Songfacts®:

• This funk-pop sing-along was the second single from Madonna's fourth album, Like a Prayer. The first single was the title track, which went to #1 just about everywhere it was issued. "Express Yourself" was also a big hit but it got stuck at #2 in America, first behind Simply Red's cover of "If You Don't Know Me By Now" and then by "Toy Soldiers." It did top the charts in Canada, Italy, Japan and Switzerland, and became one of Madonna's live favorites.
• The song was written and produced by Stephen Bray and Madonna. Bray originally met Madonna during her pre-stardom when she attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor to study dance. The pair went to New York together and became part of the band The Breakfast Club. Madonna soon left but Bray continued as their drummer and in 1987 they had a hit with "Right On Track." When Madonna obtained her recording contract with Sire Records, she continued collaborating with Bray and they wrote some of the Material Girl's biggest hits of the 1980s including "Into the Groove" and "True Blue."
• The song is one of female empowerment, urging women never to "go for second-best." Madonna explained (as quoted in the book, Madonna 'talking': Madonna in Her Own Words): "The ultimate thing behind the song is that if you don't express yourself, if you don't say what you want, then you're not going to get it. And in effect you are chained down by your inability to say what you feel or go after what you want."
• The David Fincher-directed video was filmed in April 1989 at Culver Studios in Culver City, California. It was based on the Fritz Lang classic silent film, Metropolis, and the budget of $5 million made it the most expensive music video in history at the time. The promo regularly comes in the Top 10 of polls regarding the top music videos, and Slant Magazine ranked it at #1 on its list of "100 Greatest Music Videos." Just a few months after this video, Fincher directed Madonna's "Oh, Father."
• Lady Gaga was accused of ripping off this song on her 2011 #1 hit, "Born This Way." However, Gaga claimed to have received an email from Madonna, in which the Queen of Pop gave her support on behalf of the single.
• The song was performed on the Fox TV show Glee in the 2010 episode titled, The Power of Madonna. This version was released on the soundtrack album, Glee: The Music, The Power of Madonna.
• Fincher shot part of the video at a steam power plant in San Pedro, California - the same one used in Die Hard 2. Actor Gustav Vintas, known for his role in Lethal Weapon, played the factory owner, while Madonna plucked her onscreen lover, model Cameron Alborizian, from a Guess jeans ad.
• This was featured in a Pepsi commercial that aired during the 2016 Super Bowl between the Carolina Panthers and Denver Broncos. In the ad, Janelle Monáe is dancing to the '60s hit "Do You Love Me" before she is drawn to another room, where she is suddenly accessorized like '80s Madonna and this song is playing. She dances along, before leaving for another generation.
  
  Pepsi and Madonna have a long history: in 1989 the company signed her to a $5 million deal, only to drop her when her video for "Like A Prayer," proved scandalous. A generation later, it seemed all was forgotten as Pepsi tagged her to represent the era in their high-profile spot.
• In 1986, Jennifer Grey started dating her fellow actor Matthew Broderick after they met on the set of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. They went out together for over three years until she left Broderick for Johnny Depp. At the time, Grey was close friends with Madonna, and according to the Dirty Dancing actress, the Queen of Pop penned "Express Yourself" about her love life.
  
  "She told me she wrote 'Express Yourself' about me breaking up with Matthew," Grey recalled to People of the first time she heard the song. "She played it for me in her car. I was in my log cabin with Johnny and she said, 'Come into my car.' And I got in her Mercedes where she had a really good sound system and she was like, 'Listen to this song I just did. It's about you.'"
• This wasn't the first hit song to use the title. In 1970, the funk classic "Express Yourself" by Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band went to #12. N.W.A reworked that song in 1988 for their album Straight Outta Compton.