Madonna - Justify My Love - Lenny Kravits backing vocals only

Sometimes an exclusion of one of the central elements of the song may result in its drastic transformation. To the point the song turns itself inside out and becomes something else - something more creative.

Such is the case with Madonna's "Justify My Love".



The original version of Justify My Love bears a distinction of Madonna trying out new things with mixed results. She teamed with Lenny Kravitz who definitely did not lifted the drumbeat from Public Enemy and definitely did not borrowed the rest of the song from Ingrid Chavez. One of the most distinct features of the song was that Madonna did that annoying whisper sprachtgesang also known as "breathy spoken passages" filled with pretentious thoughts about love, passion, sex, dedication, devotion and so on. The delivery is fine, but the content is so banal and narrow-minded - it brings the song down.  

This particular version makes one crucial change that throws the song off the cliff into the realm of outside. It excludes Madonna's vocals and pushes to the foreground Lenny Kravitz' unfiltered backing vocals. Simple, yet effective change that flips the balance of the song and drastically improves it.

Now it is as if Jandek embraced his Daniel Johnston side while channeling the hallowed wholesomeness of DNA and Half Japanese. Also, in this form, Justify My Love is probably the second best thing Lenny Kravitz ever was a part of. (First will always be Neil Cicierega's Fly Away Lyrics, you just can't top that one).

It is fascinating how much difference such change can make. The exclusion of lead vocals turns the song from a pseudo trip hop wannabe steaming sensual sex jam into a sloppy, clumsy, awkward, lame outsider pop song. What is interesting is that it is not detrimental to the listening experience. By leaving the central part, the vocals, the song somehow just recalibrates itself and stays more or less intact. It is mostly the same and yet it is a completely different song.

Instead of a song that tries too hard for its own good, there is a song that just can't really express what it is trying to say. The author just lacks the verbal instruments of expression to make it not even comprehensible but plain eligible. But he persistently tries to do something with what's he's got in hopes that it will eventually work out.

That creates an intrigue. On the one hand, you know what this song is about, you are familiar with the original version. On the other hand, because of the lead vocals missing, the narrative changes. You don't have that gently crass stream of consciousness monologue ploughing through your ears - you have a man indistinctly mumbling, moaning over the steady backbeat and carcass of melody.

This way the song is basically a musical recreation of unintelligible, unknowable "screaming into the void". It is pointless in of itself but it is distinct in its pointlessness. You just need to experience that thing through and through and probably contemplate about it for a moment or so.