Madonna’s New Song to Save Earth, Camp Counselors

Sex romps, reinvention songs, and club anthems be damned — it doesn’t take a die-hard Madonna fan to know and love her soft and sappy side. (“Crazy for You,� anyone?) So it’s not necessarily a bad thing that you can’t krump to her new Pharrell-produced single “Hey You,� a Live Earth–inspired track that’s free to the first million downloaders. But this isn’t one of Ms. Ciccone’s classic party’s-over ballads. With guitar plucking that sounds cautious enough to be M’s own, a ra pum pum pum drummer-boy beat, and requisite string-orchestra swells, “Hey You� reinvents you-know-who as … a girlish camp counselor wearing a red-string bracelet. The chin-up platitudes here are too vague for Kabbalah propaganda, though. The sole innovation is a Möbius-strip lyric that could be used at Gitmo Bay: “First love yourself then you can love someone else / if you can change someone else then you have saved someone else / but you must first love yourself if you can change someone else / then you have saved someone else but you must first love yourself…� We wonder if the daisy chain we just wove is strong enough to hang us. —Justin W. Ravitz

“Hey You� [MSN]