Celebrating Madonna Hits – Papa Don’t Preach

Papa Don’t Preach was originally written by Brian Elliot and was destined to an upcoming artist called Christina Dent. Michael Ostin from Warner Bros thought Madonna would love the song for the album she was working on at the time and played the demo to her.
Madonna loved it and Brian Elliot after some discussions consented to give the song to her. Madonna re-worked some of the song’s lyrics to change them to her taste. In the end everyone was very happy with the result, except Christina Dent of course.

Papa don’t preach gave Madonna her fourth Us number one song on her birthday, August 16, 1986.

Madonna declared to the New York Times:
“Immediately they are going to say that I am advising every young girl to go out and get pregnant. When I first heard the song, I thought it was silly. But then I thought, wait a minute, this song is really about a girl who is making a decision in her life. She has a very close relationship with her father and wants to maintain that closeness. To me it is a celebration of life.”

Madonna‘s father in the video directed by James Foley is played by actor Danny Aiello who also starred with Cher in the film Moonstruck. Aiello recorded few year later a song from the point of view of the father called Papa Only Wants The Best.

The video also featured actor Alex McArthur as the boyfriend and Madonna’s friends Erika Bell and Debi Mazar
as her “school girlfriends”.