Source: Collider
“This Used to Be My Playground” is a song recorded by Madonna for the soundtrack of the feature film A League of Their Own which depicts the plight of female athletes in a fictionalized women’s professional baseball league. Madonna also play one of the lead roles in the movie. The song is played during the ending credits while showing highlights of an anniversary of the players coming together much later in life to appreciate what they accomplished on the field and to play scrimmage games even though they were in their 60s and 70s. The song was released by Warner Bros. in 1992.
The song has amazing lyrics. After watching the film and hearing the song play during the ending it is easy to get emotional because the lyrics raise some important feelings and ideas about life. Is getting older something to embrace or run a way from? Does holding on to memories of the past help people or restrict them? Should you completely forget the past or use it as something to appreciate and maybe use to inspire yourself to accomplish something new? Is life too short? All of these questions enter the viewer’s mind when they watch the ending credits with this extraordinarily well-written song.
Madonna has a distinct, original vocal that is present in all of her songs. In this song you get to hear her vulnerability and softness in her vocal which perfectly matches the action in the movie.
The instrumentation is a combination of piano and drums. It sounds very stripped down as a method to have Madonna’s vocal to stand out even more as she is telling a story throughout the song. The producers must have decided that the words should pop out in the music and it should be supported by a solid musical foundation.
For the majority of the song it is easy to feel sadness as a listener. However, in the last verse Madonna sings that she “will never say goodbye to yesterday”. It is wonderful that the song ends on an inspirational note that resonates today as well due to the Covid-19 pandemic many people can gain the motivation to continue to fight the disease due to songs like these.
Buy Madonna’s “This Used to Be My Playground”:
