Freedom! '90 - Robbie Williams Version

Robbie Williams Version

"Freedom" was covered in 1996 by Robbie Williams who released it as his debut single since leaving Take That. It reached #2 in the UK, twenty-six places higher than George Michael's original, and had not been included on any of his albums until 2010, when it was included on Williams' greatest hits album In and Out of Consciousness: The Greatest Hits 1990–2010. The single had sold 280,000 copies by the end of 1996, being certified Silver by the BPI. Williams had left Take That the previous year and therefore could identify himself with much of the sentiment in the song, although he did not use the line "we had every bigshot goodtime band on the run boy, we were living in a fantasy" in his version. The music video shows Williams dancing in the sea and in a field, celebrating his separation from his former group. Williams later admitted that the song had not even been recorded by the scheduled date of filming and instead mimed to George Michael's version of the song.