Let Love Rule - Lenny Kravitz Page 0,75

born, put her back on The Cosby Show. But from then on, her relationship with Bill was tense and ultimately untenable.

* * *

We moved from the gingerbread house to an American Craftsman home in Venice on Milwood Avenue with two big artist studios in the back, one of which became my music space. It was a house of love and creativity.

Lisa’s pregnancy was a precious time. She was glowing with life and growing in spirit. Adding to the excitement were the songs growing inside my soul. Some of them were attached to stories. And some of those stories, as in the song “Rosemary,” Lisa and I wrote together.

“Rosemary” tells the tale of a five-year-old girl abandoned to a world of heartache and pain. Unlike our unborn child, this child had no one, just “a burning heart and tired eyes, howling winds for lullabies.” I saw Rosemary; I felt her; and I felt the need to console her spirit. I imagined her heart turning to gold because “there’s eternal life for every soul.”

* * *

My spiritual path had led to this moment. Grandma Bessie’s faith; Grandpa Albert’s devotion to the great teachers; my mother’s kindness and compassion for all; the living presence of Christ that I’d experienced at choir camp; the passion of all the churches I’d attended; Dr. Scimonetti’s lessons on forgiveness and grace; Lisa’s loving heart—all of it coalesced. All of it took root in my music.

At long last, I’d started to hear songs rooted in spirit, songs that were taking form just as our daughter was taking form—a double blessing. The songs were different from anything I’d written before simply because the life we were living and the love we were creating had made me different. This was what I’d been waiting for. The wait was finally over. The channel was open. It all made sense.

Now I knew why I’d turned down all those deals. Yes, I had been part of great bands and blessed to have worked with brilliant musicians, but deep down, I knew something was missing. Before, I had tried my best to write. Now I wasn’t even trying. The songs just came pouring out.

One song asked, “Does Anybody Out There Even Care?” Another, reflecting on the life that Lisa and I were leading, said, “I Build This Garden for Us”—a garden without war or racial prejudice, a place where “We’ll be so happy, / Our little family, / So full of love and trust.”

I took Lisa’s poem “Fear,” about ecological devastation in a loveless society, and gave it a melody. In the past, I’d searched for the songs. But now the songs—“Be,” “Freedom Train,” “My Precious Love”—were appearing fully formed. These songs had found me.

My poetic imagination widened. In “Blues for Sister Someone,” for example, I was envisioning characters and profiling them in song. The most vivid profile was the one I wrote of Lisa. I called it “Flower Child”:

Dressed in purple velvets

With a flower in her hair

Feel her gentle spirit

As the champa fills the air

… She’s a psychedelic princess

On a magic carpet ride

And where her trip will carry you

Is somewhere you can’t find

She’s on a plane of higher consciousness

Meditation is the key

She’s got her shit together

Cause her soul and mind are free

As a writer, I finally felt free of a process that had held me back for years, forcing songs. That struggle had ended.

* * *

With songs swirling through my head, I flew to New York with Lisa, who was back on The Cosby Show. Bill did his best to hide her pregnancy by having her stand behind big chairs and kitchen counters. She and I stayed at 450 Broome Street, just off Mercer. The place was owned by photographer and conceptual artist Lee Jaffe, who had befriended Bob Marley and made music with the reggae master. Lee became a buddy and played harmonica on two tracks on my new record.

It was on the wall next to the elevator of that loft that I wrote in black Magic Marker, just because the words floated into mind, “Let love rule.” I looked at that wall for weeks before I borrowed Lee’s guitar to turn those three words into a song.

ON THE WATERFRONT

Writing songs is one thing, and recording them is another. I still had to deal with the studio. I’d spent over a decade in studios with countless musicians and engineers. Now I needed an engineer who understood my sonic vision.

I turned to the man in Hoboken. When I started working with Raf and