Written by Gardner Cole and Peter Rafelson, it was conceived as a rock and roll song titled "Follow Your Heart" for singer Cyndi Lauper, although it was never played for her.

She liked it and, alongside producer Patrick Leonard, turned it into a dance song, changed its title and re-wrote some of the lyrics, thus receiving a songwriting credit.

Directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino, the song's accompanying music video depicts Madonna as an exotic dancer at a peep show a little boy is trying to sneak into.

[1] Originally titled "Follow Your Heart", it was conceived as a rock and roll song with singer Cyndi Lauper in mind, although she never even got to hear it.

[3] Benett Freed, who was Cole's manager at the time, was working with Madonna's team and offered them a handful of songs for the singer's third studio album True Blue.

[3] Alongside her collaborator Patrick Leonard, the singer reworked the track; they added a bassline and changed it from a straightforward rock song to a "dizzy, driving dance-pop jam".

[1] Personnel working on "Open Your Heart" included Jonathan Moffett on drums, Paulinho da Costa on percussion, and David Williams on guitars.

[11] In the opening verse she sings, I see you on the street and you walk on by/You make me wanna hang my head down and cry, evoking a sense of "overwhelmed sadness" and portraying herself as a "victim of love", as noted by Tom Breihan, and authors Julia Pascal, Serena Sartori and Renata Coluccini.

[22][23][24] "Thrumming with an undercurrent of desire, ['Open Your Heart'] underscores [Madonna's] ability to sew snippets of innuendo so mischievously into the fabric of her work that you often don't realize the true aim of a song.

[26][27] While author Daryl Easlea hailed it a "fabulous, muscular, anthemic" track, Stewart Mason from AllMusic said it marked "one of [Madonna's] most exciting grooves" up to that point.

[7][4] Erika Wexler from Spin named it an "appealing 'I'm going to get you' song", with a "shimmering" production that "effectively creates the expansive feel of something magically opening".

[32] In this vein, Tom Breihan added that, "there's a straight line from the post-disco dance-pop of [her] early years to 'Open Your Heart', but the track is busier than those older songs".

[33] One negative review came from the Los Angeles Times, where Robert Hilburn dismissed "Open Your Heart" as "uneventful", and one of True Blue's "flat spots".

[37] On his ranking of Madonna singles, Entertainment Weekly's Chuck Arnold placed "Open Your Heart" in the thirteenth position, further writing: "As much as [she] may be known for her more titillating songs, she has also been capable of pure pop bliss.

[39] "Open Your Heart" was referred to as one of Madonna's "sparkliest imperial-period singles" by Jude Rogers from The Guardian, who also said it was the singer's eleventh greatest song.

[64] According to the Houston Chronicle' Bruce Westbrook, the clip takes influence from Liza Minnelli's "Mein Herr" number in Bob Fosse's Cabaret (1972).

[14] The peep show theme was Mondino's idea as, in his own words, "at the time, we were into a period where we were experimenting [with] some kind of freedom about the body, about sexuality and stuff".

[66] It begins with views of the strip joint's sign, which has the reproduction of a Tamara de Lempicka artwork showing three naked women―the central woman's nipples have been replaced with light bulbs.

[76] It received positive reviews from critics, with Matthew Rettenmund deeming it the singer's best up to that point, as well as the "first glimpse of how far [she] was willing to go to make cutting-edge artistic videos".

[77] From The New York Times, Vincent Canby described the video as "extraordinarily provocative [...] In a brisk, haikulike 4 minutes and 22 second, [it] presents Madonna as every adolescent boy's wildest, sweetest fantasy.

[78] It came in on the eleventh position of Idolator's ranking; Mike Neid applauded the choreography and wrote: "Exotic dancer Madonna befriends a young boy who attempts to get into her club.

[77] Academic Georges-Claude Guilbert, author of Madonna as Postmodern Myth, noted that feminist groups accused the singer of "setting back history", and reproached her for "promoting the return of bustiers and corsets".

[35][71][87] Rettenmund defended this scene, saying it was devoid of sexual connotations, and that Howard's character is actually admiring Madonna's, "coveting her feminine allure [...] the apparent glamour of [her] life".

[94][95] For the performance on the Blond Ambition World Tour, the singer wore the corset with conical-shaped cups designed by Jean Paul Gaultier, and did a choreography with a chair while a muscular dancer watched from afar.

[100] On the New Jersey and Las Vegas concerts of 2008's Sticky & Sweet Tour, Madonna did a capella renditions of "Open Your Heart" per the crowd's request.

[103] On February 5, 2012, Madonna sang snippets of "Open Your Heart" during the Super Bowl XLVI halftime show, where she was joined by a marching band, and singer Cee Lo Green.

[108] At the 56th Annual Grammy Awards on January 26, 2014, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis sang their song "Same Love" (2012) as Queen Latifah acted as the officiant for 33 couples who were getting married right there in the ceremony; then, Madonna emerged dressed in a white Ralph Lauren suit to sing "Open Your Heart".

[112] The number had Madonna and the dancers playing a game of musical chairs, as noted by The Washington Post's Chris Richards, who added that the rendition evoked a "rumination on the pursuit and retention of fame" rather than "puppy-love adrenaline".

[118] In April 2010, Cory Monteith and Lea Michele performed a mashup of "Open Your Heart" and "Borderline" (1984) in "The Power of Madonna", the fifteenth episode of American television series Glee.

[119] Finally, in February 2023, British singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor sang "Open Your Heart" on the BBC Radio 2 program Piano Room.