Written by John Lennon. Published by Lenono Music (BMI, work #2075245).
Originally recorded as a demo tape by Lennon in 1977. In 1994, the surviving Beatles and Jeff Lynne produced a studio recording using the original demo as a foundation. It became the first track of Anthology 1, released in 1995 by Apple Records.
A music video was also released by Apple. It used special effects to create the appearance of the camera eye flying through a multitude of scenes in one take, all of which contained references to other Beatles songs. The Beatles themselves were made to appear in several scenes, lifted from film taken at various points in their career. David Fell created a Web page (see references) visually breaking down the video and naming the song references, including:
Across the Universe, Flying, In My Life, Old Brown Shoe, I'm Only Sleeping, Here Comes the Sun, Rain, Come Together, I'm Looking Through You, Some Other Guy, Strawberry Fields Forever, Mother Nature's Son, Maxwell's Silver Hammer, Lady Madonna, I Want to Hold Your Hand, I Am the Walrus, Taxman, Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, Penny Lane, I'm So Tired, Help!, Why Don't We Do It in the Road?, Birthday, When I'm Sixty-Four, Doctor Robert, A Day in the Life, Don't Pass Me By, Helter Skelter, Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite, She Came In Through the Bathroom Window, Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds, Piggies, Happiness Is a Warm Gun, Paperback Writer, Savoy Truffle, Her Majesty, Revolution, Fixing a Hole, Yellow Submarine, Hey Bulldog, For No One, I Me Mine, The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Let It Be, Eleanor Rigby, Martha My Dear, Fool On the Hill, She's Leaving Home, The Long and Winding Road, Lovely Rita, and A Hard Day's Night.
At this writing, lyrics can be found on the Web at:
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Alley/5118/beatles/free_as_a_bird-ly.html
http://members.aol.com/BLS2000/faab.html
http://www.beatlesbeats.com/lyrics/lyrics/freeasabird.htm
References:
Broadcast Music, Inc. Hyperrepertoire. http://repertoire.bmi.com/titlesrch.asp (5 Jun. 2001).
Beatles, The. Anthology 1 (sound recording liner notes).
Fell, David. "Free As a Bird." 1996. http://www.phaseshift.com/beatles/faab/index.html (5 Jun. 2001).