Top 10 Songs About Freedom
(Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)
On this day 70 years ago, a swarm of 360 Japanese war planes descended on Pearl Harbor at 7:55AM and unleashed an assault on the U.S. Pacific fleet. The attack crippled the US outpost in Hawaii, rendering most of the planes and ships useless. Worse yet, 2,400 Americans were killed and 1,200 more were injured.
In honor of those who fell at Pearl Harbor, we offered an updated version of our popular list of the Top 10 Songs About Freedom.
10. Boz Scaggs - “Freedom for the Stallion”: Though nice versions have been done by Three Dog Night and Elvis Costello, we’re partial to Boz Scaggs’ rendering of Allan Toussaint‘s classic piece of rock and roll gospel.
9. Kris Kristofferson - “Broken Freedom Song”: We’ll listen to anything Kris Kristofferson’s written. When he sings, we’re sold.
8) James Carr - “Freedom Train”: A dynamic Memphis soul song.
7) The Byrds - “Chimes of Freedom”: We dig the Byrds’ version of this Dylan classic.
6) Brewer and Shipley - “Fifty States of Freedom”: Though it’s paid their bills for a long, long time, “One Toke Over the Line” wasn’t their only contribution to music. In fact, Brewer & Shipley were a highly underrated folk duo, worthy of being revisited.
5) Iron And Wine - “Freedom Hangs Like Heaven”: Our man Sam Beam, aka Iron & Wine, gets major spins around the WNEW record pool.
4) Isley Brothers - “Freedom”: One of many songs by the simplest of names, this is the Isley Brothers funky, gospel track.
3) Utopia - “Freedom Fighters”: Todd’s Utopia is our utopia.
2) Jimi Hendrix - “Freedom”: Nothing more to say.
1) Bob Marley - “Redemption Song”: If there’s a better song of freedom than this one from Bob Marley, please let us know.
More of Michael’s Top 10 picks can be found here …
Bobby D
July 3, 2009 7:14 am
Don’t forget “Freedom” by Richie Havens
Gabriel Celibataire
July 6, 2009 4:05 am
Great songs
) I am a patriot and love freedom so this can be may new favorite collection of songs 
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If there’s a better song of freedom than this one from Bob Marley, please let us know.
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April 8, 2010 8:21 am
An ever rotating sextet of gospel singers, Sweet Honey in The Rock is long considered an American treasure. They sing gloriously of sweet freedom.
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April 26, 2010 11:45 am
Einer Elhauge is guest-blogging over at Volokh, and raising a bunch of interesting questions. One post draws a parallel between ELS and sabermetrics, leading one (clearly Boston-based) wag to ask, “if empirical legal studies are like sabermetrics, who is the legal equivalent of Joe Morgan?”
I’m not touching that one… But, in the spirit of the (baseball) season, I’d offer the following instead. Empirical researchers are taught early on to beware of selection bias — drawing incorrect inferences from data which are nonrandomly sampled from a population. (An example would be concluding that early humans lived predominantly in caves, on the basis of finding paintings, remains of fire pits, and so forth there; because such artifacts are more likely to survive in caves than elsewhere, the available archaeological data are subject to selection bias). We also learn that there are ways of dealing with such data, including the class of “selection models” first developed by James Heckman.*