Open Your Heart’s 20th anniversary
MadonnaTribe is always happy to celebrate important dates in Madonna history. This month, 20 years ago, the queen of pop released Open Your heart,
the fourth single from her True Blue album. Originally it was scheduled to be the third single off the album, to be released in September 1986, but then Warners decided to postpone it in favour of True Blue. The song reached #4 in the UK chart in December 1986 and was #1 in the US chart in February 1987.
The Open Your Heart video, directed by Jean Baptiste Mondino, premiered the famous cone bustier that became one of the trademarks of Madonna’s career and established her new bleached blond look.
In the UK the song was also released in the nice, limited edition double sided 12″ picture disc format shown on the right.
MadonnaTribe had the chance to speak to Gardner Cole, one of the co-authors of Open Your Heart.
Click HERE to read our full exclusive interview with him.
A few excerpt from the interview are reported below.
MadonnaTribe: As our readers know you’re the co-author of one of Madonna’s most popular and loved songs ever: Open Your Heart. When did you write that song and what was your original inspiration for it?
Gardner Cole: The song was started with my good friend Peter Rafelson, we worked on the song for over a year.
The original title was “Follow Your Heart” which is the name of a vegetarian restaurant in Los Angeles. I was in love with a waitress there named Lisa and she was the original inspiration for the lyrics.
MadonnaTribe: What did Madonna add to your original song and how was the original different from the final version we have on the True Blue album?
Gardner Cole: Madonna changed some of the verse and B section lyrics. Patrick Leonard changed the groove and made it more uptempo, I think his production is superb!
MadonnaTribe: The song went on being a number one single in many countries around the world, was that a surprise to you? How did you react to that?
Gardner Cole: I had a dream that I was driving in my car and Casey Kasem (the host of the weekly top 40 countdown show) was announcing the song as the number one song in America, on my birthday a year later I was driving to Malibu beach and Casey Kasem announced on the radio that “Open Your Heart was number 1! It was an incredibly joyous moment.