I made it through the wilderness
Somehow I made it through
Didn't know how lost I was
Until I found you

I was beat
Incomplete
I'd been had, I was sad and blue
But you made me feel
Yeah, you made me feel
Shiny and new

Hoo, like a virgin
Touched for the very first time
Like a virgin
When your heart beats
Next to mine

Gonna give you all my love, boy
My fear is fading fast
Been saving it all for you
'Cause only love can last

You're so fine
And you're mine
Make me strong, yeah you make me bold
For your love thawed out
Yeah, your love thawed out
What was scared and cold

Like a virgin, hey
Touched for the very first time
Like a virgin
With your heartbeat
Next to mine

Whoa
Whoa, ah
Whoa

You're so fine
And you're mine
I'll be yours
'Til the end of time
'Cause you made me feel
Yeah, you made me feel
I've nothing to hide

Like a virgin, hey
Touched for the very first time
Like a virgin
With your heartbeat
Next to mine

Like a virgin, ooh ooh
Like a virgin
Feels so good inside
When you hold me
And your heart beats
And you love me

Oh oh, ooh whoa
Oh oh oh oh
Whoa ho, ho, ho

Ooh baby
Yeah
Can't you hear my heart beat
For the very first time?


Lyrics submitted by spliphstar

Like a Virgin Lyrics as written by Tom Kelly Billy Steinberg

Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

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Like a Virgin song meanings
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39 Comments

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  • +2
    General Comment

    Quentin Tarantino actually believed that it was about a chick getting knobbed by a big cock. Madonna had to personally send him a signed copy of the record informing him that it actually was about a girl falling in love for the first time. still, the big cock theory is funny

    Whitton December 01, 2004   Link
  • +2
    General Comment

    Heh okay.... I think it 's about a girl who's finally found the one who'll make her feel complete.

    moulin.rouge2001on December 06, 2007   Link
  • +2
    General Comment

    It's about a girl who's experiencing something she's never felt before, like when she had sex for the first time. Something eventful in her life that's as big or bigger than when she lost her virginity. So in this case probably love, happiness, and a feeling of being complete. Stuff that she's never felt with anyone else before.

    Either that or she's an anal virgin and just lost that for the first time.

    ZQDon July 05, 2009   Link
  • +2
    Memory

    Madonna/Evita/Wallis' first #1 hit and memorable song. Like a Virgin can be interpreted three ways-how Madonna found her audience and the audience found her, how Sean and Guy came into her life and in another sad way how she lost them and walked out because her tears have fallen in her life and how the song became a staple of her live performances-Blonde Ambition, Confessions and Sticky/Sweet-smiling to her fans but also crying about her mother's death. For Madonna, Like a Virgin elicits an emotional reaction in her heart's song-the happy/sad balancing act. In Like a Virgin, Madonna dances on a ballet highwire tightrope. Lady Madonna goes story to story, building to building and street to street-she passes through crowdS on the stairs of transcendence-Fighting for Her Place on the Stations of the Cross Is Like a Virgin a spiritual song? Most definitely, yes! And we are all "Touched for the very first time!"-in the arms of uconsciousness-and transcendence!

    rabbitbunnyon May 09, 2012   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    i agree with terentino's explination in the movie reservior dogs.

    brn2sailawayon January 21, 2002   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    i think it means that she's been around with a lot of guys and it hasnt meant much, but then she gets with this guy and it's like she's all nervous (like shes doing it for the first time)

    porcelainon June 07, 2003   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    After the film reservoir dogs came out Madonna signed a copy of her album to Quentin Tarantino with words "It's not about big dicks, it's about love" written on it Although Tarantino's meaning does make a fuck lot more of sense

    Music-Guy!on April 07, 2007   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    It's not about big dicks, period. There are plenty of songs that can be looked at several ways, but this song doesn't have anything to do with dicks. It's about someone who's been around the block a few times, and is made (somehow) to feel new again. The explanation in Resevoir Dogs is humorous, and that's well and good, but it's not accurate.

