Freedom of '76

'76 does not refer to the year. this song's about philadelphia. you know? 1776. boyz II men are from philly. mannequin was filmed at John Wanamaker's Department Store (Woolworth's), fairmount park, liberty bell, south street.

If you grew up in Philly in the same generation as Dean and Gene, many of these cultural references make sense as to how historic-yet-lame the city felt in the late 70s and 80s. The city was ghetto, but trying to promote this "image" which loosely ties together Rocky, cheesesteaks, and Ben Franklin.

Appropriately ridiculous.

That's so sweet, and the fact that even though they aren't refering to 1976, but play the song like it was written in '76 is so cool. I'm really starting to like Ween a lot...

Any song that references "Mannequin" and Boyz II Men in the same song is cool in my book. Too bad neither of them were popular in '76. Ween still rocks!! Get out soon Deaner!!

Tight song. (It's a fact)

A tribute to Philly, which is not too far from New Hope where they grew up.

Getting a BJ in Philly. Liberty Bell has more than one meaning here.

While I agree with the top comments about this song being all about Philly, I feel like everyone's missing the most important thing to be said about this song. Ween are musical hipsters and the kings of less-than-obvious spoofs, particularly of highly sentimental songs that few of us think to question or make fun of. This song is clearly a spoof of Elton John's "Philadelphia Freedom". Fire up YouTube and listen to them one after the other, and tell me you don't hear it.

I used to dismiss Ween as some whacked out band that made money off of writing whacked out songs, but seeing them play this song live totally changed my mind about them. They can pull off anything. This is a great, soul-filled, summertime song. It's hard to believe they are white.