My New Freedom
Status
Elliott Smith song
Written By
Elliott Smith
Recording Sessions
N/A
Availability of Official Release
Either/Or: Expanded Edition (not a studio recording, soundboard recording of live performance from July 17, 1997, in Olympia, WA)
Lyrics
You can go (alt: You go)
Anytime you want
I won’t watch, it hurts too much
If you stay, promise you will be
Better to you
Better to me
Been out to celebrate my new freedom (alt: Don’t want)
With a drink to you (alt: Have a drink to you)
Cause you made it new
And I hate people A through Z (alt: And I hate everyone I see)
And everything, everything (alt: Everyone, everything)
I know how to celebrate my new freedom
Forget other stuff if I drink enough
To pretend that I got people too
And people love me (alt: People I know)
And care what I feel (alt: And not what I do)
You trying to be nice
Well I never asked your advice
I know how to handle a situation
How to be discreet
And admit defeat
You can go
And I say what I should:
“i’m doing okay, pretty good”
First Known Live Performance
1997-07-17 (Yo Yo A Go Go Festival, Olympia, WA, USA)
Note
It has been widely speculated that this song was reworked into “See You in Heaven” between 2001 and 2003.
Video
(taken from the live performance noted above, “My New Freedom” begins at 2:50. The audio is the soundboard from “Either/Or: Expanded Edition”).