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Live Your Life Be Free (song)

original song written and composed by Ellen Shipley and Rick Nowels; first recorded by Belinda Carlisle and released in 1991

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 19, 2026
Entity authorityQ113377778 ↗
Source-derived summary

"Live Your Life Be Free" is a song written by Rick Nowels and Ellen Shipley, and produced by Nowels for American singer Belinda Carlisle's fourth album, Live Your Life Be Free (1991). Released on September 16, 1991, by Virgin and Offside, the single reached the top 20 in Australia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The song's music video was directed by Nick Egan.

Track listings

7-inch, cassette, and mini-CD single

"Live Your Life Be Free"

"Loneliness Game"

12-inch single

A1. "Live Your Life Be Free" (club mix) – 5:30

B1. "Live Your Life Be Free" – 4:20

B2.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Live Your Life Be Free (song)” as original song written and composed by Ellen Shipley and Rick Nowels; first recorded by Belinda Carlisle and released in 1991. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Live, Your and Life.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1991—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1991. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Live, Your and Life providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Live Your Life Be Free (song)”, the useful work is to connect “original song written and composed by Ellen Shipley and Rick Nowels; first recorded by Belinda Carlisle and released in 1991” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q113377778. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1991.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Live Your Life Be Free (song)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Live Your Life Be Free (song) primary sources, Live Your Life Be Free (song) archive and Live research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Live Your Life Be Free (song)”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Live Your Life Be Free (song)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.