Into The Groove

July 15th 1985 Into The Groove was released across the UK and Europe.

Rolling Stone’s Madonna's 50 greatest songs July 2016 - Number 2 - ""Into the Groove" (Non-album single, 1985).

"Into the Groove" is the streetwise beatbox anthem Madonna kept trying to write when she was down and out in New York, the days when she squatted and ate out of garbage cans. As she explained in 1985, "It was the garbage can in the Music Building on Eighth Avenue, where I lived with Steve Bray, the guy I write songs with. He's Useful Male number 2 or number 3, depending on which article you read." Madonna and Bray – the ex-drummer in her punk band – knocked off "Into the Groove" as an eight-track demo. (Bray later said he came up with the "rib cage" and "skeleton" of the music, with Madonna writing lyrics and adding her own touches – in this case, the song's bridge.) Her movie Desperately Seeking Susan used it for the scene where Madonna hits Danceteria, but then it unexpectedly blew up on the radio. It still sounds like a low-budget demo – those breakbeats, the desperate edge in her voice when she drones, "Now I know you're mine" – but that raw power is what makes it her definitive you-can-dance track. "Into the Groove" has ruled the radio ever since.

Photo by Andy Schwartz