While those of a certain level of stodginess in the increasingly diminished world of the literarily inclined might not deem Madonna of a “worthy” caliber (yet somehow Taylor Swift ekes by with her jank interpretations of Shakespearean characters), there’s no denying she’s always made her fair share of allusions to various titans of prose and poetry. Whether it’s literally citing scripture in “The Beast Within,” quoting Socrates in “Now I’m Following You, Pt. 2” (from I’m Breathless) or quoting Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” during the intro to “Sanctuary” (from Bedtime Stories), Madonna was doing some Lana Del Rey shit long before the latter came along to frequently incorporate Whitman, Nabokov and Ginsberg into the tapestry of her lyrics.
With Madonna’s latest album, Confessions II, she continues to do the same. Namely, on the second track, “Good For the Soul,” which opens with the Albert Camus quote, “Everything begins with consciousness.” With the unspoken final part of that being, “…and nothing is worth anything except through it.” This aphorism taken from, of all things, The Myth of Sisyphus. But, as one will soon learn, it’s a philosophical text that has plenty of relevance in Madonna’s own life.
In any case, so many people would rather live their lives without going through consciousness at all. Preferring to remain in what amounts to a vegetative state. And for good reason. Because once a person understands that life is meaningless, it can be quite depressing. To the point where Camus must point out, “At the end of the awakening comes, in time, the consequence: suicide or recovery.” For most, it’s something in between those two extremes, almost as if reverting to a different form of “consciousness” that’s merely “semi.” Or “autopilot-y,” as it were. A form of consciousness that still allows you to know that life is total shit (because it owes you nothing, not even meaning), but that you’ve got to make your own significance (regardless of there being none) if you want to get through it. “Nothing is worth anything except through it.”
Madonna is all too aware of that at this juncture, having decided to expand her definition of consciousness circa 1996, when Sandra Bernhard reportedly suggested going to the Kabbalah Centre to her. Then, lo and behold, Kabbalah became yet another “thing” Madonna “stole” from Bernhard (following doing the same with Ingrid Casares in the early 90s). For she quickly became the celebrity associated with it—complete with the infamous red string bracelet that everyone from Demi Moore to Lindsay Lohan to Britney Spears was sporting in the early 2000s. One supposes it was rightly so, considering she’s the only celeb of that “fad period” still continuing to incorporate it not only into her life, but into her art, with the tenets of the Jewish “mystical interpretation” of the Bible also showing up in many of the lyrics on Confessions II, including “Good For the Soul.” During which she sings, “Traveling through space and time/Interstellar helix unwind/Don’t forsake, or the love will die/Don’t forget your love, alright/On the spiral light, we fly/We will be one, we will be divine/All the spirits, they all intertwine/Don’t forget that.”
By choosing to commence the song with Camus’ line, however, Madonna can’t help but infuse her message with a somewhat knowing hint of cynicism. Nonetheless, in Confessions II: The Film, “consciousness” in its purest form—birth itself—is what’s presented with a “from below” POV shot of Madonna standing above the viewer as she flashes a bright white light from “where life begins” (to use one of her song titles from Erotica). A black night sky, peppered with stars, serving as the background to remind that the universe is indifferent to you, and your “consciousness.”
But, of course, that doesn’t stop “soul-searching” folk like Madonna from trying their best to prove that this life has meaning anyway, whether the universe cares or not. In this sense, she is like Sisyphus, continuously pushing the boulder up the mountain to prove that life has purpose and definition. Before this boulder, Madonna pushed one of a different variety. The one that said, “I’m going to be somebody” and “I’m never going back to Michigan again.” And yet, once she could have finished going up the hill every day after that boulder was “set” at the top of the mountain, she chose only to replace it with the determination to prove that “fate fits karma, so use it” (a lyric from 1998’s “Sky Fits Heaven”). And “that it’s good for the soul/To let down your hair and breathe in the air/Good for the soul/‘Cause up to the sky, a thousand birds fly/Good for the soul/The ones that you love will keep you above.”
