The bombastic moment Lenny Kravitz wrote from the perspective of Jesus Christ
They say the devil has the best tunes, but whisper it: the man upstairs has a few bangers in his name as well. You’ll be pleased to hear we’re not even talking about capital C, Capital R Christian Rock here, either. Paramore, Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen and Sinéad O’Connor all wrote music heavily inspired by their faiths. Al Green is even an ordained pastor, so you can argue with ‘Here I Am, Come and Take Me’ all you want.
So far, so classy. However, not all music about the Good Lord is that sophisticated. In fact, one of the catchiest, rawest songs of the 1990s, with one of the sleaziest riffs this side of ‘Exile on Main Street‘, made by a man who was explicitly a throwback to the hard rock titans of the ’70s, was also a song about Jesus Christ himself.
Born in New York City, Lenny Kravitz relocated with his family to Los Angeles when he was around ten. Growing up in the nerve centre of rock ‘n’ roll turned his nascent musical talent from singing in the California Boys Choir with the Metropolitan Opera to getting stoned while listening to Black Sabbath. Only fitting for a young man whose classmate at Beverly Hills High School was literally Slash. When he did turn his hand to making music professionally as a young man, this was the era of music he sought to emulate.
Right from the off, Kravitz was a commercial force to be reckoned with. His debut record, Let Love Rule made a solid name for him, especially in Europe, and he secured a production job on the Madonna classic ‘Justify My Love’. His sophomore album, Mama Said, contained his first major hit at home, ‘It Ain’t Over ‘til it’s Over’, but it was his next album that would truly make him a star. Fittingly, through a single that came in a bolt of divine inspiration.
Kravitz and his band were in a rehearsal studio whipping the new songs into shape. The session was running long, and a new band was coming in to take their place, but a hook was going through Kravitz’s head. In an interview on his website, Kravitz said, “It was one of those songs that happened in five minutes. We were jamming. I thought there was something happening. I told Henry to turn the tape machines on, and we played it. And that was it.”
At the time, the song was little more than an Aerosmith-grade riff and a few chord changes, but Kravitz knew there was something there. In putting words and a tune to the riff, he took inspiration from the words tattooed on his back: “My Heart belongs to Jesus Christ.”
Speaking to Rolling Stone, Kravitz said, “It’s coming from the mouth of Jesus Christ, as I thought. So basically, ‘Are you gonna go my way?’ meaning ‘my way of love’.” It was music put together in a five-minute burst of inspiration and a lyric written in a night, and it turned into Kravitz’s most enduring hit in a career full of them.
So next time you’re putting some tunes together and run out of words that rhyme with Baphomet, try taking some inspiration from the light side. You might just end up with your defining track!
