Kravitz’s Quest Lenny Kravitz Rips Rock-Star Lifestyles, Looks To God For Answers On New Album
“Circus” by Lenny Kravitz (Virgin)
Talkin’ about a revolution? Well, in Lenny Kravitz’s new album, it’s a revolution of the spirit, not the streets.
He’s written a rock opera about seeking and finding God - a lofty concept that parallels his own inner quest and has led him to denounce the cliched rock-star lifestyle of drugs, groupies and other excesses.
“I’ve always spoken about God, but maybe not in as focused a piece of work as this,” Kravitz says of the album “Circus,” which came out Tuesday.
“God is something to look toward. We put so much of our faith in men - politicians, scholars and scientists. We should put our faith and trust in God, but we’ve turned so far away from our spirituality.
“This world is very temporary. We’re here one minute and gone the next. And we spend so little time thinking about God and what is out there.”
Kravitz backs up his quest with some of the best music of his career. His songs again reflect psychedelic influences from the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone and Led Zeppelin, teamed with gritty, in-your-face lyrics of the same candor as earlier albums “Let Love Rule” (1989), “Mama Said” (1991) and “Are You Gonna Go My Way” (1993).
Kravitz, the half-Bahamian, half-Jewish son of NBC producer Sy Kravitz and actress Roxie Roker (Helen on “The Jeffersons”), displays a naked intensity on the new album. The leadoff track, “Rock ‘n’ Roll is Dead,” takes shots at rock stars whose “coke spoons are overflowing” and who “can’t even sing or play an instrument/So you just scream instead.”
Says Kravitz: “It’s about the whole circus imagery, about the poseurs who have the image but don’t have the talent. … A lot of people go around with an imaginary rock ‘n’ roll handbook thinking, ‘Oh, I’ve got to take heroin or have my hair a certain way.’ When you ask them, ‘Are you all right?’ they say, ‘I’m living my rock ‘n’ roll life, leave me alone.”’
The album is no soap-sudsy reprise of “Jesus Christ Superstar.” There’s less allegory - and more bluntness in songs such as “Magdalene” (about a 17-year-old groupie who “wears her pants too low”) and the abrupt “Don’t Go and Put a Bullet in Your Head.” Many listeners have assumed it’s about the suicide of Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain, but Kravitz says no.
“I wrote it about a friend of mine who lives in Brooklyn,” Kravitz explains. “He hasn’t killed himself … but he’s very young and has pressures and a wife and has had a hard time finding work.”
Other songs suggest a God-is-the-answer approach. The song “God” notes that “He keeps getting you through the pain and sorrow.” The final song, “The Resurrection,” says, “He’s coming back to reclaim all our souls and set them free.”
This is bold stuff from Kravitz, who describes his own religious background as “very open: I grew up around Christians and Jews. … I don’t associate myself with any church or organization. I feel a lot of people have used the name of Christ in ways I don’t agree with. The Bible says, ‘We are the church.’ The church is not a building. It’s people.”