Stand

This is the lead single from American recording artist Lenny Kravitz' ninth album, Black and White America. It was released on June 3, 2011.

Like many of Kravitz's tunes "Stand" has a psychedelic component to it. He told Gibson.com this hearkens back to his childhood. Kravitz explained: "I was a major hippie. I lived that as a child with my parents in New York City, and then I re-lived it as a young adult. Psychedelia touches a part of me that stems from childhood. You can actually hear a Partridge Family influence in a song like 'Stand.' People laugh at that stuff, but it was good music, with great melodies and great arrangements. Obviously, I mix it with funk, and other styles, but those things from childhood definitely have stayed with me. Psychedelia eventually morphed into glam – in the form of artists like KISS, and Bowie and T. Rex. I listened to all that music, as a kid. It all comes together in the form of quirky songs like 'Stand' or 'Rock Star City Life.'"

The music video was directed by Paul Hunter and finds Kravitz portraying three characters, gameshow host Bart Billingsworth, drummer Bubba Washington and singer Desmond Richie.

The song was written for a close friend of Kravitz' who was paralyzed from the waist down because of an accident. He explained to the Reading Eagle newspaper in an interview published in September 2011: "I wasn't in the country at the time with the person, and I wanted to give this person some positive words and something to just continue to listen to help motivate them. It was like, what could I do? And what I could do is just give some positive words." Happily, his friend subsequently recovered.