Alas, even relying on “the ones that you love” can turn out to be fruitless (a.k.a. meaningless). Something Madonna has also learned repeatedly throughout a life filled with loss and grief. Not least of which stemmed from having so many gay men as close friends. For when the AIDS epidemic arrived in the 80s, it wiped out a huge amount of the people that she held near and dear, not least of which was Keith Haring, Christopher Flynn and Martin Burgoyne. It was the latter two men that she wrote 1992’s “Where Life Begins” about. A song that asks the existential question, “In this life, I loved you most of all/What for?/‘Cause now you’re gone/And I have to ask myself/What for?”
Or perhaps, as Camus would remind,
Likewise and during every day of an unillustrious life, time carries us. But a moment always comes when we have to carry it. We live on the future: ‘tomorrow,’ ‘later on,’ ‘when you have made your way,’ ‘you will understand when you are old enough.’ Such irrelevancies are wonderful, for, after all, it’ s a matter of dying. Yet a day comes when a man notices or says that he is thirty. Thus he asserts his youth. But simultaneously he situates himself in relation to time. He takes his place in it. He admits that he stands at a certain point on a curve that he acknowledges having to travel to its end. He belongs to time, and by the horror that seizes him, he recognizes his worst enemy. Tomorrow, he was longing for tomorrow, whereas everything in him ought to reject it. That revolt of the flesh is the absurd.”
In short, every human being must come to terms with their mortality. That, too, is “consciousness.” And while Madonna has most definitely come to terms with the mortality of others, whether it’s her contemporaries (like Prince, and Michael Jackson [who she still can’t seem to acknowledge was a pedo]), her family members (like her brothers Anthony and Christopher Ciccone), her lovers (Jean-Michel Basquiat, Tupac and John F. Kennedy Jr.) or her friends, it’s taken her a while to even vaguely broach the subject of her own. But on Confessions II, for the first time, and by looking back, it does seem to be something she’s genuinely reflecting on (e.g., “Everything fades away” from “L.E.S. Girl”). Also coming across in “cosmos”-oriented lyrics from her “Camus song,” such as, “Drifting through the stars for miles/Moon is in Virgo, the sun in the sky/Venus in Taurus, the planets aligned/Don’t forget your love, alright/Echoes of voices recalling the time/We will be one, we will be divine/Time is a river we cannot unwind/Don’t forget that.”
Even if Sisyphus essentially did. For what is “time” when every second, minute, hour and day of one’s life runs together? Hence, Camus comparing the average human (refusing to recognize their finite amount of time on this Earth and wield it more, that’s right, meaningfully) to him as he goads, “Rising, streetcar, four hours in the office or the factory, meal, streetcar, four hours of work, meal, sleep and Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday according to the same rhythm—this path is easily followed most of the time.” That is, until “weariness comes at the end of the acts of a mechanical life, but at the same time it inaugurates the impulse of consciousness.” That said, perhaps if Madonna had stayed in Michigan to live the conventional life her father wanted for her, “consciousness” would have taken so much longer for her to achieve.
As for another question she asks on the aforementioned “In this Life,” “Is there a lesson/I’m supposed to learn in this case?,” Camus’ answer would be simple: “If the world were clear, art would not exist” (though, to Madonna’s dismay, he also added, “If any art is devoid of lessons, it is certainly music”). An assertion that, for someone like Madonna, has proven to be very useful indeed (especially moneymaking-wise). Not to mention countless other artist-Sisyphuses carrying the boulder up the hill every day for far less recognition than a number one album. In other words, you don’t have to be famous to be an “absurd hero.” Revolt, revolt, revolt. Merely by continuing to do what you do. As Madonna has done for so many decades now, and in ever-mutating ways, including being a pop star “at her age.” Because “the struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a [wo]man’s heart.”