‘Papa, don’t preach’ – Commentary

INTRODUCTION

This document is a song entitled ‘Papa, don’t preach’.
It was sung by the famous American singer called Madonna.
The lyrics were written by a man named Brian Elliot, but Madonna wrote some of the words too. This single appeared in 1986. This song caused a lot of controversy in the US as it deals with a very serious topic.

This document is about a young teenage girl who is expecting a baby.
She is not married, she could very well become a single mother, but she has made a big decision: she is going to keep her baby, she’s not going to abandon her child or abort.

The name of the narrator and the name of the main protagonist are not mentioned.
Any young girl in the same situation could easily identify with her.

In her monologue, she is addressing her father. She wants her father to help her. In fact, she wants him to give her some advice about what she should do. The text is not a dialogue, the father never answers and we don’t know what he is thinking.

The document deals with the problem of teenage pregnancy, it is aimed at all the young girls who get pregnant at an early age without thinking of all the consequences.

STRUCTURE

The song is composed of eleven stanzas and the chorus line ‘Papa don’t preach’ is repeated ten times.

In the first stanza, the character tells her father she considers herself as an adult now and not a child any more. I quote line 4 ‘I’m not a baby’

In the second stanza, she asks her father to help her and she thanks him for having given her a good education.

Stanza number 3 is about her boyfriend. Because of him, she is now in trouble, she is in a terrible situation. Apparently, her father had told her to be careful and advised her to stop seeing him.

Stanza number 4 corresponds to the chorus of the song. It is repeated many times. She says she doesn’t want her father to treat her as a child or to speak to her in a moralizing way. She admits she is feeling