Listen to the song; #2 on REGGIE'S GREATEST FLOPS
1981 - Flowing Free is a song I wrote about a very short relationship I had. I met this girl when I started working for M. Rosenblatt & Son. She was a sweet unassuming young blonde California girl and was assigned to train me in various illustration and inking techniques. It didn’t take long for the sparks to start flying between us and within my first week in San Diego, I had my first girlfriend. But as good as we got along and as much as we liked each other, the relationship was doomed to failure from the very start.
For one, she hated Kristina, the girl who hired me and was my friend, and when she found out I was making $8.00 per hour she flipped! Here she was with a college art degree, training me and she was only making $3.25… it was a real slap in the face. There were other things that pushed us apart, but the main one was her living arrangements. Her parents had divorced when she was a child and since her dad moved to Norfolk Virginia, she had been on a half-year split between parents. So two months into the relationship, she informed me that she was moving back to Norfolk for the next six months, and we both agreed to break up.
During this time I was living in Santee with Paul Lessard. Looking back, I know I wasn’t too heartbroken, but it felt like a major rejection to me since she could have chosen to stay, but apparently didn’t see any future in it. She showed me around San Diego and was a lot of fun to hang out with so it was hard to watch her go. She also wasn’t into drugs or alcohol, living a healthy lifestyle and I knew by this time I wanted to leave those things behind, but truthfully I was still hanging on to old habits. Maybe this is why it was easy for her to let me go; I’m not sure, but that makes sense.
So as she packed up her hideous little Datsun B210 and drove off into the sunrise, I wallowed in my temporary misery, spinning this one out; playing off an old movie we had watched together, “Butterflies Are Free”. It was a film that came out in 1972 starring Goldie Hawn who tells her blind neighbor Don that her favorite quote is from Mark Twain: “I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free." Don corrects her that actually this is a quote from the Bleak House by Charles Dickens, (just a tidbit of trivia there; no charge!) Her choice of freedom and to fly away to Norfolk resounded in me and the movie theme fit perfectly; all except for the happy ending that is. So here’s how it came out…
FLOWING FREE
Words by Reggie Michaud © 1981
Butterflies are free… you can take your wings
And go away somewhere without me
Take a look at me… you can see me smile
But you’ll never see tears in my eyes flowing free
Now I am alone with a memory
Then I hear the phone… friendly voice I recognize
Come on over say goodbyes
Cuz I’m leaving in a B210… I wanna see you once again
You remind me of a place back home
Where the water runs its course
In the spring it’s wild and in summer gone
And it seems there's nothing worst than flowing free
Well butterflies are free… you can take your wings
And go away somewhere without me
Now that you have gone, I will live each day
But I’ll never be so cold and wild and flowing free
You remind me of a place back home
Where the water runs and winds
In the spring you're wild; you're a summer's child
And it makes me sad to see you flowing free
Flowing free... flowing free... flowing free
Yeah you're flowing free
1981 - Flowing Free is a song I wrote about a very short relationship I had. I met this girl when I started working for M. Rosenblatt & Son. She was a sweet unassuming young blonde California girl and was assigned to train me in various illustration and inking techniques. It didn’t take long for the sparks to start flying between us and within my first week in San Diego, I had my first girlfriend. But as good as we got along and as much as we liked each other, the relationship was doomed to failure from the very start.
For one, she hated Kristina, the girl who hired me and was my friend, and when she found out I was making $8.00 per hour she flipped! Here she was with a college art degree, training me and she was only making $3.25… it was a real slap in the face. There were other things that pushed us apart, but the main one was her living arrangements. Her parents had divorced when she was a child and since her dad moved to Norfolk Virginia, she had been on a half-year split between parents. So two months into the relationship, she informed me that she was moving back to Norfolk for the next six months, and we both agreed to break up.
During this time I was living in Santee with Paul Lessard. Looking back, I know I wasn’t too heartbroken, but it felt like a major rejection to me since she could have chosen to stay, but apparently didn’t see any future in it. She showed me around San Diego and was a lot of fun to hang out with so it was hard to watch her go. She also wasn’t into drugs or alcohol, living a healthy lifestyle and I knew by this time I wanted to leave those things behind, but truthfully I was still hanging on to old habits. Maybe this is why it was easy for her to let me go; I’m not sure, but that makes sense.
So as she packed up her hideous little Datsun B210 and drove off into the sunrise, I wallowed in my temporary misery, spinning this one out; playing off an old movie we had watched together, “Butterflies Are Free”. It was a film that came out in 1972 starring Goldie Hawn who tells her blind neighbor Don that her favorite quote is from Mark Twain: “I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free." Don corrects her that actually this is a quote from the Bleak House by Charles Dickens, (just a tidbit of trivia there; no charge!) Her choice of freedom and to fly away to Norfolk resounded in me and the movie theme fit perfectly; all except for the happy ending that is. So here’s how it came out…
FLOWING FREE
Words by Reggie Michaud © 1981
Butterflies are free… you can take your wings
And go away somewhere without me
Take a look at me… you can see me smile
But you’ll never see tears in my eyes flowing free
Now I am alone with a memory
Then I hear the phone… friendly voice I recognize
Come on over say goodbyes
Cuz I’m leaving in a B210… I wanna see you once again
You remind me of a place back home
Where the water runs its course
In the spring it’s wild and in summer gone
And it seems there's nothing worst than flowing free
Well butterflies are free… you can take your wings
And go away somewhere without me
Now that you have gone, I will live each day
But I’ll never be so cold and wild and flowing free
You remind me of a place back home
Where the water runs and winds
In the spring you're wild; you're a summer's child
And it makes me sad to see you flowing free
Flowing free... flowing free... flowing free
Yeah you're flowing free
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