Ray of Light

It is based on Sepheryn, a 1971 song by Curtiss Maldoon. Christine Leach, Clive Maldoon's niece, had recorded her own version in 1996 and demoed it over a melody William Orbit was working on. Orbit put it on the tape of thirteen tracks he sent Madonna, believing Leach had written it. Madonna reworked the lyric, and the credit went to her, Orbit, Maldoon, Dave Curtiss and Leach. Curtiss first heard it on the radio and received 15 percent of the royalties. Madonna said the original version was well over ten minutes long.

It was recorded at Larrabee North Studio in North Hollywood in mid-1997, with Roland Juno-106 synthesizers and drum samples from Fergus Gerrand. Orbit kept the key a semitone above the top of her range, because, he said, you want that bit of edge with singers. Madonna said the verses are a mystical look at the universe and at how small we are inside it.

Release and video

Released on 27 April 1998, it entered the Hot 100 at number five, her highest debut at the time, and topped the Hot Dance Club chart for four weeks. In the UK it reached number two. Jonas Åkerlund directed the video, which sets Madonna against time-lapse footage of Los Angeles, New York, London, Las Vegas and Stockholm. It won five MTV Video Music Awards in 1998, including Video of the Year, her first time winning that award, and Grammys for Best Dance Recording and Best Short Form Music Video. It lost Record of the Year to My Heart Will Go On. Pitchfork ranked it 55th among the best songs of the 1990s.

Live

At the 1998 MTV Video Music Awards she opened with Shanti/Ashtangi and then this song, with Lenny Kravitz on guitar. It has been in four of her tours, among them Drowned World in 2001, where Monte Pittman played the guitar part, and the Celebration Tour, where she sang a Sasha Ultra Violet remix floating above the crowd in a glass box.