1985 · Behind the Songs
The last song recorded for Like a Virgin — and one of the PMRC’s “Filthy 15.”
“Dress You Up” was the fourth and final single from Like a Virgin (1984), released on July 31, 1985, on Sire Records. It was written by Andrea LaRusso and Peggy Stanziale — Stanziale was the daughter of US Congressman Peter W. Rodino — and produced by Nile Rodgers. It was the last song recorded for the album; Rodgers first wanted to cut it for lack of time, but Madonna talked him into keeping it. The session went down at the Power Station in New York: Rodgers on guitar, Jimmy Bralower on drum programming, Robert Sabino on synthesizer and synth bass, backing vocals from Curtis King, Frank Simms and George Simms, and mastering by Bob Ludwig at Masterdisk. The dance-pop lyric uses fashion as an extended metaphor for passion.
In the summer of 1985 the Parents Music Resource Center named it to its “Filthy 15” list; Tipper Gore cited the opening line of the chorus, “Gonna dress you up in my love,” after hearing her daughter play it, and the PMRC’s proposed content-rating system (X, D/A, V) led the RIAA to adopt the Parental Advisory label. The single reached No. 5 on the Hot 100 — Madonna’s sixth straight top-five single — and became the fourth top-ten single from Like a Virgin, making it only the second album by a female artist with four top-ten singles after Cyndi Lauper’s She’s So Unusual. It topped Dance Singles Sales for four weeks, reached No. 3 on Dance Club Songs and No. 5 in the UK (BPI Silver), with “Shoo-Bee-Doo” on the B-side. Madonna performed it on four tours — Virgin (1985, as the opening number), Who’s That Girl (1987), Sticky & Sweet (2009) and Rebel Heart (2015–2016) — and it later turned up in a 1999 Gap television ad remixed by the Dust Brothers and in a 2013 Glee mashup with Elton John’s “The Bitch Is Back.” She had first performed it at Keith Haring’s birthday party at Paradise Garage on May 16, 1984, wearing a leather jacket Haring painted; the Virgin Tour performance filmed in Detroit became a promotional video that earned a Best Choreography nomination at the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards.