The song is a "mature break-up song", as defined by the singer itself, which tells the story about two people in love whose relationship fails and decide to break-up since it is the best for both.
Critical reception
Critics gave "Free" positive reviews. About.com said "This is clearly a Haley Reinhart record, and her fans will instantly take it to heart." and gave it a rating of 4.5 out of 5.[6]USA Today's Brian Mansfield was impressed[7] and the song was picked to be one of the songs in the Playlist in USA Today.[8][9]
Scott Shetler from PopCrush.com wrote "The track is built around the elegant vocals of Reinhart, who sounds more mature than her twenty-one years [sic] Let’s hope so, because ‘Free’ is a song that’s worthy of people’s attention."[10]
Music video
The music video, which was directed by Christopher Sims, saw its video premiere on March 29, 2012 on VEVO.[11] Sims set the video in a vintage 1950s diner called Cadillac Jack's Cafe in Hollywood, California.[12] It reached 1,000,000 views in under 2 months.[13] It had accumulated 5.5 million views as of September 17h, 2021.
Live performances
Reinhart performed the single live on the March 22, 2012 episode of American Idol.[14][15][16] She sang the song live for 104.3 MYFM New Music Night.[17] She also performed the single for the March 27 episode of 90210,[18] Right after, she performed the song on Fox 5's Good Day New York[19] and appeared on Conan to perform the single on April 24.
