Papa Don't Preach

"Papa Don't Preach" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Madonna, released on her third studio album True Blue (1986). It was written by Brian Elliot with additional lyrics by Madonna, and produced by Madonna and Stephen Bray. "Papa Don't Preach" combines pop and classical styles, with lyrics about teenage pregnancy, and the choices that come with it. Elliot was inspired by the teen gossip he heard outside his recording studio.

"Papa Don't Preach" was released as the album's second single in mid-1986 and became Madonna's fourth number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100. It performed well internationally, reaching the top position in the United Kingdom and Australia. It received acclaim from critics, who noted an artistic growth in Madonna's work and cited it as a highlight in the album and a milestone in her career.

The music video, directed by James Foley, shows Madonna in her first "head-to-toe" image makeover, with a leaner, more toned body, and cropped platinum blonde hair. It has Madonna trying to tell her father, played by Danny Aiello, about her pregnancy. The scenes are juxtaposed with shots of her dancing and singing in a small, darkened studio, and spending a romantic evening with her boyfriend, played by Alex McArthur.

"Papa Don't Preach" song caused heated discussions about its lyrics. Women's organizations and others in the family planning field criticized Madonna for encouraging teenage pregnancy, while groups opposed to abortion saw the song as having a positive anti-abortion message. Madonna has performed "Papa Don't Preach" in five of her concert tours, the last being 2019―2020's Madame X Tour. The single's performance at the Who's That Girl World Tour (1987) caused Madonna's first conflict with the Vatican, as she dedicated it to Pope John Paul II, who urged Italian fans to boycott her concerts. In 2002, the British singer Kelly Osbourne recorded a cover of the song, which received mixed reviews but achieved commercial success. "Papa Don't Preach" was included in the Madonna compilation album Celebration (2009).

Background and release
During the autumn of 1985, Madonna started writing and recording songs for her third studio album, True Blue; she brought back Steve Bray, who had worked with her on her previous album Like a Virgin (1984), and hired a new producer, Patrick Leonard. The album's first track, "Papa Don't Preach", was written by Brian Elliot, who described it as "a love song, maybe framed a little bit differently [...] about a young girl who found herself at a crossroads in life and didn’t know where to turn". Elliot, who had recorded an album of his own for Warner Bros., was producing sessions for an artist named Cristina Dent. When he played her tracks for Warner's Michael Ostin, the same A&R executive who discovered "Like a Virgin", he asked if he could play "Papa Don't Preach" for Madonna; Elliot had been working with Dent for six months and was reluctant to let the song go to another artist, but he eventually gave in, finding the idea of Madonna recording his song "hard to resist".

The lyrics of the song are based on teen gossip Elliot would hear outside his recording studio, which has a large front window that doubled as a mirror where schoolgirls from the Los Angeles' North Hollywood High School would regularly stop to fix their hair and chat. Madonna only contributed with some additional lyrics, making "Papa Don't Preach" the only song on the album that she did not have a strong hand in writing. In the United States, "Papa Don't Preach" was released as True Blue's second single on June 11, 1986; in Europe, it was released five days later. Afterwards, it was included on Madonna's compilation albums The Immaculate Collection (1990), and Celebration (2009). In a 2009 interview with Rolling Stone, Madonna said: [The song] just fit right in with my own personal zeitgeist of standing up to male authorities, whether it's the pope, or the Catholic Church or my father and his conservative, patriarchal ways. ... For 'Papa Don't Preach' there were so many opinions – that's why I thought it was so great. Is she for 'schma-smortion', as they say in Knocked Up? Is she against abortion?

