Lyrics

When I was very young

Nothing really mattered to me

But making myself happy

I was the only one

Now that I am grown

Everything's changed

I'll never be the same

Because of you

Nothing really matters

Love is all we need

Everything I give you

All comes back to me

Looking at my life

It's very clear to me

I lived so selfishly

I was the only one

I realize

That nobody wins

Something is ending

And something begins

Nothing really matters

Love is all we need

Everything I give you

All comes back to

Nothing really matters

Love is all we need

Everything I give you

All comes back to me

Nothing takes the past away

Like the future

Nothing makes the darkness go

Like the light

You're shelter from the storm

Give me comfort in your arms

Nothing really matters

Love is all we need

Everything I give you

All comes back to me

Nothing really matters

Love is all we need

Everything I give you

All comes back to me

Nothing really matters

Love is all we need

Credits

Written by Madonna and Patrick Leonard

Produced by Madonna, William Orbit and Marius De Vries

Background vocals by Donna DeLory and Niki Haris

Additional drum programming by Steve Sidelnyk

Album

 Ray Of Light

Single

The fifth and last single of the album was Nothing Really Matters. This dance song describes how the birth of Lola makes all the rest in Madonna's life less important. Released in the spring of 1999, a full year after the album came out, the single didn't chart too well. In the US it didn't go higher than #93, making it her lowest chart position on the Hot 100 ever. The highest position in the UK and Canada was respectively #7 and #6. Madonna opened the 1999 Grammy Awards with this single in a set reminiscent of the video. Later that night, she went on to win four trophies.

Video

This video, directed by Johan Renck, must be the most mysterious video since Bedtime Story. Madonna plays a Geisha - inspired by Arthur C. Golden's book 'Memoirs of a Geisha' - in a red kimono and a black Cleopatra-wig. The other creatures in the video seem to be her followers. First they all treasure false forms of love, represented by the bags of water. But that's not what really matters. Slowly they get the insight, symbolized with the people rising in the air. Madonna herself is walking and dancing through a long corridor. She has left the typical Ray Of Light-dance moves and now does a mystical Geisha-choreography.

Tour

On the Drowned World Tour there was an entire Geisha-part which resembled a lot the style used in the Nothing Really Matters-video. Strangely, Nothing Really Matters itself wasn't included as a song.