

What came out is a torch song dressed up as a pop ballad, heavy with deceit, distrust and wounds carried over from childhood, and her singing drew raves. It went to the top of the Billboard Hot 100, her third trip there, and was her first chart-topper on the Adult Contemporary list. The video leaves her alone in a darkened studio, cut against scenes from the film.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.