    herbivoreon November 01, 2007   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    The wilderness was the natural way of getting off. Beat incomplete as well as sad and blue refers to not being satisfied and alone. She finds her new fine lover that makes her bold - u fill in the blank here, but I think I know what this refers to. Shiny and heartbeats next to mine still could be the same reference or what I've always assumed was a vibrator. Granted, I do remember her shows before I even thought about the lyrics meanings so the maturbating on stage I think gives it away. Anyways, remember all the cone boob spoofs? Lol

    Schlitzuouson April 30, 2010   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    Why do men always think they are judged by the size of their penis as a lover???? That is a small part of being a sensitive and talented lover. The main ingredients most women want are love, feeling comfortable and cherished, and safe!

    This song is about an abused young woman---child abuse, rape, or domestic violence, or all 3. She was beat.....en and tired of being "had" literally and being tricked (implied). She feels incomplete literally without her virginity intact (so much more than a piece of skin guys). Sex against a woman's expressed will, whether drugged and cooperative or violently violated, or seduced as a child and helpless to escape with conflicted loyalties, damages children of both sexes and makes them feel dirty, like damaged goods, afraid, vulnerable, at fault somehow and to blame, second hand......not like a shiny new penny!

    This woman is typical of the proportion of women who are abused in some form or another in a sexual context....over 80% in a woman's lifetime chance of this happening once....this statistic was from a medical expert in the year 1989-1990. At that time it was thought that 1/4-1/3 of all female children were sexually abused by someone and male children, 1/5 at the very most. Now with the priest abuse scandal, we know those stats are the very tip of the iceberg of the child abuse problem.

    Typically with child abuse or child exposure to sexual/violent domestic violence, the victim is at risk of being re-victimized repeatedly due to very low self esteem, inappropriate guilt, depression, PTSD, etc,etc. On the other hand, the victim is also at risk of becoming a victimizer. Sometimes they are both in their lifetimes. Subconsciously, the choice is made to become like the aggressor, not the victim because being in control is better than being violated against your will. The trauma is being reenacted, but "fixed" with the victim in the perceived strong, in control, and winning role of the abuse to help the victim feel powerful instead of powerless. It is overcompensation of the horror of the victim role ie. they need to reenact the trauma or can't help flashbacks of PTSD to find some meaning in it to cope, but they literally put themselves in the abusers shoes....a very extreme identification which in milder form is seen as empathy...and punish the weak, powerless, violated, inappropriately guilt-ridden symbol of themselves over and over again.

    I think a lot of pedophiles, domestic abusers, etc, etc have been lied to, seduced against their intentions under the influence of false promises, beliefs, or compromising circumstances like drugs, alcohol, lack of adult maturity and ability to fend for themselves with inappropriate trust and even abuduction like Hornsby, Jessica, and amber went through, to name a few.

    I think because of sexual differences and cultural expectations, men tend to prefer the abuser role and women the victim, but they can do either or both after previous abusive experiences. Some men and women solve the need to reenact and understand, process, and integrate what happened to them in the form of homosexuality, among which the same horrors are repeated as well. Some may think they can avoid the abuse by being with a different sex. Some identify with the same sex abuser. Some are really messed up and pick on dead corpses and helpless animals, both of which cannot adequately defend themselves, as well as the pedophile solution of reenacting their past helplessness on children.

    Back to our lyrics: This scarred woman falls in love with a gentle, caring, considerate man who she feels safe with, is not ever abused in the old way again, or at least not to the extent she was in the past....something in the scenario changed. She reenacts the trauma of being lied to, seduced with alcohol or drugs or in childhood against her intentions and expressed will or understanding or maturity level, and worst-case-scenerio with violence, criticism ,blame, and other forms of verbal abuse and controlling behavior and degradation, theats, and guilt trips from the abuser in a vicious cycle of abusive relationships until suddenly, she stumbles upon a man who is imperfect, may seduce, get her tipsy, misunderstand her intentions and desires and boundaries, is insensitive and hurts her feelings some of the time, but is basically not an abusive partner...