Composition
"Papa Don't Preach" is a dance-pop and post-disco song with instrumentation from acoustic, electric, and rhythm guitars, keyboards, and string arrangements; it is set in common time, and moves at a moderate tempo of 116 beats per minute. Written in the key of F minor, the combination of key and tempo produces a disjuncture between pop and classical rhythms, underlined by the instrumentation during the introduction. It begins with a distinctly Vivaldian style, as the fast tempo and classical-style chord progression anticipates the lyrics to follow. The opening chords and the melody emphasize the tonic of the leading notes: Fm–E♭–D♭–Cm–D♭–E♭–Fm–D♭–E♭–Fm, resembling a Baroque work. This is followed by the sound of dance music, produced by a powerful beat from the instruments. Madonna's vocal range spans from F3 to C5, and was described as being "more mature" and "centered" than that of her previous works.

The lyrics talk about a girl who tells her father that she is pregnant and refuses to have an abortion or give up the baby for adoption, despite her friends' advice. The title is a request for the narrator's father not to lecture; later lyrics ask him to bless the relationship. The track is constructed in a verse-chorus form, with a bridge before the third and final chorus; at the beginning, she addresses her father directly, asking him to talk to her as an adult, "You should know by now that I'm not a baby". The transition to the chorus employs a more dramatic voice with a higher range, ending nearly in cries as she sings the word "Please". Leading to the chorus, Madonna switches to a pleading voice, singing the song's main hook in a high tone. During the bridge, the song features a Spanish-inspired rhythm, one of the earliest examples of the influence that Hispanic music had on Madonna's musical style.

Critical reception
"Papa Don't Preach" has been acclaimed since its release. According to Rolling Stone's Davitt Sigerson on his review of True Blue, "only the magnificent 'Papa Don’t Preach' has the high-profile hook to match 'Like a Virgin', 'Dress You Up' and 'Material Girl'", and compared it to Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" (1983). While the Chicago Tribune's Daniel Brogan deemed it stunning, Stephen Thomas Erlewine, for Allmusic, called it a "masterstroke", and applauded Madonna for "using the music to hook in critics just as she's baiting a mass audience". Santiago Fouz-Hernández, co-author of Madonna's Drowned Worlds (2004), pointed out it was a "significant milestone in [Madonna]'s artistic career".

Adam Sexton, author of Desperately Seeking Madonna: In Search of the Meaning of the World's Most Famous Woman (2008), named it True Blue's "boldest" track; although its melody is just as "insistently chugging" as Madonna's previous singles "Into the Groove" and "Dress You Up" (1985), the mood is "tense and claustrophobic". For Entertainment Weekly's David Browne, "a 30-ish urban sophisticate singing in the voice of a pregnant teen [...] ought to sound ridiculous. With the help of collaborators like Stephen Bray and Patrick Leonard, though [...] [it] turns into a perfectly conceived pop record". From the New York Times, Stephen Holden pointed out that "Madonna sings it in a passionate, bratty sob that makes the plea immediate and believable".

Caroline Sullivan from The Guardian, opined that it was the artist's "first socially controversial single, and one of her best tunes to boot [...] it wasn't her first attempt at a teenage persona (see also 'Dress You Up'), but it was the most endearing". Sal Cinquemani from Slant Magazine, thought it was "undeniably more mature" than Madonna's previous works, further adding that, with songs like "Papa Don’t Preach", "[Madonna] made the transition from pop tart to consummate artist, joining the ranks of the decade's icons like Michael Jackson and Prince". Writing for PopMatters, Peter Piatkowski said it was an "idiosyncratic tune", that shared the "maturity and ambition" of previous single "Live to Tell". For the Los Angeles Times, Robert Hilburn expressed that the "most obvious growth is in the control and character in Madonna's singing", and considered the lyrics to be "tailor-made for video". The Arizona Republic's Ed Masley noted a "huge artistic growth" and "more soul than was expected at the time" in Madonna's vocals. A lukewarm review came from The Daily Iowan's Jeff Hamilton: "[Madonna] had a good year at the stores, but can anyone take her music seriously? [...] In terms of scrutable ideology ['Papa Don't Preach'] doesn't represent a change from 'Like A Virgin'".

