While developing the Like a Prayer album, Madonna was in an emotional state of mind due to her personal problems, which is reflected in "Oh Father".

"Oh Father" was performed only on the Blond Ambition World Tour in 1990, where Madonna portrayed a woman trying to find her religion and her battle for it.

"[3] Madonna eventually learned to take care of herself and her siblings, and she turned to her paternal grandmother in the hope of finding some solace and some form of her mother in her.

It was at this point that Madonna began to express unresolved feelings of anger towards her father that lasted for decades, and developed a rebellious attitude.

When Madonna started work on her fourth studio album, Like a Prayer, she was already in an emotional state of mind, following her split with then-husband, Sean Penn, her thirtieth birthday, and unfavorable reviews for her acting endeavors.

After this, drums, string arrangement and piano ushers on top of the violins, as Madonna sings the chorus line "You can't hurt me now, I got away from you, I never thought I would.

[12] Rooksby believed that the "psychobabble" phrases of feeling good about oneself in the song, would have made it extremely popular in the early Eighties.

He added that "Oh Father" was the most compassionate and generous moment in Madonna's musical career and the track might have inspired the exploration of childhood in the music of contemporary artists like Kate Bush and Tori Amos, in particular Bush's song "The Fog" from her 1989 studio album, The Sensual World, and Amos' "Winter" from the 1992 effort, Little Earthquakes.

[17] Author Leslie C. Dunn wrote in her book Embodied Voices, that the autobiographical nature of the song brought forth a new side of Madonna.

[20] Sharing the same view, Freya Jarman-Ivens, one of the authors of Madonna's Drowned Worlds, declared "Oh Father" as a powerful statement regarding father-daughter relationships.

[14] Lennox Samuels from The Dallas Morning News felt that the "great sense of being hurt that is present in 'Oh Father' is far more relatable than any other Madonna song.

[24] Alan Jones from Music Week said, "It's a complex piece, not her easiest to love, with constantly shifting tempo, pseudo-classical interludes and a strong vocal.

"[25] Stephen Holden from The New York Times wrote that the orchestration of the song was "grandiloquent", while describing Madonna's delivery of the lines as an "angry triumph".

[26] Stewart Mason from Allmusic shared Holden's opinion, and described "Oh Father" as "[Madonna's] finest ballad performance ever".

He added that the "upward modulation of the chorus, accompanied by some overdubbed self-harmonies that feature a very controlled and effective use of Madonna's highest register, is sheer brilliance, giving the song a steely resolve that removes any taint of self-pity from the verses.

"[27] Music journalist J. D. Considine, while reviewing Like a Prayer for Rolling Stone, believed that despite the song's "lush" string arrangement, some of the lyrics contain a disquieting degree of pain.

[30] Entertainment Weekly's Chuck Arnold wrote that "[Madonna] has done other songs that deal with her family issues, but rarely better than this"; he listed "Oh Father" as the singer's 40th best single.

[31] Jude Rogers from The Guardian placed the track at number 28 of her ranking of Madonna's singles, in honor of her 60th birthday, writing: "Lush strings and bassy pianos on this classy 1989 primal scream.

[32] In August 2018, Billboard picked it as the singer's 64th greatest single, writing that "['Oh Father'] not only set the tone for Madonna's more contemplative, downtempo decade to come, it also provided an early model for the piano-led power balladry of '90s singer-songwriters like Tori Amos and Jewel".

[34][35] The song became Madonna's first single since "Holiday" in 1984 not to enter the top ten in the United States, peaking at number 20 on the week of January 6, 1990.

[17] Described by Carol Clerk, author of Madonnastyle, as "harrowingly autobiographical", the video was shot entirely in black-and-white and recreates the death scene of a young woman, exploring the tempestuous relationship that ensues between the husband and the daughter she has left behind.

She is taken away from the graveyard by her father, as interspersed scenes show the girl being kissed by her mother, her trying to reach the knob of a door, and Madonna powdering the bruise mark on her face.

"Typical Fincher features are present: black and white, shadows, leisurely camera movement, extreme high angles, and some slow motion.

[52] Dunn noticed that like the Pepsi commercial shot for her earlier single "Like a Prayer", Madonna's persona is split into a child and adult, who repeatedly fuse and separate.

Described by her as one of the most troubling shots in mainstream music videos, the scene was inspired by Madonna's memory of her mother lying in her wake.

Madonna performed "Oh Father" on her 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour in a medley with "Live to Tell", during the second segment of the show.

[56] As the performance of "Like a Prayer" ended, Madonna, who was dressed in a clergyman's robe with a crucifix around her neck, and a veil around her head, knelt on a church nave, while incense fumes wafted around her.

The dancer, Carlton Wilborn, recalled that this performance required a lot of rehearsal time, since the dance portrayed Madonna as a woman trying to find her religion.

K. Ross Hoffman from Allmusic praised this version, saying that Sia's voice sounded throaty and it "recalled any number of tortured '90s alt-rock songstresses".

[62] Caryn Ganz of Rolling Stone said that Sia's cover "finds the sweetness in [the original song], brightening it into an airy, blippy closer.