Lenny Kravitz – Believe

May 1993: second single from Are You Gonna Go My Way, Gondry homage later

Believe is the second single from Lenny Kravitz’s 1993 album Are You Gonna Go My Way, released 10 May 1993 on Virgin. Kravitz wrote it with longtime engineer Henry Hirsch and produced it himself. The album recording runs near five minutes. The pace is moderate. Several vocal lines sit on top of each other. The guitar has a sharp edge. The chorus repeats the title until it works as a repeated line rather than a slogan.

The title track had asked a crowd to follow. Believe turns inward. The line is “if you want it, you got to believe”. The arrangement leaves space for that line to land between guitar figures. Michel Gondry’s later video homage, and the song’s life in Kravitz setlists, kept the track visible after its 1993 chart week. The record did not depend on the clip to stay in the show.

The vocal lines are the part to hear. Kravitz builds a choir out of his own voice and keeps the rough edge. On record and in arenas years later, the repeated title still sits in that space Hirsch and Kravitz left around it. As the album’s second single, it showed the 1993 campaign had more than one riff. The pace is slower than the title track. The band is the same.

Heard one after the other, the album’s two singles are plain. One asks if you will go. The other repeats what he says it takes: if you want it, you got to believe. The title track sprints. Believe walks. Virgin released this one on 10 May 1993, with Hirsch on the writing credit beside Kravitz.