Retrospective reviews have also been positive: for Parade, Samuel R. Murrian praised it for treating a "complicated subject with humanity and the gravity it merits", and having an "ace[s] pop hook driving it"; he named it Madonna's 25th best song. It was ranked in the 21st place of Slant Magazine's ranking of Madonna singles: Paul Schrodt opined it "may well be the only song about choosing not to have an abortion that also feels rebellious, even dangerous". Schrodt further singled out the "cinematic string arrangement", which gives the track a "sweeping backdrop", concluding that "Madonna has rarely sounded more impassioned". Entertainment Weekly's Chuck Arnold also considered it her 21st best, and the staff of Billboard her 28th. Jude Rogers, from The Guardian, named it her fifth greatest song, praising its "glorious string arrangement [that] adds cinematic authority", and Madonna's vocals. For Yahoo!'s Nicole Hogsett, "['Papa Don't Preach'] proved that Madonna could tackle a serious topic but still keep her signature sound". From website Albumism, Justin Chadwick said that "Papa Don't Preach" was "arguably the most unforgettable of True Blue's many memorable moments".

According to Gay Star News' Joe Morgan, "Papa Don't Preach" is Madonna's tenth-best single, while the HuffPost Matthew Jacobs ranked it her 14th, highlighting its "sweeping string arrangement" as "one of pop music's most engaging openings". Nayer Missim from PinkNews named it the third best song of Madonna's discography; "a rare example of Madonna-as-storyteller [...] Unfairly dismissed (or claimed) as a pro-life anthem, its lyrics are much more personal, open and interesting than that", Missim wrote. For Stereogum's Tom Breihan, "Papa Don't Preach" is an example of "how Madonna, a technically limited singer, could always capture the feeling of a song". At the 29th Grammy Awards, "Papa Don't Preach" was nominated for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance but lost to Barbra Streisand's The Broadway Album.

Commercial reception
On June 18, 1986, "Papa Don't Preach" was added to 174 of 226 pop reporting radio stations, which caused it to debut on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 42. One month later, the song reached the sixth place of the chart, becoming Madonna's ninth consecutive top 10 single; she became the fourth female artist in the rock era to earn this amount of consecutive top 10 singles, behind only Brenda Lee, Aretha Franklin and Donna Summer. On August 16, "Papa Don't Preach" reached the Hot 100's first position and spent two weeks there. It was Madonna's fourth US number one. This also gave her her eighth consecutive top 5 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. It placed at position 29 for the Billboard year-end chart for 1986. In October 1998, it was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipment of 500,000 copies. "Papa Don't Preach" entered the Dance Club Songs chart at number 38 the week of July 19, eventually peaking at number four on August 30. The single also peaked at 16 on the Adult Contemporary chart. On June 11, 2024, the RIAA certified the single Platinum, certifying equivalent sales exceeding 1 million units. In Canada the song debuted at number 53 of the RPM singles chart on July 5, eventually reaching and remaining on the top for two weeks on August 9. "Papa Don't Preach" came in at position 13 of RPM's 1986 year-end chart.

In the United Kingdom, the single debuted at number 13 on the Singles Chart on June 28, before climbing to number one two weeks later; it remained three consecutive weeks at the top, and 15 weeks on the chart in general. "Papa Don't Preach" was certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) in August 1986 for shipment of 500,000 copies. According to Music Week magazine, over 629,386 copies of the single have been sold in the United Kingdom as of 2008. The song was commercially successful across Europe as well: it topped the charts in Belgium, Ireland, and Norway, and peaked within the top 5 in Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland. In Italy, the song spent 12 consecutive weeks at the top of the Musica e dischi charts. "Papa Don't Preach" reached the first position of the Eurochart Hot 100, where it remained for 11 weeks. The song also reached the top of the charts in Australia, and the top 5 in South Africa and New Zealand.

Background and synopsis
The music video for "Papa Don't Preach" was directed by James Foley, who had previously worked with Madonna on "Live to Tell"; production was done by David Naylor and Sharon Oreck, while Michael Ballhaus was in charge of the photography. It was shot on location over three days in May 1986 in Staten Island, New York and Manhattan; according to Foley, Madonna wanted something "a bit more grounded and 'drama'", having just done the "very glamorous and stylized" videos for "Material Girl" and "Like a Virgin", thus he suggested filming in Staten Island.

