George Michael, “Freedom ’90”: I won't let you down / I will not give you up / Gotta have some faith in the sound / It's the one good thing that I've got / I won't let you down / So please don't give me up / Because I would really, really love to / stick around, oh yeah / Heaven knows I was just a young boy / Didn't know what I wanted to be / I was every little hungry schoolgirl's / pride and joy / And I guess it was enough for me / To win the race? / A prettier face! / Brand new clothes and a big fat place / On your rock and roll TV / But today the way I play the game is not the same / No way / Think I'm gonna get myself some happy / I think there's something you should know / I think it's time I told you so / There's something deep inside of me / There's someone else I've got to be / Take back your picture in a frame / Take back your signing in the rain / I just hope you understand / Sometimes the clothes do not make the man / All we have to do now / Is take these lies and make them true somehow / All we have to see / Is that I don't belong to you / And you don't belong to me, yeah yeah / Freedom, freedom, freedom / You've gotta give for what you take / Heaven knows we sure had some fun boy / What a kick just a buddy and me / We had every big-shot good time band / on the run boy / We were living in a fantasy / We won the race, got out of the place / I went back home got a brand new face / For the boys on MTV / But today the way I play the game has / got to change, oh yeah / Now I'm gonna get myself happy / I think there's something you should know / I think it's time I stopped the show / There's something deepd inside of me / There's someone I forgot to be / Take back your picture in a frame / Take back your signing in the rain / I just hope you understand/ Sometimes the clothes do not make the man / Freedom, freedom, freedom / You've gotta give for what you take / Freedom, freedom, freedom / You've gotta give for what you take / Freedom, freedom, freedom / You've gotta give for what you take / Well it looks like the road to heaven / But it feels like the road to hell / When I knew which side my bread was / buttered / I took the knife as well / Posing for another picture / Everybody's got to sell / But when you shake your ass, they notice fast / And some mistakes were built to last / That's what you get, that's what you get / That's what you get, I say that's what / you get / I say that's what you get for changing / your mind / That's what you get, that's what you get / And after all this time / I just hope you understand / Sometimes the clothes do not make the man / All we have to do now, is take these lies / And make them true somehow / All we have to see is that I don't belong to you / And you don't belong to me, yeah, yeah / Freedom, freedom, freedom / You've gotta give for what you take / Freedom, freedom, freedom / You've gotta give for what you take,/ yeah / May not be what you want from me / Just the way it's got to be / Lose the face now / I've got to live.
On the distinction between positive and negative freedom, see Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts of Liberty” (1958). There is also a tradition of debate around negative freedom as defined by Charles Taylor, whose concept is different than the one in this essay.
See →, s.v. “freelance.”
See Wikipedia, s.v. “freelancer.”
“In as abstract sense, the multifaceted political geography of the feudal order resembles today’s emerging overlapping jurisdictions of national states, supranational institutions, and novel private global regimes. This is, indeed, one of the prevalent interpretations in globalization scholarship.” Saskia Sassen, Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 27
Thomas Elsaesser, “Walter Benjamin, Global Cities, and ‘Living with Asymmetries’” (lecture, 3rd Athens Biennale, December 2011).
Tamara Lush and Verena Dobnik, “‘Vendetta’ mask becomes symbol of Occupy protests,” November 4, 2011, Associated Press.
“Freedom from Everything” was commissioned by Hendrik Folkerts for the lecture series “Facing Forward,” co-organized by Stedelijk Museum, University of Amsterdam, de Appel arts centre, W139, Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, and Metropolis M. It was written using material from lectures commissioned by Grant Watson, T. J. Demos, and Nina Möntmann.