The Rascals Songs - People Got to Be Free Lyrics

The Rascals - People Got to Be Free

The Rascals - People Got to Be Free Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: Freedom Suite
Released: 1969

People Got to Be Free Lyrics

All the world over, so easy to see
People everywhere just wanna be free
Listen, please listen, that's the way it should be
There's peace in the valley, People Got to Be Free

You should see
What a lovely, lovely world this'd be
Everyone learned to live together, ah hah
Seems to me
Such an itty bitty thing should be
Why can't you and me learn to love one another?

All the world over, so easy to see
People everywhere just wanna be free (wanna be free)
I can't understand it, so simple to me
People everywhere just got to be free

If there's a man
Who is down and needs a helpin' hand
All it takes is you to understand and
To pull him through, ah hah
Seems to me
We got to solve it individually, ah ah
And I'll do unto you what you do to me
Said, no

Hear the shoutin' from the mountains on out to the sea
No two ways about it, people have to be free (they gotta be free)
Ask me my opinion, my opinion will be
Natural situation for a man to be free

Get right on board now, huh, huh

Yeah oh, what a feelin's just come over me
Love can move a mountain, make a blind man see
Everybody sing it now come on let's go see
Peace in the valley now, we all can be free

See that train over there?
Now that's the train of freedom
It's about to 'rrive any minute, now
You know it's been'a long, long overdue
Look out 'cause it's a'comin' right on through
Ha, ha, yeah, ha, ha, yeah

Writer/s: BRIGATI, EDWARD J/CAVALIERE, FELIX
Publisher: EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

People Got to Be Free

This was written in reaction to the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. The song obtained a double meaning when Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated before the single was released.

Jerry Wexler at Atlantic Records briefly blocked the single's release as he thought the Rascals' career would be hurt by a political record. He was partly right: although "People Got to Be Free" was the group's biggest hit (#1 for five weeks), it was also their last Top Ten single.

This was the third #1 hit for the group (after "Good Lovin'" and "Groovin'"), but the first under their original name. In 1966-67 all their singles were credited to the "Young Rascals," a name imposed upon them by Atlantic Records to avoid confusion with the Harmonica Rascals.

Their followup single, the #24 "A Ray of Hope," was written for the Kennedy family after RFK's death and prompted a thank-you letter from the fallen senator's little brother, Ted. (thanks, Brad Wind - Miami, FL, for all above)