Madonna was gifted a few immaculate presents the fall of 1990, beginning with a huge one from Lenny Kravitz.

The sultry guitar player released his debut album, Let Love Rule in 1989 to fairly decent success despite being embraced by college radio and not Top 40 stations.

While in New York working on some demos he was inspired by a love poem written by Prince protégé Ingrid Chavez.

Kravitz and Chavez were rumored to be having an affair and he was able to turn the steamy words into the smoking hot "Justify My Love."

He knew was a good song, but not something he could see himself singing.

“It was super-sexy and hard at the same time," he wrote in his 2020 memoir. "I just felt it. I just knew that there was something very special about the track and the minimum quality, because it was so minimal."

A long time fan of Madonna, who was also in NYC, he told her he had a gift for her.

"I called her and I said, ‘I have a #1 song for you.’ And she said, ‘No, you don't.’ And I said, ‘Yes, I do. … Where are you? I'll bring it over,’” he wrote. Later that day they were making beautiful music together.

“She said, ‘Put it in. Go ahead.’ And I put it in the cassette deck, turned the console up to 10, and out it came,” Kravitz wrote. “And the whole room got really quiet. And it ended and she said, ‘Play it again.’ I pushed play, played it again, and she said, ‘Let's record it.’"

The Material Girl had compiled her first greatest hits album, The Immaculate Collection, and was nearly finished with it but was interested in a few new songs to draw attention to it. Kravitz' gift was perfect to add to the 15 hits and other unreleased track, "Rescue Me."

The video for "Justify My Love" was shot, edited, and released quickly to coincide with the November release of the album. At that time in the 1990s, greatest hits collections were all the rage because millions of people were buying CD players and instead of replacing the original studio LPs with $11 CDs, they were more than happy to buy the new greatest hits or box set on disc.

When director Jean-Baptiste Mondino completed the video, it was sent directly to MTV who had fully embraced Madonna since her first album, and hand-in-hand the two helped make each other household names.

And that's when they gave her the second huge gift of 1990. They banned the video which piqued the curiosity of her millions of fans, and millions others who were curious what on God's green earth could have crossed the line of the music station which seemed perfectly ok through the 1980s of showing leather, lace, lingerie, heaving bosoms, and David Lee Roth in chaps.

Wisely Sire/Warner Bros. knew the video was suggestive but not obscene so they were able to sell it as-is for $9.99 at record and video stores. The video became the first million-seller and the CD went to #1.

In December Madonna went on the late night ABC News program where they showed the video and then had a 15-minute interview with Madonna who explained MTV's issue with it.

“When we gave [the video] to MTV, we asked them if they would play it,” she told host Forrest Sawyer

“They came back a while later and they said ‘No.’ I said, ‘Is there one scene or another that you specifically object to?’ and they said, ‘No, it’s the whole tone,’ so we didn’t really even have a chance to try to make it viewable. They rejected it completely,” Madonna explained.

Despite being a smash hit, Madonna has only performed it 120 times, making it just #33 on her most-played tunes.

During her most recent excursion, The Celebration Tour, it was in every one of the 81 sets she played.

Madonna is relaxing after wrapping up her tour.

Lenny Kravitz, though, is out on the road in South America through the middle of December. Then he pops up in Mexico for a night and wraps up 2024 on December 14. Get your tickets on Lenny's website.