More than two decades ago in a Queens basement, Madonna recorded music that's never before been released. Listen to it in a Daily Beast exclusive by Andrew Morton.
Below, Madonna biographer Andrew Morton offers a previously unreleased tape that includes Madonna singing some of the first ever songs she wrote. The tape was made by Ed Gilroy and his brother Dan, Madonna’s ex-boyfriend, who lived with the singer in the basement of a Queens synagogue.
The audio below is a combination of Madonna's acceptance speech when she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame earlier this year, interspersed with her early recordings. Says Morton, "It is sweet and raw. It signifies to me how far she has come, a reminder of the explosion of talent."
The lost tapes begins with Madonna and Dan in bed. She’s encouraging him to go running. It then cuts to her speech where Madonna says how she was fortunate to have people like Dan Gilroy who believed in her. Then flashback back 27 years… “I’m going to strangle him,” she joked before breaking out into one of the songs, “Born to be a Dancer.”
During her long and heartfelt acceptance speech, Madonna paid generous tribute to her two, largely forgotten, musical mentors. She talked about she learned the drums in the basement as she listened to Elvis Costello and how she felt the hairs on her arms stand up with excitement as she wrote what she described as her first song, ironically entitled “Tell The Truth.” It was as though “I was possessed by some magic,” she told the audience who included fellow inductee, songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen.



Read full article