People Got to Be Free

Infobox Single
Name = People Got to Be Free


Artist = The Rascals
from Album =
B-side = "My World"
Released = July 1, 1968
Format = 7" single
Recorded = May 14, 1968
Genre = White soul
Length = 3:01
Label = Atlantic Records
Writer = Felix Cavaliere
Eddie Brigati
Producer = The Rascals
with Arif Mardin
Chart position =

#1 (U.S.) #14 (U.S. R&B)

Reviews =
Last single = "A Beautiful Morning"
(1968)
This single = "People Got to Be Free"
(1968)
Next single = "A Ray of Hope"
(1968)

"People Got to Be Free" is a song released in 1968 by The Rascals. Written by group members Felix Cavaliere and Eddie Brigati and featuring a lead vocal from Cavaliere, it is an upbeat but impassioned plea for tolerance and freedom:

:"All the world over, so easy to see!":"People everywhere, just wanna be free.":"Listen, please listen! that's the way it should be — ":"Peace in the valley, people got to be free."

It became a big hit in the turbulent summer of 1968, spending five weeks atop the Billboard Pop Singles chart, the group's longest such stay. [Joel Whitburn, "The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits", Billboard Publications, 1983, p. 223.] It was also the group's second-most successful single on the Billboard Black Singles chart, reaching number 14 and trailing only the previous year's "Groovin'". [ [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:aifwxqr5ldje~T51 "The Rascals - Charts and Awards"] , Allmusic. Accessed May 7, 2007.] "People Got to Be Free" was RIAA-certified as a gold record on August 23, 1968, [ [http://www.riaa.com/gp/database/default.asp RIAA Searchable Database] ] and eventually sold over 4 million copies. [Edward Kiersh, "Felix Cavaliere of The Young Rascals: The Long Winter of Discontent", from "Where Are You Now, Bo Diddley? The Artists Who Made Us Rock and Where They Are Now", , 1986.] It later was included on the group's March 1969 album "Freedom Suite".

The single's picture sleeve photo was previously featured in the inner album cover of the Rascals' "" compilation. The B-side, "My World", was a track from the group's "Once Upon a Dream" album.

While "People Got to Be Free" was perceived by some as related to the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy earlier that year, it was recorded before the latter death. In fact it was partly a reaction to an ugly encounter wherein the long-haired group was threatened by a group of rednecks after their tour vehicle broke down in Fort Pierce, Florida. [John Lombardi, "The Blackest White Group of All", "Rolling Stone", October 1, 1970.]

The song is clearly a product of its times; however, two decades later writer Dave Marsh included it as number 237 in his book "Heart of Rock and Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles of All Time", saying in reference to, and paraphrase of, the song's lyric, "Ask me my opinion, my opinion will be: Dated, but NEVER out of date."

The 5th Dimension recorded "People Got to Be Free" in 1970 as part of a medley with another socially relevant song, Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come." The pairing reached number 60 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart.

References