TAPE Me Back To The Future — MADE For Tape # 2: Lenny Kravitz, “Are You Gonna Go My Way” (1993)

An occasional series here that celebrates the cassette-tape format in all its glory. Wobbles and all…

Lenny Kravitz, Are You Gonna Go My Way (1993)

This was right near the end of my initial run buying cassette tapes. I mostly had “old” music, 70s and 60s things, some 50s rock ‘n’ roll and a fair bit of 80s too — but the grunge era had me buying tapes by Pearl Jam and Nirvana and Soundgarden and Mudhoney also. And I had starting buying things like Smashing Pumpkins and Rage Against The Machine on CD, so it was the hybrid years. One of the last I can remember buying as an exclusive tape buyer was Lenny Kravitz’ third album. I also had the one before this on tape (Mama Said) and I loved that — and still do.

I’d get back to his debut, as well, and I still think his first four albums are an amazing run, even if the fourth is a little too Led Zeppy; Are You Gonna Go My Way though, that’s the one that really broke him huge. And it’s still pretty easy to see why. That opening title track guns it for the door straight off, with its urgent riff, but to me — and maybe this is crazy — it’s damn near one of the weakest songs on the album. Okay, okay, there’s some filler here and there (the couple of slight reggae twists don’t really do it for me, with the final track feeling like a real dud). But Believe, Heaven Help, Just Be A Woman, Is There Any Love In Your Heart, My Love, and Sister — more than half the album right there. That stuff is all gold. And you’ve got Prince, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix and Todd Rundgren all rolled into one.

Lenny was easy to hate after a while, impossibly good looking and stylish and cool, and very soon he started to recycle his own already recycled riffs.

Eventually I would wonder what the fuck had happened to him eh…

But in the days of Are You Gonna Go My Way, I was still in school, I had my first proper girlfriend (kinda). She was older than me, and wanted more from me than I knew how to give. So she went and found that elsewhere pretty quickly. And Are You Gonna Go My Way became my first heartbreak/breakup album. So, yeah, there’s that too.

But even before that, when, lol, “Life Was GOOD!”, I was hooked on listening to this album — in the cassette deck of my 1977 iridescent blue, faded but somehow still shiny, paint-scratched tank of a friggin’ Volvo. Damn, that car was cool. It had over 200,000ks on the clock when I got it. My dad kinda just gifted it to me because he couldn’t sell it else-ways (he was a dealer) and he needed something bulletproof to put me in as I was doing a lot of solo driving over to Napier from Havelock North to play hockey and sometimes even play hooky — seeing this lady friend before she got super bored super quick.

Actually, it occurs to me now, the tape was hers. To begin with. And she gave it to me. Or left it with me. I dunno. But like that matters.

What matters is Lenny Kravitz was hot as shit in 1993, and right through until about 1998. I couldn’t handle his goofball American Woman cover or that song about Fly Away, even if the bass-line really did pop (pun intended).

And after that things got weaker, and I just simply forgot about him.

Until his brand new album arrived — and sounded as good as he had in the early 90s. And that set me off listening to Are You Gonna Go My Way again, more than I had in almost forever.

I have it on CD, which I’m very happy with — because why not. But finding it on cassette tape recently just felt like it was meant to be. Just looking at the cover brings back all those car-rides belting out Is There Any Love In Your Heart, and the one time I all but shouted it in rage, nearly crying, after I won the championship hockey game for our team — the first time ever! — only to look up and see my girlfriend, um, being someone else’s girlfriend right in front of me.

This was my Beverly Hills 90210 moment. Except I could not slap the side of my convertible as I kicked up some dust and spiralled out of there. I had to get into my iridescent blue, faded but somehow still shiny, paint-scratched tank of a friggin’ Volvo instead. And just slap at that steering wheel with mild anger and major confusion. The tape-deck cranked.

The wah solo of Sister always got me. Yeah-yeah, it was Craig Ross and not Lenny, but it was beautiful. Just dribbling out of him like a cliche, but also like something Frank Zappa might have instructed from Steve Vai or one of the other guys. So it worked. It really meant something.

Lenny played a lot of drums on the album — as he often did (or does?) and man I love his playing. He had Cindy Blackman (now Cindy Blackman Santana) doing the deed live, and sometimes on wax too. And she was fire. But I really love Lenny’s playing. He’s like a funkier, gruntier Paul McCartney in that way.

There’s a lot of love in my heart for this album, and for many reasons. It taught me a lot about listening to music as the way of channeling your feelings and frustration. I’d type up the early poems at night with this on in my room. I had my cup of filtered coffee, but not yet the cigarettes or weed or booze or any of those dumb things…

I still get a lump in my throat when I listen to Heaven Help. Every damn time.