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Song Info
Genre
Author
Vanida Plamondon (AI Assisted)
Rights
Vanida Plamondon
Uploaded
November 05, 2025
Track Files
MP3
MP3 13.0 MB • 320 kbps • 5:40
Lossless
WAV 62.2 MB
Lyrics
Verse 1
What is it like to be free?
Free of bargaining for our breath,
free of pleading for a meal,
free of counting the hours until the next paycheck saves us
from another small humiliation.
What is it like to wake up
without the weight of owing for the air you breathe,
without the quiet dread
that even your survival is conditional?
Bridge 1
They tell us we are free,
but only if we can afford it.
They say we have liberty,
but the landlords hold the keys.
They sing the anthem loud enough to drown out
the sound of stomachs tightening.
If this is freedom,
then freedom is a ghost
haunting those who can’t pay to see it.
Refrain
What is it like to be free?
Not free with a price tag,
not free with a clause,
not free as performance art.
What is it like to be human
without a barcode on your soul?
Verse 2
We built systems to measure everything but mercy.
We auction off time,
we rent each heartbeat by the hour,
and we dare call it civilization.
The richest of us build rockets to escape
the very sky they’ve poisoned,
while the rest of us
beg for a corner of the world we already belong to.
Chorus
What is it like to be free of begging for the essentials?
To drink water without guilt,
to rest without debt,
to live without apology.
What is it like to breathe
without the scent of desperation?
You call this freedom,
but I can’t feel it,
I can’t taste it,
I can’t find it anywhere.
Bridge 2
Freedom isn’t something you can trademark.
It isn’t a slogan, or a parade,
or a flag fluttering above unpaid bills.
Freedom should be the birthright of the living,
the gentle hum beneath every heart,
the quiet knowing that life doesn’t have to be earned.
But here, it’s a transaction.
A privilege wrapped in paperwork.
A loan with interest that never stops accruing.
Verse 3
I’ve seen people weep in checkout lines,
counting coins like confessions.
I’ve seen elders ration medicine
while politicians toast to liberty.
I’ve seen children carry hunger like an heirloom,
and we call it “the price of progress.
If freedom costs this much,
then maybe we sold the wrong thing.
Refrain
What is it like to be free of crying to make the world better?
To act without despair,
to build without begging for crumbs of conscience.
What is it like to care
without breaking under the weight of the world’s indifference?
Bridge 3
You say we have freedom and liberty,
but liberty doesn’t live in eviction notices.
It doesn’t breathe in hospital waiting rooms.
It doesn’t speak through tear gas or balance sheets.
It doesn’t wear a tie,
it doesn’t trade on Wall Street,
and it sure as hell doesn’t trickle down.
Freedom doesn’t live in the law;
it lives in the soul,
and you’ve priced the soul out of reach.
Verse 4
What is it like to be human
without a price attached?
To know that your existence
isn’t collateral for someone else’s profit.
To look at your neighbour
and see neither competition nor burden.
To walk the earth as kin, not customer.
To be part of something living,
not just surviving.
Final Chorus
What is it like to be free?
To never have to ask this question?
To stand under the open sky
and know it belongs to no one?
To love without losing,
to live without owing,
to wake without worry
that the meter’s still running.
Outro
You say we are free.
But I don’t see it.
I don’t feel it.
Freedom’s supposed to be the air between us,
the silence where no one hungers,
the song the world sings when it finally remembers
we were never meant to live in chains.
What is it like to be free?
Tell me.
Because I’ve been breathing all my life,
and I still don’t know.
