Hands of Love

Album: Freeheld (2015)
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Songfacts®:

  • This piano-driven ballad was written by 4 Non Blondes frontwoman and songwriter Linda Perry and recorded by Miley Cyrus for the movie Freeheld. The motion picture tells the true story of a lesbian couple played by Ellen Page and Julianne Moore who battled New Jersey county officials for same-sex rights.
  • Page told Time that it was she who suggested Cyrus to sing on the track. "She has a really raw, unique, awesome, beautiful voice, and Miley's doing a lot of incredible things for the LGBTQ community," said the actress referencing Cyrus' Happy Hippie Foundation. "I just thought it was going to be a perfect fit. She and Linda made something really special. I kept listening to it after I heard it."
  • The seeds of the song came to Linda Perry immediately after she watched a screening of Freeheld. Moved by the performances and the score, Perry grabbed her phone and began singing into it. "All of a sudden, I hear lyrics, melody, the chords - it's just all kind of coming," she recalled to Billboard magazine.

    Less than hour later, she was playing the almost completed song on piano to the movie's producers. "I think they thought I was on drugs or something. They were like, 'There's no way you're going to tell us you wrote a song in 45 minutes on the way from the movie to here," Perry said.

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