    No violence or reformed, mostly honest and trustworthy or at least repentent, mostly gentle, kind, considerate and she falls completely in love with him committed 100% the rest of her life.....(Angelina Jolie, for example). If people would realize how sexy and attractive it is to be wooed with lovingkindness, encouragement, appreciation and patience! I remember an old movie about a girl thought to be slutty and promiscuous who is treated like a princess like she should have been. She refuses the old gang "consensual" promiscuity because she realizes that she is valuable and deserves more respect and more self-respect. The gang acts out the abuser mentality and violently gang rape her (when she says no this time) and end up murdering her. I think the final scene is of the back of the lover's pick-up truck filled with a whole flowerbed of her favorite flowers for her grave. Wonderful Movie!!! Does anyone remember the name of that one? Powerful, like "Dead Man Walking" and "Clockwork Orange" and the one with Robbie Benson who in the movie commits suicide after he is seduced by a homosexual older man under the influence of alcohol. How many homosexuals are really embracing homosexuality to make themselves feel like they really chose the abusive sex, ie more powerful and in control and emulate and identify with the abuser vs. the ones who embrace homosexuality as a fictitious escape from abuse when the same abuse happens in those relationships, too????? Who knows? In some sense, homosexuals and victims of repetitive abusive relationships and even abusers themselves cannot help their attraction. In some sense, they do not choose it because they didn't choose the initial abusive situation they are subconsciously repeating or avoiding in some form or fashion.

    I do not believe serial killers are all born that way with rare exceptions perhaps, true psychopaths raised in good homes are extremely rare, if they even exist. A mentally ill person has some excuse. True psychopaths may not be able to make good choices because they are disabled by being born without the brain's ability to exercise and have a conscience. Perhaps they are to be the most pitied upon the earth to be so handicapped in life. Any urge a human experiences, whatever its origin can be overcome and resisted. Perhaps the attraction or tendency or impulse never completely goes away, but when fought, it can be overcome and not acted out, not given in to, not indulged. With time, it lessons by the brain's ability to extinguish sensations, habits, appetites abstained from.

    Part of the definition of maturity is the ability to say no to one's own impulses and make good life choices that result in the greater good for oneself and others, and society in general. Are you selfish? Addicted to sex? Addicted to food? Abusive? A pedophile, or even a murder who is not a totally genetically disabled individual? You are not trapped by your urges, behavior, or addiction. That is a lie that you are helpless, born that way, unable to change your behavior or orientation, if ego-dystonic leading to suicidal ideation and attempts. A child is helpless. As adults we are no longer helpless. We always have choices. Choose wisely to break out of whatever trauma, habit, obsessions, urges you possess. Ask for help. Pray. Most adults are not ever truly helpless and trapped and without any resources or choices or options or opportunities. We usually just don't want to change because of pleasure, lack of consequences, lack of understanding of our urges, motives, patterns, subconscious repetition of trauma, learned helplessness, etc.

    There is nothing we cannot choose to overcome, if we want to. Nothing at all. Humans are capable of amazing unbelievable things! We are more than conquerers in Christ who loves us and gave up his life for us. There is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus who follow after the Spirit and not the flesh. God is love. God is all-powerful. God loves us and made us. He is our perfect father who made us in his perfect image and said we were good in the beginning of time. Choose love. Choose life. The truth will set you free.

    Thank you to my husband for proposing and marrying me and loving me in his imperfect way. Thank you to God who loves me in His perfect way I often don't understand at the time, but much much later hopefully this side of heaven am always enlightened when I seek Him and His wisdom in life. Thank you for reading this monologue. I hope it helps someone to have hope and live to see another day.

    married2on August 28, 2011   Link

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