Madonna – La Isla Bonita

“La Isla Bonita” – Single by Madonna from the album True Blue
Released on February 25, 1987
Label Sire Warner Bros.
Songwriters Madonna, Patrick Leonard, Bruce Gaitsch
Producers Madonna, Patrick Leonard
Charted No.1 in UK, West Germany, Switzerland, France, Austria, US Adult Contemporary
No.2 in Portugal, Netherlands, Ireland
No.3 in Belgium, Finland, Sweden
No.4 in US Billboard HOT 100.

Patrick Leonard and Bruce Gaitsch created it as an instrumental demo and offered it to singer Michael Jackson, who turned it down. When Leonard met Madonna to start working on True Blue, he played the demo for her. Madonna came up with the title, wrote the lyrics and produced the song with Leonard. It is her first song with Latin influences. Its instrumentation features flamenco guitar, Latin percussion, maracas and includes four lines sung in Spanish. The lyrics talk of an island named San Pedro, whose location has been debated. Madonna said the song was her tribute to Latin Americans.

“La Isla Bonita” means “The Beautiful Island” in Spanish. In the song, Madonna sings about the beautiful island of San Pedro, where she longs to be. San Pedro is not a real island. In a 2009 interview with Rolling Stone, Madonna said, “I don’t know where that came from. I don’t know where San Pedro is. At that point, I wasn’t a person who went on holidays to beautiful islands. I may have been on the way to the studio and seen an exit ramp for San Pedro.”

On March 21, 1987, “La Isla Bonita” debuted at number 49 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Madonna’s eleventh consecutive single to be named the week’s top new entry –a streak that began with “Lucky Star” in 1984.[65][66] By April 25, “La Isla Bonita” became Madonna’s twelfth consecutive top-ten single, a record shared with Michael Jackson.] “La Isla Bonita” was the fifth top-ten single from True Blue, making it the second album by a female artist to score five top-tens, the other being Janet Jackson’s Control (1986). On May 2, the song reached its peak at number 4, becoming Madonna’s eleventh single to reach the chart’s first five spots, a feat surpassed at the time only by the Beatles and Elvis Presley