The story behind Free Me

Free Me is a collaboration with my younger self.

I wrote the original version of Free Me around 2007 when I had my band Mercury Crossing. The song was… ok. There were parts of it I liked, but the structure was weird, and the chorus wasn’t great. I was listening to an old recording of it, and between cringing at my execution, I had this urge to rework the song and turn it into something I was (hopefully!) proud of.

I kept the melody for the verses, along with the lyrics for first verse:

I’ve been thinking a lot today
it hasn’t got me anywhere
it hasn’t got me anything

I’m driving around in circles again
debating with myself
what the hell do I want?

This verse still resonated with me. The overthinking, the going in circles, the ongoing difficulty I have with being totally honest with myself about what I want. So I kept it and started taking a hard look at the pre-chorus and chorus, where things got a little squishy. 

Here are the original lyrics I wrote when I was 21...

Pre-Chorus

I run around, dreaming of
different versions of myself
I think about the future so much
It’s like I don’t even exist

Chorus

In the light I’ve got the hope of a child
who still believes in love and dreams
In the night I’ve got the fire of a soul
whose gone through more than it can hold
let it go, let me go

Conceptually, I don’t hate these lyrics. But the melody wasn’t super compelling and it was all a bit overwrought with unnecessary complexity. I ditched the pre-chorus and totally redid the chorus with new chords, new melody, new lyrics:

New Chorus

Free me from what I can’t control
Free me let me let go
Free me from falling far below
Find a way to stop the sinking, sinking, sinking, sinking….

…free me…

I kept the “Free me…” post chorus because it was my favorite part of the original song and the only reason I came back to it!

I really like this idea of collaborating with different versions of yourself. I often joke when I’m organizing something or making a healthy choice that “I’m trying to help future me” or “future me is going to love this” or when something comes to fruition because of past planning I will say, “thanks, past me!” I wanted to take it a step further and actually collaborate with old work and turn it into something I’m proud of today. (At least for now, we’ll see what future me has to say about it!)

Now Free Me is less about the angst about the future, and more about letting go and taking the things that matter most – that fill me up – into the next chapter. You can’t hold onto everything at once.

Verse 2, written by present-day me:

I’m standing on the centerline
What should I take with me?
What should I leave behind?

Sometimes it’s easier to start with something that you know needs work vs. taking on a blank page. Do you have an old project that didn’t quite meet the mark, but you think there’s something in it worth rescuing? Maybe it’s time to collaborate with your past self. 

Back to songs that make me cry >