On July 8 1993, Madonna began rehearsals for The Girlie Show World Tour.
The original rehearsed set list included the following songs:
Erotica
Fever
Vogue
Rain
True Blue
Express Yourself
Deeper and Deeper
Why’s It So Hard
In This Life
The Beast Within
Like A Virgin
Bye Bye Baby
Live to Tell
La Isla Bonita
Holiday
On June 5 1993, Just A Dream, written and produced by Madonna & Patrick Leonard and performed by Madonna’s long-time backing singer/dancer Donna De Lory, peaked at number-ten on Billboard’s Dance/Club chart. The song was released as the second single from De Lory’s self-titled 1992 album for MCA Records.
Just A Dream had originally been written and recorded during the Like A Prayer sessions. Although Madonna had clearly intended that the album move beyond the boundaries of pure dance/pop and crossover into other styles, she reportedly felt that including Just A Dream would have tipped the balance too far in the direction of rock. When De Lory approached Madonna a few years later about the possibility of providing a song for her first album, Madonna offered Just A Dream, sensing that the song’s rock-edge would be better suited to Donna’s vocal style than her own. Madonna did, however, allow the use of her own vocals on the track, which can be heard blending with Donna’s in the song’s chorus, bridge and, most prominently, during its fadeout.
While unconfirmed, it is assumed that no new production-work – aside from the addition of De Lory’s lead vocal – took place on the released album version of Just A Dream, with the the original Like A Prayer session tracks carried over to Donna’s version and Madonna’s original lead vocal being mixed down to background vocals. The original cut, featuring Madonna’s complete lead vocal track, has yet to surface.
Check out the video for Donna’s version of Just A Dream at the 13:00 minute mark in the following video interview compilation featuring Donna discussing our favorite topic – Madonna:
On April 27 1993, Madonna was honoured for Best Songwriting for This Used To Be My Playground at the 8th annual ASCAP Film & Television Music Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California.
On April 3 1993, Fever entered the UK Singles Chart at its peak position of number-six. Without the support of a proper music video at the time of its release (Warner UK instead issued a rarely seen compilation video of previous clips), the single spent only six weeks on the UK charts, dropping to number-seven the following week.
Strangely, Madonna did eventually decide to film a video for the song in late April – nearly a month after its release in Europe. By the time the video premiered during the second week of May, Fever was spending its final week on the UK Singles Chart.
In North America the remixes for Fever had been issued commercially on Madonna’s previous international single, Bad Girl. Fever was also serviced to clubs as a promotional single in its own right, but it was not promoted to radio despite the video being added to into rotation on MTV and MuchMusic. While the release of the music video managed to coincide with Fever’s single week atop the Hot Dance/Club Play chart, its number-one status had already been confirmed several days prior to the clip’s debut, making the video’s intended purpose and the timing of its release all the more puzzling.
On March 27 1993, Madonna’s Bad Girl peaked at number 36 on the Hot 100 in the USA, becoming her first single to miss the top 20 and breaking her streak of 27 consecutive top 20 hits that had begun with Holiday, in 1983.
The single remained on the chart for 11 weeks. Bad Girl performed moderately well on the Hot 100 Singles Sales and Hot 100 Airplay charts, peaking at numbers 36 and 44 respectively. It reached the top spot on the Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales chart, thanks to the remixes of Fever, which were included on the maxi single.
On February 17 1993, A League Of Their Own was released on home video.
Mae Mordabito: What if at a key moment in the game my, my uniform bursts open and, uh, oops, my bosoms come flying out? That, that might draw a crowd, right?
Doris Murphy: You think there are men in this country who ain’t seen your bosoms?
On January 17 1993, it was announced that Body Of Evidence, starring Madonna and Willem Dafoe, grossed a mere $6.5 million at the US box-office during its opening weekend. Here’s a great quote from Rebecca Carlson (Madonna’s character):
I don’t know why men lie; they just do. Men. Lie.
Today In Madonna History 