{"id":375792,"date":"2025-12-29T11:53:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T11:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/375792\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T11:53:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T11:53:08","slug":"are-you-gonna-go-my-way-by-lenny-kravitz-the-story-behind-the-song-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/375792\/","title":{"rendered":"Are You Gonna Go My Way by Lenny Kravitz: The Story Behind The Song"},"content":{"rendered":"

Best of 2025: Another archive story, this piece on the making of the Lenny Kravitz hit Are You Gonna Go My Way had over 400,000 readers this year. <\/p>\n

On a late night in New York City more than three decades ago, all that stood between Lenny Kravitz<\/a> and superstardom was a lack of stationery.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 1992, I lived in a loft on Broome and Mercer,\u201d he recalls. \u201cA bunch of musicians lived there, so it was kind of a mess, and I never had a proper pad and paper. So I\u2019m listening to this track we\u2019d cut that morning, that I\u2019d brought home on a cassette, and I had no idea what I was gonna sing over it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s late,\u201d he continues, \u201cand I\u2019m probably stoned at the time as well, when all of a sudden I hear the song \u2013 I can hear the melody, I hear the words. But I cannot find a piece of paper to save my life!<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

“So I\u2019m running around the kitchen, with the boom-box playing on the counter, and I see a paper bag that someone\u2019s brought Chinese food home in. I ripped open the bag, flattened it, and found an old pen to scribble down the words. And the words all just came out in one go. I still have that paper bag somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

So there it was: Are You Gonna Go My Way. Alongside the scribbled lyrics that came on like a messianic manifesto (\u2018I have come to save the day\/And I won\u2019t leave until I\u2019m done\u2026\u2019) was God\u2019s own guitar riff, which had rolled off the fingers of sideman Craig Ross at New Jersey\u2019s Waterfront Studios earlier that day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were jamming when all of a sudden, this thing just happened,\u201d Kravitz explains. \u201cWe didn\u2019t know what it was gonna be for, but it felt really good. We whipped it out in one take, as we normally did, and I was left with this cassette. It was just a great riff.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the rock scene in thrall to grunge, and singer\/multi-instrumentalist Kravitz still looking like a bigger star than he was, he didn\u2019t expect the mainstream to go his way.<\/p>\n

Sign up below to get the latest from Classic Rock, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d had two albums, and a big hit with It Ain\u2019t Over \u2019Til It\u2019s Over, but even when I was making Mama Said I was still taking the train to the studio,\u201d he admits. \u201cThe funny thing about Are You Gonna Go My Way is that when we did it I had absolutely no idea it would be a hit. Sometimes you record something and you have a feeling. With that one we didn\u2019t. Compared to what was on the radio at that time, the sound, the recording, the rawness\u2026 it was quite quirky, y\u2019know?\u201d<\/p>\n

Lenny Kravitz – Are You Gonna Go My Way (Official Music Video) – YouTube
\n\"Lenny<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

For all that, Kravitz\u2019s vocal hardly lacks ambition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m singing lines like \u2018I was born long ago\u2019 and \u2018I am the chosen, I\u2019m the one\u2019, but obviously it\u2019s not about me,\u201d he clarifies. \u201cIt\u2019s about Christ, and it\u2019s coming from that Jesus Christ Superstar kind of place. I\u2019m singing in role, y\u2019know, as if it was a musical, and the question means: are you gonna go the way of love?<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

“Let\u2019s think about what Christ really said. His methods were all about love. So the question is, are you gonna continue to live in this way, full of hate, or are you gonna live in the way of love? Are you gonna go my way?\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, lines that called on planet Earth\u2019s inhabitants to \u2018hug and rub-a-dub\u2019 seemed like sentiments beamed from the Summer of Love, hopelessly adrift in the hard-nosed decade of grunge and Britrock.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I came out with Let Love Rule [\u201989],\u201d counters Kravitz, \u201cI was always called idealistic. Y\u2019know: \u2018This guy is always singing about love, peace, spirituality and equality.\u2019 But they are pretty great ideals.\u201d<\/p>\n

In terms of sentiment, Are You Gonna Go My Way is undoubtedly Kravitz\u2019s baby. Back in 2009, however, I interviewed the aforementioned Craig Ross, and was surprised to learn that the sideman not only co-wrote and played all the whip-cracking guitar parts on the track, but also finds it frustrating that the stinging solo is widely assumed to be Kravitz (a myth perhaps perpetuated by the singer\u2019s habit of talking up his multi-instrumentalist skills to interviewers).<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m proud of what I\u2019ve done,\u201d Ross said in that interview, \u201cand I know I\u2019ve done it. But it does get frustrating that I\u2019m not as \u2018known\u2019 as other people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lenny Kravitz – Are You Gonna Go My Way (Radio 2 Live in Hyde Park) – YouTube
\n\"Lenny<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, I believe that Craig is a genius and doesn\u2019t get the credit he deserves,\u201d Kravitz agrees. \u201cIt all depends on how I cut a song. If I play all the instruments on a song, I\u2019ll start with the drums and I\u2019ll build it up. But the way we were feeling Are You Gonna Go My Way is that I wanted the guitars and drums tracked at the same time, so I played drums, Craig played guitar and Tony Breit played bass. So it was one of the tracks where I had musicians. And it was beautiful: you get that rub, and you get the microphone leakage. It created that sound.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1993 it was everywhere. A chart-topper in the US, Are You Gonna Go My Way hit No.4 in the UK, boosted by a dreadlock-shaking video that ensured the star would never take public transport again.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople were already starting to recognise me, and it was getting hectic,\u201d he recalls. \u201cThen Are You Gonna Go My Way came out and changed everything. After that it was never the same. I had to adjust my life.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it was a great moment. That song has definitely become a classic. I hear it played all over the world. I hear it in nightclubs, even when they\u2019re playing dance music; sometimes they mix it in and it seems to cross so many genres. The video, by Mark Romanek, helped a lot. It kinda showed you could dance to it, and it actually had a swing.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that was the 90s. Does the public have the stomach for such dippy idealism in the age of terrorism and economic meltdown? Kravitz insists these factors only make his message louder and clearer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs the sentiment of Are You Gonna Go My Way still relevant today?\u201d he muses. \u201cThe world we live in right now is so challenging, and it\u2019s really sad where we\u2019ve gone as human beings \u2013 how we treat each other and the world. So I think it\u2019s even more relevant now. I\u2019d never drop it from the set. It wouldn\u2019t feel complete. That song live is just so beautiful, and it\u2019s one that I\u2019ll always play.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Best of 2025: Another archive story, this piece on the making of the Lenny Kravitz hit Are You…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":{"0":"post-375792","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}