Silke Jasso
Anticipation had been building for a couple of weeks and finally, during his Mar. 6 “Inside Studio G” on Facebook Live, Garth Brooks aired the lost video for his 1992 single “We Shall Be Free.”
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Before the video was broadcast, Garth explained that the piece had been created to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the song, but due to music industry clearances and approvals, it had never seen the light of day. As is the case with most things that are timeless, the anniversary video, which is now another 15 years older, is just as compelling as it was when it was originally created.
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Celebrities Marlee Matlin, Jay Leno, Whoopi Goldberg and General Colin Powell, who were all in the original video for “We Shall Be Free,” returned for the anniversary tribute, along with Michael J. Fox, John Travolta, Al Gore and, of course, Trisha Yearwood. They share their thoughts on humanity, peace, love and spirituality between news clips from milestone events in world history.
As the lights came back up, Garth wiped away tears and said, “Very sweet. I like it. Time is a friend to all things good. That song just kind of… every day just gets more cool to me. If that’s egotistical, forgive me. I just love what it says.”
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He then presented a challenge to viewers — use the hashtag “We Shall Be Free.”
“Here’s the deal — just send in a pic. You can write it on your hand, you can write it on your forearm, write it in the sand, write it on a piece of paper, whatever you want to do and pick a word that represents love and freedom to you,” Garth explained. “Let’s go deeper, let’s go deeper than skin color. Let’s go deeper than religious preference or sexual preference. Let’s go deeper than politics. Let’s go to those raw emotions like love, courage, tolerance, character. All of those things, those freedoms that we have and those things that are at the base of freedom. Send them in and then we’ll see if we can’t take this song and maybe do something pretty cool with it with the video from everyone around the planet putting in their own two cents.”
Now that we’re coming up on the 25th anniversary of “We Shall Be Free,” could Garth be collecting material for another anniversary video? So, pick your word and #WeShallBeFree.
