Contributors:

The Big Steamy Thing

Jonathan Chaffer

Kathleen Jo Faulconer

The origin of this song is that, during a series of concerts in New York, They often sang the Back to Skull version of She Was a Hotel Detective. Now Linnell sings the hight part of this song on the recording, but his voice is mechanically sped up there to allow him to reach the highest parts. In concert, Flans had to sing this part in falsetto. The audience flung some friendly jibes at him for this, cheering "sing like a girl!" This became a recurrent theme at the concert, and inspired Flansie to write a song about the "right to sing like a girl on demand."

The song itself is more about self-expression in general. The singer worries about not conforming (singing like a girl) and how this will affect his reputation; will he be objectified by the rest of the world? This is supported by the "freak flag" imagery. That phrase is an outdated term indicating the long hair that was worn, perhaps in protest, by the hippies. Letting your freak flag wave is letting other people see that you are not part of the mainstream.

Here are relevant lyrics from Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's "Almost Cut My Hair:"

Almost cut my hair it happened just the other day
it was getting kinda long
I coulda said it was in my way
but I didn't and I wonder why
I feel like letting my freak flag fly
I feel like I owe it to someone.............