“I Gotta Be Free” was a late-set guitar showcase during the Robbin Thompson period of Steel Mill.
While the band never recorded it, we’re fortunate to have a couple of surviving concert recordings. Take a listen below–that’s Robbin you’ll hear on lead vocals, with Bruce strutting his stuff on guitar. But about halfway through, the band segues into a cover of The Grateful Dead’s “Turn on Your Love Light” with Bruce on lead vocals before circling back to finish the song. (As far as we know, every “I Gotta Be Free” performance included this mid-song cover.)
Bruce’s lyrics are pretty spare–just two verses and a one-line chorus–and content-wise, they’re about what you’d expect from a young rock band at the time: ambition, defiance, and an embrace of the life of an outsider.
I got to climb on top of that highest mountain
Gotta go somewhere where nobody gonna find me
‘Cause I’m gonna live my life in freedom, gotta live my life free
No, and I’m not gonna spend my life with people, people that come and spit on me
Lord, I gotta be free!
Well there’s a light up above and I just can’t reach it (No, I just can’t reach it)
Lotta things I wanna say what but they won’t let me preach it (No, they won’t let me preach it)
And there’s things I wanna learn but they just don’t teach it (No, they just don’t teach it)
Oh, I gotta be free!
“I Gotta Be Free” isn’t likely to be a Steel Mill’s Greatest Hits selection, but it’s another remarkably preserved document of a very young Bruce Springsteen’s ferocious guitar and emerging song-writing talent.
I Gotta Be Free
Never recorded
Never released
First performed: November 27, 1970 (Asbury Park, NJ)
Last performed: January 22, 1971 (Asbury Park, NJ)
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