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Hitmakers: Rick Nowels reveals the secrets behind The Power Of Good-Bye
George Garner | September 25th 2018



Rick Nowels has scored hits with everyone from Belinda Carlisle and John Legend to Lana Del Rey. Here, the Sony/ATV songwriter recalls how a brief encounter with Madonna led to The Power Of Good-Bye...

When I worked on The Power Of Good-Bye, I had already had success with Belinda Carlisle [Heaven Is A Place On Earth, Circle In The Sand and Live Your Life Be Free among others], Stevie Nicks [I Can’t Wait, Rooms On Fire], Anita Baker [Body And Soul] and two songs I wrote with Billy Steinberg that became hits: Robert Miles’ One And One and Celine Dion’s Falling Into You. It was because of Falling Into You that I was in New York in February 1997. It was up for a Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Album that year – by the way, we won! – and I was out shopping for a tie, last minute, at Barneys the day before the awards.

I saw Madonna standing there [in the shop] with some people and I got up the nerve to walk over and introduce myself. It was very intimidating. I really loved her music and she was the biggest star in the world. I told her what a great songwriter she was and she was very gracious and appreciative. She had so much star power and excitement around her, but I always felt that she never got enough credit for her talent as a great songwriter. We met up in Los Angeles a month later, which led to two weeks of writing together.

I wasn’t aware of the wider vision for the Ray Of Light album when we started. When we met at her house in LA she said she had no idea what the next album was going to be. She was just coming off the film Evita and we wrote nine songs in two weeks. Her lyrics were eye-opening and poetic: ‘Your heart is not open/ So I must go/The spell has been broken/I loved you so/Freedom comes when you learn to let go/Creation comes when you learn to say no…” I had never heard a song about the “power” of a goodbye – it’s a strong philosophical idea and I thought it was grand and beautiful. I was very moved by it and I thought we had written an important Madonna song.

Madonna was easy and fun to collaborate with, she was very professional and to the point. It’s always satisfying working with great artists. We started with a beat, I played some chords and then she started singing. It happened quickly, and I still don’t know if she had the title before or if she came up with it on the spot.

The original demo got leaked somehow – not by me – and you can hear it online. It’s a live performance with me playing chords and Madonna singing into a handheld mic. That demo was recorded right after it was written. We wrote it over a drum and bass beat but it changed from how it was conceived when its producer, William Orbit, gave it more of a reggae feel and the great Craig Armstrong arranged the strings. It became a No.1 record all over Europe.

We wrote two other songs for the album, [The Power Of Good-Bye’s twin A-Side] Little Star and To Have And Not To Hold. Little Star was written about her daughter Lourdes who was a baby at the time. The lyric is quite poignant: ‘You are a treasure to me/You are my star/You breathe new life/Into my broken heart’. The demo version is online too, which again is a live performance with me playing a keyboard pad and Madonna singing. It was beautifully produced by Marius De Vries who had worked on Björk’s albums.

I think Ray Of Light connected in the way it did because it was a very confessional album with cutting-edge production. It had three big singles: Frozen, Ray Of Light, and The Power Of Good-Bye. That’s what all the great albums had back then, a minimum of three career-defining singles.

William Orbit was doing cool British underground electronica, so it was a great musical marriage with Madonna. Interestingly, I met William when he remixed my song Circle In The Sand with Belinda Carlisle, then here we were collaborating eight years later. Marius De Vries, Patrick Leonard and Craig Armstrong hugely contributed to the Ray Of Light album as well. There were a lot of strong musical minds working together – all under the direction of Madonna, of course.

Madonna is an iconic figure in the history of pop music. Like Sinatra, Elvis, The Beatles and Prince, she helped define her generation and shape culture. At the heart of it are great songs.

Writer’s Notes

Publishers Webo Girl Publishing, Inc, EMI Music Publishing, Future Furniture Music
Writers Madonna, Rick Nowels
Release date 23.11.98
Record label Warner Bros.
Total UK sales (OCC) 204,659