Lenny Kravitz: Why He Gave Up A #1 Song To Madonna "Justify My Love"

Lenny Kravitz: Why the rock n' roller gave up the number 1 song "Justify My Love"

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the sensual madonna song justify my love was one of her most controversial tracks with the video being banned on mtv while still becoming a number one hit song. But one thing people may not know about the track was that it was originally written by lenny kravitz and prince's protege ingrid chavez but how did it end up going from a lenny kravitz song to a madonna track? That's what we're going to discuss in today's video

Lenny Kravitz would tell yahoo entertainment that he'd written the song about a year or so after his debut record 1989's let love rule came out. It was during his tour to support his debut record that he met madonna in europe and the pair started to hang out in the continents club scene. He would tell yahoo i was working on some demos and justify my love came up and i loved it, but i knew it wasn't for me i thought it would be perfect for madonna so i called her and said i have a number one song for you and she said no you don't and i said yes i do, where are you i'll bring it over he said. It was during the same day they had the phone conversation that the pair met and kravitz played her the demo. The demo would feature Kravitz's moaning guide vocal which actually made the final version of the song if you want to hear something funny someone actually managed to isolate lenny's vocal track and you can hear the song with just lenny singing. Kravitz would play the tape for madonna in the studio with the musician remembering the whole room got really quiet and it ended and she said play it again, i pushed play played it again and she said let's record it and i think we started the next day he'd say. Kravitz would go on to state in many interviews that him and madonna never dated, but he was mum on the details of what went down in the recording studio revealing it was just the two of us and my engineers and it happened in one day it was very quick and there are details about the session that i cannot tell you but it was fun and very sensual just know that it was all very authentic he'd say. Not only would kravitz sing on the track but he would also be the song's producer. it's important to note that initially ingrid chavez was not credited on the song, which led him to file a lawsuit against kravitz and then the credits would be changed to include chavez as well. The track would appear on madonna's first greatest hits album the immaculate collection which was released in 1990. justify my love was the first single released from the record and would become madonna's ninth number one hit single on the billboard charts. The music video for the song was deemed too sexually explicit for mtv, which banned it. In turn madonna would premiere the video on the abc program nightline. Following the video's premiere madonna would appear on the program to discuss the video censorship responding to mtv's ban madonna claimed a double standard existed where videos featuring violence and degradation of women were frequently shown on mtv The video would eventually be shown on mtv2 almost a decade later in 2002 as part of a special countdown showing the most controversial videos ever to air on mtv. Mtv2 would only show the video late at night because of the suggestive content. Even where i live in canada our music channel much music did launch a new series in 1991 titled too much for much where they showed controversial videos followed by panel discussion in australia however the video was shown on the program rage. Madonna would end up releasing the video on vhs which in turn sold over 1 million copies making it the biggest selling video single of all time. The vhs sales combined with the single sales made the song certified quadruple platinum selling in excess of 4 million copies. People would line up outside tower records around the block just to buy a copy of the video. That does it for today's video guys thanks for watching be sure to like button and subscribe and we'll see you again on rock and roll to story. Take care.