TORONTO – When Corey Hart included “Truth Will Set You Free” on his 1988 album “Young Man Running,” few among his legions of fans likely realized that the song was intended as a gay-positive anthem of affirmation for anyone struggling with his or her sexuality.
For one thing, the Montreal-born pop star wanted it that way. He was intentionally cryptic in the lyrics of the soaring tune, couching the true meaning of its be-yourself-at-all-costs mantra in subtext.
The reason for the secrecy? Hart wanted to protect the close friend who had inspired the song, someone whose sexuality was a source of self-doubt and pain.
Now, Hart is issuing a dance floor-friendly remix of the tune, one which swaps the contemplative soft-rock of the original for an icy club groove and pulls those themes that coursed under the original’s surface to the fore with new lyrics inspired, in part, by the 1998 murder of gay university student Matthew Shepard.
And to make positively sure those newly prominent themes resonate, Hart – who willingly receded from the musical spotlight to raise his children – will mark his first Canadian performance in a decade during Toronto’s Pride festival.
“A lot of people on my first couple of recordings that I worked with closely were gay,” Hart told The Canadian Press in a telephone interview from Norway this week. “I developed very close friendships with these people, and I saw a lot of pain, and a lot of suffering, and a lot of hiding.
“The gay aspect of this song was an important message that I wanted to send out there, especially being a straight man – I thought it was important to say this,” he added. “It was important for me to be at a gay pride event and to go out there and sing the song, and spread the message of the song because it’s a message of empowerment.”
But it certainly wasn’t a typical journey to get to this point.
The idea to re-record his 24-year-old song began with a modest, unsolicited email request from a DJ whom Hart had never heard of. Since launching an official website last year, Hart receives dozens of pitches each week from hopeful artists who want to remix or sample his tunes, and he almost always says no.
This request was different. For one thing, 1Love – whose real name is Paul Todd – wasn’t writing in regard to either “Sunglasses at Night” or “Never Surrender.” Hart was intrigued, but it wasn’t until he got to know Todd that he became persuaded to revisit the track.
While Hart remembers vividly that the request came in from an outfit called “Diamond Productions” that listed Todd as CEO, Hart met a different person once they began corresponding. Todd wasn’t a “successful Donald Trump-type” running some big production company, as Hart puts it, but a music lover from Kingston, Ont., who was driving a cab at night to support his four kids.
Todd told Hart how much the song had meant to him. When Todd was a small child, his father was killed by a drunk driver. His mother became addicted to drugs and alcohol and Todd – tormented at school, miserable at home – dropped out of high school at 16 and began a string of odd jobs.
Even though Hart was initially a “little put off” with Todd’s first attempt at tackling a new version of the song, their personalities clicked.
By then, Hart had pretty much made up his mind to issue his first single in 12 years.
“I became attached to wanting the song to come out, wanting the song to be heard – and also wanting to help him.”
Hart felt that Todd’s early remix didn’t have enough musicality to it, so he sent it to musician friends in Toronto and Montreal who added guitars, keyboards and other textures until the gleaming song found its pulse.
Perhaps more important to Hart was the opportunity to re-record his vocals with new lyrics, a necessity forced by a missing master recording.
“I felt (it was) necessary to take the song much further than I had in 1988,” Hart said.
He had been “very affected” by the death of Shepard, a gay Wyoming 21-year-old who was beaten and tortured before being tied to a fence and left to die. The public outcry that ensued eventually led to the revision of hate-crime laws in the U.S. in 2009.
“It really upset me,” Hart said of the incident. “It really was a sad statement of how we think we’ve come far, but when we really look at it, we haven’t come that far.”
Where the original song’s lyrics were intentionally elliptical, this version includes an all-new verse that renders Hart’s mission statement in perfect clarity: “Dream a place/ Where there’s no more crying/ Where there’s no more hiding/ No cruel maligning/ Shepard’s star surviving/ Set you free.”
Hart hasn’t released a solo album since 1998’s “Jade,” and while he acknowledges a self-critical streak – Hart says he’s “not a great singer,” citing his self-proclaimed tendency toward mumbling his vocals as his top complaint – he actually emerged satisfied after recording the new song in Barcelona in February.
“The truth is, when I listen to that song, I think I did sing it well,” says Hart, who seems to speak with an unguarded earnestness uncommon for an industry vet, particularly one who endured the rise and inevitable backlash of an erstwhile teenybop icon.
“I think you can hear empathy in my voice. And I was very emotional when I was singing it. And there’s a lot of – without sounding cliche – there’s a lot of truth to my vocal.”
Hart’s Toronto show will take place June 30, a free, open-air festival gig with the capacity to squeeze in 3,000 fans. More shows at more Pride festivities will follow, though Hart concedes some nerves about taking the stage after such a long time away, even allowing a little doubt to seep through as he affirms himself – “I know once the music starts, I’ll be fine. I hope.”
Hart might be more aware of the passage of time in his career than usual. Thursday marked his 50th birthday, a meaningful milestone for the singer.
“It’s definitely the new 30,” he joked. “It has to be. Because when I was a kid, if I thought about that age – that was like geriatric home.”
But “Truth Will Set U Free” is not meant to signal a Corey Hart comeback. In a note to fans on his website last month, Hart even warned that it could be his final single.
Hart originally stepped away from music primarily to focus on being a father to the four kids he shares with wife Julie Masse, the youngest of whom is eight. Even on this day, Hart – who says the pain he felt from never knowing his own father was another influence on “Truth Will Set You Free” – calls from Oslo, where his daughter, River, is participating in a tennis tournament. (He ruefully reports that she fell in three sets to a “tall Russian girl.”)
So while Hart clearly seems liberated by the new version of “Truth Will Set U Free,” his priorities haven’t changed.
“I’m devoted to my children and to raising them, still,” said Hart, whose family splits time between the Bahamas and Spain.
“So when I said that (on my blog), I may have been in a mood or a moment letting my fans know that this does not herald a Corey Hart comeback with a new album and a new tour. It’s isolated.
“Truthfully, I’m still Corey Hart, Dad, first.”
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