Madonna chose Danny Aiello to play her father. Aiello said he had never heard of her and agreed to do the video by petition of his daughter. Alex McArthur played Madonna's boyfriend and the father of her child; she had spotted McArthur in a small role in the 1985 film Desert Hearts and thought he was a natural to play her mechanic boyfriend; "I was out in the garage working on my Harley [...] I answered the phone and a voice said, 'Hi, this is Madonna. I would like you to be in my next video'", he recalled.

For the music video, Madonna sported a complete image makeover: she changed the heavy jewelry and make-up, and adopted a gamine look similar to the one donned by Shirley MacLaine and Audrey Hepburn during the 1950s. The video interspersed shots Madonna as a tomboy – dressed in jeans, black leather jacket, and a slogan T-shirt with the caption "Italians do it better" – with those of her in a "figure-revealing" outfit, consisting of a 1960s-style black bustier top and capri pants. Her body was also leaner and muscular. Foley recalled: We took the script literally from the lyrics of the song, and I remember having a moment's hesitation about doing that because most videos are not literal interpretations. But I just felt like it was something that tied into her desire to dip into the working-class world. I did have the idea that there should be a segment of the video where she was Madonna — not the character in the story — and that's where it cuts to the black and white stuff of her dancing around for the chorus. The clip starts with shots of the New York skyline, the Staten Island Ferry, and character close-ups. Madonna, who plays an Italian American young woman, is seen walking along a lane; she thinks about her father (Aiello) and how much he loves her, and then goes to meet her boyfriend (MacArthur). The images are juxtaposed with shots of Madonna dancing and singing in a small, darkened studio. In the next scene, she walks away from her friends (Debi Mazar and Bianca Hunter), after they warn her about her boyfriend. Next, she and her boyfriend spend a romantic evening together on a ferry where they reflect upon their lives after watching an elderly couple. Madonna then finds out that she is pregnant and decides to keep the baby. After much hesitation, she tells her father, who's shocked and leaves the room to think about the situation before eventually accepting the pregnancy. Afterward, father and daughter hug each other. "Papa Don't Preach" can be found on Madonna's video compilations The Immaculate Collection (1990), and Celebration: The Video Collection (2009).

Reception and analysis
The video received positive reviews from critics. According to the staff of Rolling Stone, it was the moment Madonna began "treating the music video concept as more of a short film than promotional clip"; they also applauded her "rather unglamorous" look for fitting "nicely" with the song's subject matter. For Hal Marcovitz, author of The History of Music Videos (2012), it marked a "sharp departure" from what the public was used to seeing in Madonna's videos; "in most of her videos [she] promoted her sex appeal, usually strutting through her tightly choreographed dances in stiletto heels and barely-there costumes".

Retrospective reviews have named it one of Madonna's best music videos: Idolator's Mike Neid placed it in the fourth position of his ranking, highlighting Madonna's onscreen relationship with her father and applauding her for "showing off a more serious side of her artistry". For The Odyssey, Rocco Papa also named it Madonna's fourth best and singled out the views of New York City. It came in the sixteenth and tenth positions of the rankings created by The Backlot and Rolling Stone, respectively; for the former, Louis Virtel said that "the urgency in her performance makes this video, as well as the climactic hug in the last second of the story". Sal Cinquemani, on a Billboard article enlisting Madonna's nine most controversial music videos, deemed it her "first bona-fide video controversy". At the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards, "Papa Don't Preach" won Best Female Video, and was nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Overall Performance.

