Madonna Sang An Elliott Smith Song To Protest The Prison System

She performed "Between the Bars" after being dragged into the room by men dressed like prison guards at the launch party for her SecretProjectRevolution project. She somehow made the song even more sad, which isn't easy.

Here's an audience-shot video of Madonna's performance at a launch event for SecretProjectRevolution at the Gagosian Gallery in New York City.

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SecretProjectRevolution is a 17-minute film she co-directed with Steven Klein, and it's part of her larger Art for Freedom project in collaboration with Vice and BitTorrent.

Here's how the project is described on Madonna's official site:

"My goal is to show by the example of secretprojectrevolution my creative commitment to inspire change in the world through artistic expression. I hope my film and other submissions to Art For Freedom will be a call-to-action and give people a place to voice their own creative expression to help fight oppression, intolerance and complacency," commented Madonna.

Art For Freedom is a global digital initiative, led by Madonna, designed to fuel free speech - to respond, address and protest persecution around the world. It is an online public art project encouraging the world to express their personal meaning of freedom and revolution, in the form of video, music, poetry, and photography. Public submissions will become part of the Art For Freedom platform: contributors can join the project by uploading original artwork or tagging original posts #artforfreedom.

Here's the original version of "Between the Bars" by Elliott Smith, if you're not familiar.

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HT Pitchfork and Radio.com