Come Together In Every Nation
Considered as Madonna‘s biggest hit by many, it is indeed one of Madonna’s most popular and catchiest songs, and it is a huge classic within her career, but not exactly a favourite among fans, I’d say…
Holiday was Madonna’s third single released in the UK where it reached number 4 in 1984 and number 2 when re-entering the charts the following year. Sire Records decided it was about time to launch Madonna outside the US so they sent her to England for a few performances on TV shows like Top of the Pops. Also, it was Madonna’s first Top 20 in America, where it made it to number 16, eventually selling more than one million copies worldwide.
Madonna has performed this song in all of her tours except the last one, being usually one of the last songs on the set list. She took some time for a speech during the song for her tours Virgin Tour, Who’s that girl Tour and Girlie Show. In 1993 she performed the song wearing a military coat while dancing in front of a huge US flag (nothing special, but indeed very different from the Blond Ambition version of the song, which was more of a let’s-go-party version). For her Drowned World Tour she just came out on the stage and danced along with Nikki and Donna (very simple version). She last performed Holiday in 2004 for her Re-invention Tour, with the flag thing again, but this time using images of flags from different countries on the background, which really comes in handy for the line of the song “Come together in every nation“. When the song is performed in public, people go crazy. It is one of those songs Madonna knows is always going to work out with any kind of audience.
There are different covers for several releases of the song, the one with the “train station” is among the rarest ones. The most common is just a photo picked out of the photo session for the cover of her first album. The song was never officially remixed until it was included in both compilations “You Can Dance” and “Immaculate Collection“.
Hard to believe, there is no official video for Holiday. Apparently there was one video shot to promote the song, but it was reportedly so bad that it was never released… To make up for it, we have been given many different performances on TV shows, among which the famous Solid Gold performance was chosen as an “official” music video, where Madonna moves to the famous dance routine she created for the song.
Holiday is a non-Madonna penned song, since it was written by Curtis Hudson and Lisa Stevens and produced by Madonna’s then-boyfriend John “Jellybean” Benitez. Curtis Hudson also co- wrote “Spotlight“, which actually sounds very much like Holiday.
