‘Let’s Say Something. Let’s Do Something’: The Rascals’ ‘People Got to Be Free’
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‘200 Greatest 60s Rock Songs’ Book Excerpt
Frank Mastropolo
“People Got to Be Free” was released by the Rascals in the summer of 1968 during Civil Rights Movement protests. Felix Cavaliere and Eddie Brigati were inspired to write what became an anthem for racial tolerance after they were threatened during a tour of the South.
“I was working for Bobby Kennedy’s campaign when he was assassinated,” said Cavaliere in Rock Cellar.
“And it just hit me. Our world just changed. We just lost somebody who could have turned us in a whole different direction and maybe that’s why he was killed.
“It changed my outlook on life. Rather than saying, let’s come out with these love songs, let’s say something. Let’s do something. Let’s be part of something. And it caused a lot of internal strife because some of the other guys did not agree that this was the way to go. The record company certainly didn’t agree. But that’s what I was feeling, man. So I just continued it until it did its thing.
“I said sometimes you’ve just gotta put down in writing on a piece of paper or on a record what you think. You can’t just be a friggin’ money-making machine all your life. Sometimes you gotta do something.”
In his book Good Lovin’: My Life as a Rascal, guitarist Gene Cornish wrote that Atlantic Records president Ahmet Ertegun and executive Jerry Wexler did not want to release the song. “They said we weren’t black, we had no right to preach about anything, and that we had no credibility to do so.
“I thought the song was saying that we all had the right to be free, politically, racially, spiritually, artistically, I thought that the song covered the whole gamut. They were looking at it strictly as a race relations song. It was a really narrow view, which was surprising from them.
“It was Felix who told them that we had final say in what we released and that we insisted upon releasing it. We got our way, as we always did back in those days, and ‘People Got to Be Free’ was released on July 1, 1968. It was a monster hit. It went right to №1.”
On the song’s release, the band announced that it would only perform at concerts that included an African American act. As a result, many shows in the South and other parts of the country had to be canceled.
“It caused a lot of difficulty at the record company because they kind of felt we should not get involved,” Cavaliere told the Orange County Register in 2018. “Kind of like the way they are today. Music people, they hardly get involved at all, and when they do, they get reprimanded, such as the Dixie Chicks.
“But that was not the case then, we were very involved, I was very involved, and I said, ‘We’re going to put this thing out.’ And as a result, it became №1 in all of the oppressed places all over the world. Such as Berlin in those days, Hong Kong, South Africa, which was not a free country. So I’m pretty proud of that.”
“I even spoke to Bruce Springsteen about it one time. He said, ‘Man, that’s a song that’ll never be surpassed in terms of what you were trying to say.’ And I said it was so honest that I don’t know what else to say. That’s really, really how we felt. That’s just a statement that even today holds up and it’s pretty simple. People just want to be free.”
Frank Mastropolo is the author of 200 Greatest 60s Rock Songs, part of the Greatest Performances series. For more on our latest projects, visit Edgar Street Books.
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