Billy Steinberg has died at the age of 75, as a result of cancer, in Los Angeles. The author will always be remembered for having composed some of the biggest hits of the 80s. Among them, ‘Like a Virgin’, the song that forever changed Madonna’s career; ‘Eternal Flame’, the Bangles’ biggest hit; or ‘True Colors’, one of Cyndi Lauper’s 3 most iconic songs.
Lauper was precisely one of the first to mourn his death. «He was a great lyricist and a wonderful collaborator. “He and Tom (Kelly) knew how to capture the range of emotions, from subtlety to urgency.” ‘True Colors’ was a song that Steinberg wrote with his mother in mind, but Lauper transformed it into an anthem for the LGTBIQ+ community and against the HIV pandemic.
However, a great statement is not expected from Madonna, who had a huge rudeness with Steinberg. They only met once, he told her that he was “looking forward to meeting her”, she replied “well, you’ve already met me” and left. And when a Warner A&R played ‘Like a Virgin’ for the first time, Madonna had “gone crazy”: “She immediately knew it was for her and that she would make a great recording.”
‘Like a Virgin’ had quite particular lyrics, which Billy wrote about a breakup (“I was beat, incomplete / I’ve been had”), to which Madonna gave a comedic and sexual touch. Nile Rodgers of Chic was the producer of this song and the artist has recovered it on many tours, most famously in the masturbation scene of ‘Blonde Ambition Tour’, and the last one being her 2015 tour.
Steinberg also wrote for Roy Orbison (‘I Drove All Night’, also recorded by Cyndi Lauper), Whitney Houston (‘So Emotional’), The Pretenders (‘I’ll Stand By You’), Tina Turner and Belinda Carlisle, among many others. He was generally a lyricist, and often wrote alongside Tom Kelly. Once this retired in the 90s, he went on to write with other artists, such as Rick Nowels. With this one he hit the key on ‘Falling Into You’ by Celine Dion. He was also behind ‘All About Us’ by Tatu and ‘Give Your Heart a Break’ by Demi Lovato.
It has been Nowels who has had some of the most beautiful words about Billy Steinberg: «Billy started out as a poet and developed a sense for that, an aesthetic that allows you to create a complete story with one or two sentences. It was a unique case. No other will be created. “He had an encyclopedic knowledge of popular songs, and that’s where we connected.”
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