Journalist Ellen Goodman referred to the video as a "commercial for teen-age pregnancy", and criticized it for "glamorizing" said subject; "[her] boyfriend is a hunky dreamboat with a conscience and moral compass, while her father is loving, supportive and even-tempered". Goodman argued that few pregnant teenagers would find a similar support from their boyfriends and families. "This happily-ever-after image has about as much to do with the reality of adolescent motherhood as Madonna's (shapely) figure has to do with pregnancy", the author concluded, and asked Madonna to "call off the propaganda". Fellow singer Cyndi Lauper said that "If you're a teen mother who wants to keep her baby [...] you're not going to look like Madonna [...] it ain't gonna be that easy. Fathers don't always come around to give you their blessing. The guy who knocked you up doesn't always hang around".

Georges-Claude Guilbert, author of Madonna as Postmodern Myth, said it was hard for him to believe that "[Madonna] did not know that she was going to cause a huge controversy [...] With such a song and video, she was throwing in America's face the image of a country ravaged by the abortion debate, which is far from being resolved". He viewed Madonna as "pro-choice"; "[she] deems that a woman (whatever her age) must choose whether to recur or not to abortion without paying attention to outside pressure. No representative of the feminist lobby or of the patriarchy will dictate her conduct". In the book The Fiction of America: Performance and the Cultural Imaginary in Literature and Film (2013), Susanne Hamscha argued that the clip oscillates between liberal and conservative ideology, private and public, feminism and patriarchy, and "female independence and the need for paternal approval"; Amy Robinson stated that the topic of abortion is "explicitly" addressed in terms of the "private/public dive", and noted how Madonna's character "glorifies parental consent".

Controversy
As the song's popularity increased in the United States, so did the criticism and support it received from groups concerned with pregnancy and abortion. Feminist lawyer Gloria Allred, the spokeswoman of the National Organization for Women (NOW), angrily called for Madonna to make a public statement or another record supporting the opposite point of view. Alfred Moran, the executive director of Planned Parenthood of New York City, also criticized the song, fearing that it would undermine efforts to promote birth control among teenagers and would encourage teenage pregnancy. Recalling how in 1985 his agency's clinics were filled with girls dressed in a style similar to Madonna's, Moran felt that the song's message was "getting pregnant is cool and having the baby is the right thing and a good thing and don't listen to your parents, the school, anybody who tells you otherwise—don't preach to me, Papa. The reality is that what Madonna is suggesting to teenagers is a path to permanent poverty". Similarly, social worker Kathie Peters added that "too many kids are getting pregnant. They don't know what they're getting into. I don't like the [song's] message". The singer herself discussed the song with music critic Stephen Holden: "Papa Don't Preach" is a message song that everyone is going to take the wrong way. Immediately they're going to say I am advising every young girl to go out and get pregnant. When I first heard the song, I thought it was silly. But then I thought, wait a minute, this song is really about a girl who is making a decision in her life. She has a very close relationship with her father and wants to maintain that closeness. To me it's a celebration of life. It says, 'I love you, father, and I love this man and this child that is growing inside me'. Of course, who knows how it will end? But at least it starts off positive. In contrast, groups opposed to abortion saw "Papa Don't Preach" as a positive, anti-abortion song. Susan Carpenter-McMillan, the president of the California chapter of Feminists for Life (FFL) in the US, said that "abortion is readily available on every street corner for young women. Now what Madonna is telling them is, hey, there's an alternative". Tipper Gore, a founder of the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), who had previously denounced Madonna for perceived sexual content in her single "Dress You Up" and had led a campaign against explicit content in music, applauded her for speaking candidly about a serious subject; "['Papa Don't Preach'] speaks to a serious subject with a sense of urgency and sensitivity in both the lyrics and Madonna's rendition. It also speaks to the fact that there's got to be more support and more communication in families about this problem, and anything that fosters that I applaud".

Composer Brian Elliot also weighed in: "I just wanted to make this girl in the song a sympathetic character. As a father myself, I'd want to be accessible to my children's problems". Danny Aiello, having appeared in the video as the titular "Papa", recorded "Papa Wants the Best for You" later that year, an answer song written by Artie Schroeck from the father's point of view; he even asked Madonna to participate in a music video for the song, but she turned the offer down. Madonna did not comment on the song's use as a pro-life statement; her publicist Liz Rosenberg said that "[she] is singing a song, not taking a stand [...] her philosophy is people can think what they want to think".

