ABCDuring Garth Brooks’ weekly Inside Studio G Facebook Live series this week, Garth debuted a never-before-seen re-worked video for his 1992 hit “We Shall Be Free.”
Here’s a little backstory: “We Shall Be Free” appeared on Garth’s 1992 album, The Chase. He was inspired to write the song—which promotes racial, ethnic and sexual orientation tolerance—after witnessing the 1992 L.A. riots. The song’s original music video featured powerful news footage intercut with celebrity cameos from the likes of Whoopi Goldberg, Jay Leno, John Elway, Joan Rivers and more.
In 2005, Garth decided to re-shoot the video with recent news clips, including footage from 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the Enron Scandal and more. New celebrity cameos from Forest Whitaker, Sean Connery and Al Gore were included, but due to publishing rights, the video was never released…until this week.
“People have been requesting that song a lot more recently,” Garth said during the Facebook Live chat. “Any time there is turmoil, any time there is division, we are looking for a safe place. This song is telling us, we’ve all got our differences, but instead of letting it separate it, let’s revel in those differences and use them to our advantage as one.”
He added, “I truly think that 25 years later, the message has reached its mark.”
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