Someone posted this on alt.music.prince - don't know if you had seen it or not.

Subject: PRINCE + MADONNA
From: "Denny Henson" denny.cp@mindspring.com
Date: 1/2/02 10:14 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

i copied this from a madonna interview i was reading online at madonnas
ashram...hey i didnt know prince played on Keep It Together too! read on...

Interviewer: You and Prince wrote "Love Song" together, which is a wonderful
song. Did you and he work together or did he give you a track?

Madonna: No, he didn't give me a track. We sat down and just started fooling
around. We had a lot of fun. What happened is that he played the drums and I
played the synthesizer and we came up with the original melody line; I just,
off the top of my head, started singing lyrics into the microphone. And then
he overdubbed some guitar stuff and made a loop of it and sent it to me, and
then I just started adding sections to it and singing parts to it. And then
I sent it back to him, and he'd sing a part to it and add another instrument
and send it back to me...it was like this sentence that turned into a
paragraph that turned into a little miniseries. So it was great. It was a
completely different way to work. And because of our schedules and
everything, and he was in Minnesota and he likes to work there and I like to
work here. So we kind of sent it back and forth. He's great. He's a real
interesting...unique talent.

Interviewer: And it was an easy connection from the beginning for the two of
you?

Madonna: Yeah, it was. We started out being real admirers of each other's
work. And, you know, we're already successful so we didn't have to prove
anything to each other. We were on the same level. And I don't think he's
had that same opportunity with other people that he's worked with. Because
generally he tends to dominate everything.

Interviewer: "Act of Contrition," the closing track of Like a Prayer, has
backwards masking and other mysterious elements. Did he have anything to do
with that one as well? The credits only say, "Produced by the powers that
be."

Madonna: Yeah, he did. He played guitar on it. He also played guitar on
"Keep it Together."

Interviewer: I noticed on "Act of Contrition" that you have the choir from
"Like a Prayer" reversed on that.

Madonna: Yeah, we turned the tape and played everything backwards.

Interviewer: Your idea?

Madonna: Yeah. And then, of course, the whole thing, the saying of the
prayer (on "Act of Contrition") and everything, that was totally conceived
of in the studio, in the control room. Pat put out a microphone, and I just
started fooling around; and that was free-form, too. Whatever was on my
head. It's totally unedited.

Interviewer: You, Prince and Michael Jackson were all born in the same year,
1958--

Madonna: I know. Isn't that weird? And I think Michael's birthday is right
near mine, in August...there are so many Leos in my life. I'm August 16.

Interviewer: The three of you have had such an enormous effect on popular
music. Yet recently it seems that both Prince's and Michael Jackson's
connection with the world has weakened while yours has strengthened and
become more intimate and personal. Do you feel that?

Madonna: Yes. I think because I stay in touch with the world, and I think
that Michael Jackson and Prince have really isolated themselves. And they
live very isolated lives. There's so much fearfulness and so much inhibition
that comes with when you become a celebrity and you're in the public eye all
the time; I think you really have to fight that temptation to go into hiding
and surround yourself with people who protect you and keep life out from
you. I don't want to live that way. I don't want to crawl into a hole. I
don't want to go around with six bodyguards, you know?

Interviewer: You don't wear disguises or anything?

Madonna: No, no. I go running everyday in my neighborhood. People bother me
all the time, but it's important for me to stay in touch with--it sounds
cliched--with the street. I go to movie theaters. I can't deal with
separating myself that way. I didn't struggle my way out of Michigan so I
could crawl into a hole.


Interviewer: Both you and Prince have concentrated in your work on the
separation in our lives between sexuality and religion. Has this been a
conscious attempt in your life, to connect these two forces?

Madonna: Yes, absolutely. And I think that's the problem in relationships.
That's why everyone has affairs and they cheat on their wives or their
husbands. People separate things. They have someone they idolize, and then
they idolize them so much that they put them on a pedestal and see them as
so virginal and holy that they can't have fun with them. And then they have
to find people to have fun with and get low-down and dirty. They don't let
the id in themselves come out, know what I mean? I think you have to put the
two together with people. You have to let both of them surface. And it has
so much to do with being honest with yourself and the people you're with.
Say, "This is me and this is what I want."

[Bart wrote in and contributed the following link, more on Madonna and songwriting, including some of the same info: -Ben]
http://www.eecs.harvard.e...APwri.html