Live performances
"Papa Don't Preach" has been included on five of Madonna's concert tours: Who's That Girl (1987), Blond Ambition (1990), Re-Invention (2004), MDNA (2012), and Madame X (2019―2020). On the first one, she performed the song wearing a leather jacket over a 1950s blue dress; the screen in the background showed portraits of Pope John Paul II, then-president of the United States Ronald Reagan, the White House, and the phrase "Safe sex". Writing for the New York Times, Jon Pareles pointed out that, at certain point in the performance, Madonna tilted her chin up to resemble the cover photograph for True Blue. The Vatican publicly denounced Madonna and John Paul II urged fans to boycott the concerts in Italy. Two different performances can be found on the videos Who's That Girl: Live in Japan, filmed in Tokyo on June, and Ciao Italia: Live from Italy, filmed in Turin on September.

On the Blond Ambition World Tour, "Papa Don't Preach" was given a Catholic theme: the stage was set up to resemble a cathedral with votive candles, while Madonna wore black vestments and the dancers black kaftans; they waved their hands over their heads as Madonna sang and danced. Carlton Wilborn, one of the dancers, played a priest she interacted with. While reviewing the Houston concert, the staff of the Orlando Sentinel highlighted the number's "joyous gospel and heavy gothic organ scorings". Two different performances can be found in Blond Ambition Japan Tour 90, taped in Yokohama, and in Blond Ambition World Tour Live, taped in Nice.

For the song's performance on the Re-Invention World Tour, Madonna donned a plaid kilt and a black T-shirt that read "Kabbalists Do It Better" ― a nod to the one worn on the music video. The number, which included a Ring a Ring o' Roses circle dance, was praised for its "playfulness and innocence" by Newsday's Glenn Gamboa. An abbreviated "Papa Don't Preach" was included on the MDNA Tour; the performance had Madonna rolling on the floor before being "manhandled and bound" by dancers dressed as tribal warriors. Timothy Finn, for The Kansas City Star, noted it was the number that caused "the first big eruption" from the crowd. The performances of the song at the November 19–20 shows in Miami were recorded and released in Madonna's fourth live album, MDNA World Tour (2013). "Papa Don't Preach" was one of the songs performed during Madonna's visit to The Late Late Show with James Corden in December 2016. The singer again did a shortened rendition of the single on her Madame X Tour, where she changed the lyric "I'm keeping my baby" to "I'm not keeping my baby". Selena Fragassi, from the Chicago Sun-Times, applauded Madonna for turning the song into a "platform for pro-choice beliefs".

The opening string section of the song was looped during the performance of "Erotica" on her Celebration Tour (2023). The sample came in toward the end of the song, just as a Madonna doppelgänger appeared on stage, dancing atop the bed used during the "Like a Virgin" fantasy sequence on the Blond Ambition Tour. Madonna then performed a part of the song's original 1990 choreography alongside her doppelgänger, who was dressed in a replica corset, latex mask, and ponytail.

Kelly Osbourne
A pop-metal cover of "Papa Don't Preach" was recorded by Kelly Osbourne, and released on August 13, 2002; in April of that year, MTV reported that Osbourne had recorded a demo of the song per the suggestion of her mother Sharon. Produced by her brother Jack, it featured Incubus members Mike Einziger and Jose Pasillas on guitar and drums, respectively. Executives for The Osbournes, impressed with the demo, requested a studio version, set to be included on an upcoming soundtrack to the series. Osbourne then re-recorded the song without involving her brother, Einziger, or Pasillas; this version, described as being "more polished", was added to The Osbourne Family Album soundtrack. Afterwards, it was added as a hidden bonus track to Osbourne's debut album Shut Up. Explaining the cover, Osbourne said, "I love Madonna. Who doesn't?".

