Madonna - La Isla Bonita __EXCLUSIVE__
"La Isla Bonita" is a song by American singer Madonna from her third studio album True Blue (1986). Written and produced by Madonna and Patrick Leonard, with additional lyrics by Bruce Gaitsch, the song was originally presented by Leonard as an instrumental demo to Michael Jackson, who turned it down; Leonard then played it to Madonna, who liked it and wrote the lyrics and melodies. "La Isla Bonita" was Madonna's first song with Latin influences; its instrumentation features Cuban drums, Spanish guitar arrangements, maracas and harmonicas. The lyrics refer to an island named San Pedro; according to Madonna, the song is a tribute to the beauty of Latinos.
Madonna - La Isla Bonita
"After the Victory Tour, I was still in touch with Michael [Jackson] and Quincy [Jones] and doing some work with them and Quincy called me and said, 'I want to do something sort of Sade-like for Michael--would you write something?' and so I wrote that song and sent it to him with some form of a vocal on it and the phrase 'la isla bonita,'" he explained. "He called up and said, 'Ah, I just don't think it's for Michael.' Madonna and I were getting together, so I showed it to her and she said, 'Oh, I like this, let's work on it.'"
Mary Lambert directed the hot-blooded video that suited the song perfectly. Madonna shows off a complete Spanish image, dressed in a full-red flamenco dress, dancing around and crawling on the floor between lots of candles. However, when she looks out of the window you see she's not really on an exotic island but in Spanish Harlem, where Spanish artists dance between the garbage. She longs to dance with them and finally no longer resists the temptation and goes out to join them. On a sidenote: try locating a young Benicio Del Toro.
Surprisingly, La Isla Bonita was performed again, as part of the Confessions Tour setlist. But it was a new sped-up version with tribal beats, fitting for the hedonistic Disco segment of the show. Madonna tells fans to wear their "dancing shoes", inviting them to a tropical island (with beautiful imagery on the screens) and the dancers join her for a great choreography. Several fans got confused because of the change of tempo and with Madonna taking breaks between lines of the chorus, though. For some, it seemed too much like a 'rushed through' performance...
"La Isla Bonita" means "The Beautiful Island" in Spanish. In the song, Madonna sings about the beautiful island of San Pedro, where she longs to be. Songwriter and producer Patrick Leonard wrote this for Michael Jackson, but Jackson claimed he didn't like the title and turned down the song. Leonard then offered it to Madonna, who rewrote some of the lyrics in her style. 041b061a72