can anyone explain to me why lenny kravitz decided to cover american woman?
did he listen to the lyrics? or just want to do it because 'american' was in the title?
and how come when a canadian band came out with it, they were banned from playing in the states, and yet when an american sings it, its patriotic??
i dont get it.

When were they banned from playing it in the States?

I think you may be thinking of when The Guess Who was invited to play at Julie Nixon's wedding, under the condition that they not play "American Woman." They of course told Miss Nixon to take a hike. Other than that, the US Government does not ban songs from being played here.

Lenny Kravitz's version of the song never struck me as patriotic, but maybe I missed something along the way.

This site discusses why Kravitz recorded American Woman:

http://www.livedaily.citysearch.com/news/1921.html

As for why it would be considered patriotic... Maybe because it features a flag in the video?
The lyrics don't sound patriotic to me. In fact, they sound like a political statement The Guess Who was trying to make.

I never heard of the song being banned. It was a huge hit for The Guess Who in 1970.
And I saw them perform it live in 1974 and in 1999.

well i know at least once their show was canceled.
my mom and dad had tickets to go see them while visiting friends(i think in wisconson... i could be wrong there though). when the got there they were told the concert was canceled. (it was in some larger club). they asked why, and were told that the owners werent going to allow amerian bashers to play there.
i guess it was just the one place.
and i think that a lot of radio stations at the time didnt really want to play it when it first came out, but again i could be wrong about that.
i wasnt even being thought of being born at the time.

At the recent Toronto concert the lead singer Burton Cummings sounds like he is saying
Goodbye America instead of Goodbye American Woman

Yeah I thought it was interesting that Lenny gets a Grammy while the original artists who played a better version didn't. That sort of reminds me of the '84 Olympic Games In Los Angeles in a way. The L.A.Times ran 10-12 pages all about American athletes and the rest of the competing countries got a very small mention at the back..oh well but that seems to be the norm for american news media-If its not American what good is it?

I didn't realize anyone considered it patriotic, but in a world where some people think R.E.M.'s "The One I Love" is a love song, and Springsteen's "Born in the USA" is an Independence Day staple, anything's possible.