I'm Free

from the LP Tommy, Decca Records, 1969



Boy, these sure are some rowdy & madcap times we be living in people! Watching the events in Iran unfold over the last week has been so engaging and heartening, young men and women taking to the streets in protest, rapidly growing in both numbers and ferocity of demand---what began as a reaction to typically shady elections has now become a rallying cry for a complete societal & cultural shift in Iran. As hard as the sitting Iranian government is trying to stifle the flow of information in and out of their country, they are no match for cagey, educated youth who are matched with the swift speed of modern technology. In so doing, the youth and progressive Iranians are stridently answering the rebuke found within this anthemic bridge/song on the Who’s renowned rock opera Tommy, “…you've been told many times before, messiahs pointed to the door, and no one had the guts to leave the temple…” The more humans are able to move around the globe, literally or digitally, and experience others’ ways of living, I believe we are bound to crave autonomy more and more. I’m certainly no blind patriot or flag-waver, but I do believe we all have within us the yearning to do as we like, to say and believe whatever we choose without fear of castigation or stigmatization. The contemporary trend of globalization has given virtually every corner of the world a sample of free expression, and that’s the thing about freedom---once you get a taste, there’s no going back to your former lack of comparison, “…I’m free, and freedom tastes of reality…” I don’t think anyone is expecting that all of the pleas for self-determination will be answered in Iran, but every revolution has to start somewhere; now it’s just a matter of getting more people to feel comfortable expressing their opinions, and independence is contagious! In some ways, the protesters are like Tommy in the storyline here, seeing for the first time and calling for their resistant families and hesitant countrymen to join them, “…I’m free, I’m free, and I’m waiting for you to follow me…how can we follow…how can we follow?”