Soundtrack of Our Lives: Lenny Kravitz, Are You Gonna Go My Way?

We were all pretty well versed in the folklore about the yearly spring choir trip to New York:
"Dude, last year? Someone told me that JR packed an entire suitcase full of liquor—and no clothes!"
"Whoa, that's nuts."
"And I heard that LK was so wasted, she totally barfed all over JP! While they were making out on the ferry!"
"Yeah, well I heard that she got busted fucking him in the pool."
"Ew! Nasty!"
"I know, right? Also? I heard that CK, JS, and JW were passed out on the floor of their hotel room while HH and JK were doing it in the bed right above them!"
"Oh yeah! And something like, J woke up and puked on H!"
"That is disgusting."
"Totally disgusting."
"I can't wait to go."
"Me too!"

The trip was only open to juniors and seniors, and was, ostensibly, for us small-town kids to get some culture, though everyone knew the trip was really about getting drunk. So when our junior year of high school rolled around, we spent most of the winter planning for it: Whose suitcase is the biggest? Mine is. How many t-shirts does it take to keep the bottles from clinking? I dunno, three? Try three. Who is going to be responsible for bringing the vodka? Skatie will. Who'll remember the limes for the tequila? Oh—don't forget the knife to cut the limes. Ooh, right. I'll do it. Can someone buy some extra plastic cups? Laurel? Sure. Where should we get the Boone's Farm? The store in the projects never cards. And it's the only store with that apple kind that we like. Great idea! I'll go there after school on Thursday.

I don't remember too much about the bus ride, other than that it was long and that we were fucking sick of each other by the time we got to New York. But as soon as we stepped out of the bus into the loud, busy, smelly, florescent-lit street, we Ohio kids were too overwhelmed to do anything other than stare, slack-jawed, at the crush of people and the majesty that is Madison Square Garden. Of course, the seniors were trying to act all nonchalant about it since they'd been there the year before, but you could tell that even through all their posturing, and talk about sneaking out to clubs and getting fake IDs, they were pretty awestruck, too.

The first order of business was getting our rooms. Skatie and I roomed together and I recall that we were both dismayed at our room's condition. It smelled like mold, it definitely had roaches in the bathroom. Neither of us had ever seen a roach. We just knew from books and TV that New York had roaches and that was just the way it was. So we kept on all the lights (the roaches didn't seem to like that) and unpacked, locking our "valuables" in our suitcases so that housekeeping wouldn't steal them—something we'd also been told was just the way it was in New York.

Then we quickly set about working on the second order of business: Determining whose room we'd be getting drunk in. I don't remember whose room it ended up being; all I know is that it wasn't, thankfully ours. We lugged our dime-store vodka and cranberry-juice cocktail down the hall to the party room and proceeded to get wasted, always keeping an eye on the clock. Our choir director, having organized tons of these trips over the years, knew full well that there was nothing he could do to keep us from drinking. In fact, being quite a tippler himself, I think he thought it was perfectly acceptable, but he wanted us to be responsible drunks. The last thing he needed was to have one of us stumble out into the street and get plowed over by a taxi (something that happens in New York all the time!). So in the name of keeping the more overanxious parents at ease, he instructed the chaperons (also parents) to enforce a 10:00 PM curfew: We had to be in our rooms by 10:00 PM and they would place a strip of tape on the door once we were accounted for. If that tape ripped, regardless of how it got ripped, it was assumed that we'd broken curfew and we'd be reported to our parents—no matter what time it was, our parents would get a phone call.

While we were there, through various levels of sobriety, we did manage to take in some of that culture we'd heard New York was famous for. We went to see "The Phantom of the Opera" and got to go on stage. We took the ferry to Ellis Island and hung around the Statue of Liberty. We sang in a church in Spanish Harlem. We ate a spectacular meal in Chinatown and slices from a street vendor. We walked around Times Square. I only remember most of this because of the photos I took.

One afternoon, we had some free time and literally stumbled into a Tower Records. Everyone had been buying t-shirts and key chains to commemorate the trip, but I wanted something more substantive. I wanted to buy some music so I could say, "Oh this? I got it in New York." I ended up buying two things: a techno album by a band called, no joke, Digital Orgasm, and Lenny Kravitz's Are You Gonna Go My Way?. The Digital Orgasm album was beyond terrible, but I told myself that it was cool, it was New York. Are You Gonna Go My Way?, on the other hand, was awesome. People these days hate on Lenny, call him derivative, a low-rent Jimi Hendrix. This album was before the backlash and is definitely, I think, his best. Don't get me wrong, there are absolutely some turkeys on here—"Black Girl" and "My Love," especially—but the songs that are good? Like the title track, "Believe," and "Heaven Help"? Are fucking great. I couldn't wait to listen to it on my Walkman on the trip back. I grinned as I shoved my little piece of New York into my backpack.

Our last night in town, there were rumors floating around that the adults were going to go out to dinner and wouldn't be back until late. There were also rumors that the hotel bar didn't card. I'm sure you can guess what happened next. A hint: Only one of the rumors was true. All I know is that one minute, the bar is packed with kids, and the next, the only people left were me and this football player, who was completely hammered and cried to me for over an hour about how much he loved his girlfriend, CP, who was a good friend of mine. "She means so much to me. I love her." I was all, "Dude! She totally LOVES you." And he sniffled, "You think?" "TOTALLY." "I love her." "I know, man. I know." And we're having another screwdriver ("To true love!"), and I hear someone say, "There you guys are!" Busted.

Skatie tried to cover for me when they did room checks ("She's … uh… in the shower? ShhhSshhsshhhh! That's the water, can you hear it?), but they knew what was up. My choir teacher, true to his word, called my dad. My dad was more pissed about being woken up than he was about what I had done. That was bad enough, but the worst part was that there were already rumors starting that the football player and I had fooled around. I didn't care that I'd gotten in trouble; I cared that CP knew that nothing had happened. And when we were waiting in the lobby the next morning for the bus, the girls were giving me evil looks, and the guys were like, "How you doin'?" Everyone was whispering. My head was splitting and pounding and I felt awful. Really and truly awful.

I didn't talk to anyone on the drive home. Just listened to "Heaven Help," going over and over again in my head what I was going to say to CP, to my dad. And cried until I fell asleep on Skatie's shoulder.

Lenny Kravitz, Are You Gonna Go My Way?
Purchased at a Tower Records in New York City
Spring 1993