Trying To Be Free

Von Bieker - Trying To Be Free

Trying To Be Free was written the morning after a high-desert bender.

We drank too much under the Sante Fe stars, shared religious doubts and frustrations, then finally threw up in the sagebrush. This song became our anthem of religious tension – a wrestle between community, love, and hope in one corner and fear, guilt and protectionism in the other.

The recording features many who shared that night, contributing remotely during the pandemic.

Lyrics

Kneel down while I hold back your hair
There’s no need for shame honey, we’ve all be there
I know nothing I say will make it seem fair that
Pleasure and pain are so tangled together

Please know you deserve to be loved
And the shelter he’s giving you – it isn’t enough
When then nights have gone cold and you lie in the silence
With passion and pain held so tightly together

We are shaking off shackles
Trying to be free
Without walking away from everything

So spill out all of your rage
Line after line, page after page
Knowing nothing you write could ever erase
How salvation and pain are so bound up together

We are shaking off shackles
Trying to be free
Without walking away from everything

I keep scrolling through the photos on my phone
Cos I love who I am when I am not alone
There’s an ache that you left me – a sliver of home
Why do friendship and pain always wind up together?

We are shaking off shackles
Trying to be free
Without walking away from everything 

Credits

This song came together with contributions from many wonderful talented people who aren’t me. 

Drums – Brendan Lyons 

Keys – Brennan Cameron

Mandolin – Tania Runyan

BGVs – Seth and China Kent (Alright, Alright)

Voices Captured in the Desert – Kristin Tennant and Todd Truffin

Mastered in Ottawa, Ontario by Philip Shaw Bova

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