To promote the release, Osbourne shot a music video for the song in Los Angeles, which was directed by Marcos Siega; she then sang it live at the MTV Movie Awards, where her father introduced her to the audience. Critical reviews were generally mixed; Billboard's Chuck Arnold considered it an "aggressive post-punk anthem" that's "certainly good for three minutes of steering-wheel banging on the way to the market". NME's Peter Robinson, on the other hand, said it made "precisely zero sense", and criticized the presence of Incubus for making "the whole sorry mess barely distinguishable". Entertainment Weekly's Rob Brunner was also negative on his review, dismissing the cover as "unnecessary". Despite lukewarm reviews from critics, the single was commercially successful; it peaked at number three in the United Kingdom and Australia, where it was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) for having sold over 70,000 units. Furthermore, Osbourne's version reached the top 40 in Austria, Germany, Italy, and New Zealand, the top 20 in Sweden, and the top 10 in Ireland and Finland.

Other versions
In 1986, "Weird Al" Yankovic included the song in one of his polka medleys, "Polka Party!", taken from his album of the same name. In 2002, French–Dutch group Mad'House did a Eurodance take on the song, that was included on their album Absolutely Mad. One Year later, Picturehouse sang it for the first Even Better Than the Real Thing covers album. Renditions of the song on tribute albums include Brook Barros on The Music of Madonna (2005) and a jazz version on Bo. Da's  Plays Madonna in Jazz (2007). "Papa Don't Preach" was sampled at the beginning of Mario Winans' 2004 single "Never Really Was". In 2009, Quinn Fabray (Dianna Agron) sang the track on the eleventh episode of American television series Glee, "Hairography".

Track listing and formats

 * US 7" single
 * 1) "Papa Don't Preach" – 4:27
 * 2) "Pretender" – 4:28


 * UK 7" single
 * 1) "Papa Don't Preach" – 4:27
 * 2) "Ain't No Big Deal" – 4:12


 * Japan 7" single
 * 1) "Papa Don't Preach" (Radio Edit) – 3:47
 * 2) "Think of Me" – 4:54


 * International CD Video single
 * 1) "Papa Don't Preach" – 4:27
 * 2) "Papa Don't Preach" (Extended Remix) – 5:43
 * 3) "Pretender" – 4:28
 * 4) "Papa Don't Preach" (Video) – 5:00


 * US 12" Maxi-Single
 * 1) "Papa Don't Preach" (Extended Remix) – 5:43
 * 2) "Pretender" – 4:28


 * Germany / U.K. 12" limited edition
 * 1) A1."Papa Don't Preach" (Extended Version) – 5:45
 * 2) B1."Ain't No Big Deal" – 4:12
 * 3) B2."Papa Don't Preach" – 4:27


 * '''Germany / UK CD Maxi-Single (1995)
 * 1) "Papa Don't Preach" (Extended Version) – 5:45
 * 2) "Ain't No Big Deal" – 4:12
 * 3) "Papa Don't Preach" – 4:27


 * '''Digital Single (2024)
 * 1) "Papa Don't Preach" – 4:28
 * 2) "Ain't No Big Deal" – 4:13
 * 3) "Papa Don't Preach" (Extended Remix) – 5:42

Credits and personnel

 * Brian Elliot – Music and lyrics
 * Madonna – additional lyrics, producer, lead vocals
 * Stephen Bray – producer, keyboards, synth bass, drums, percussion
 * Reggie Lucas – producer of "Ain't No Big Deal"
 * David Williams – rhythm guitar
 * Bruce Gaitsch – electric guitar
 * John Putnam – acoustic guitar, electric guitar
 * Fred Zarr – additional keyboards
 * Jonathan Moffett – percussion
 * Billy Meyers – string arrangements
 * Siedah Garrett – background vocals
 * Edie Lehmann – background vocals
 * Herb Ritts – photography
 * Jeri McManus – design

Credits adapted from the True Blue album and the 12" single liner notes.