Tag: Pete Brown

Bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp I feel free…Jack Bruce’s voice in this is great and sets the tone of the song. The song peaked in the UK at #11 in 1967. It’s Cream before they were CREAM, before the mountain-top solos and the molten lava blues.

The track kicks off with that cool a cappella intro, a call-and-response chant that suspends it mid-air. Then Jack Bruce’s bass drops in like a swinging anchor, thumping along with a walking groove that practically skips. The whole song feels like it’s walking a line between psychedelia and British pop, and it works. It’s a perfect single from a band that rarely, if ever, cared about making singles.

Cream wasn’t known for a lot of fun songs. White Room, Sunshine of Your Love, and others meant business, but this one is fun and a little pop. They didn’t have many of those, but they did have a few. Wrapping Paper, I’m So Glad, and my personal favorite, the wonderfully bizarre Anyone For Tennis, have a place in my heart. 

British poet Pete Brown helped the band write the lyrics. Brown, who was a beat poet, had worked with Baker and Bruce before. He also wrote lyrics to Sunshine Of Your Love and White Room. Eric Clapton played a borrowed Les Paul guitar on this track, as his Beano album guitar had been stolen during album rehearsals. It was plugged into a new, 100-watt Marshall amp.

Speaking of Clapton, he used what he called his “Woman Tone” on his guitar in this song. It was one of the first times he used it. He got it by turning the amp all the way up, boosting the treble, cutting the bass, and playing a sustained guitar note.

I Feel Free

Bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp
Bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp
I feel free
Bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp
I feel free
Bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp
I feel free
Bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp
I feel free
Bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp
I feel free
Bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp
I feel free
Bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp
I feel free
Bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp
I feel free
Bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp
I feel free

Feel when I dance with you,
We move like the sea.
You, you’re all I want to know.

I feel free.
I feel free.
I feel free.

I can walk down the street, there’s no one there
Though the pavements are one huge crowd.
I can drive down the road; my eyes don’t see,
Though my mind wants to cry out loud.

I, I, I, I feel free.
I feel free.
I feel free.

I can walk down the street, there’s no one there
Though the pavements are one huge crowd.
I can drive down the road; my eyes don’t see,
Though my mind wants to cry out loud,
Though my mind wants to cry out loud.

Dance floor is like the sea,
Ceiling is the sky.
You’re the sun and as you shine on me,

I feel free.
I feel free.
I feel free.

I, I, I, I