Some songs don’t argue with you. They just tell you the truth and let it sit there. This one is five minutes and fifty-seven seconds of a man who spent years shaking concert halls with a single guitar chord sitting back and saying something almost gentle: be yourself, and don’t apologize for it. Coming from Link Wray, a man who got radio stations to ban an instrumental because it sounded too dangerous, that kind of plainspoken grace carries real weight.
- Released in 1973
- Appears on the album Be What You Want To
- Runtime: 5 minutes, 57 seconds
- The album and title track share the same name, making this the statement piece of that record
A Different Kind of Courage
Wray built his early reputation on raw, physical guitar playing. Distortion, menace, three chords that felt like a fist through drywall. So when he pivoted in the early seventies toward something more stripped down and personal, people took notice. “Be What You Want To” fits that later chapter. It’s not trying to scare anybody. It’s trying to encourage them.
That shift in approach took guts. It’s easy to keep doing the thing that made you famous. It’s harder to walk out on stage or into a studio with something quieter and more vulnerable. The song itself is almost a reflection of that choice. It asks the listener to have the same nerve Wray was exercising by making it.
The Message Underneath the Simplicity
The song’s core idea isn’t complicated. Live the life you actually want. Don’t shrink yourself down to fit someone else’s expectations. That’s the whole thesis, delivered without a lecture. Wray doesn’t moralize. He doesn’t wag a finger. He makes the case and gets out of the way.
That restraint is doing a lot of work. A lesser songwriter turns this kind of sentiment into a sermon. Wray keeps it conversational. The nearly six-minute runtime gives the message room to breathe rather than hammering it home repeatedly. By the time the song winds down, you feel like you’ve had a genuine conversation, not sat through a motivational poster set to music.
Compare that to how someone like Kris Kristofferson handled similar themes in his writing, that same willingness to trust the listener with an idea without over-explaining it. It’s a quality that separates the real ones from the ones just filling airtime.
Why the Length Matters
Nearly six minutes is a commitment, especially for a song built on a straightforward emotional idea. A lot of artists would’ve wrapped this up in three. Wray doesn’t rush it. The extended runtime isn’t self-indulgence. It gives the sentiment weight. You spend time with it. You let it settle.
There’s something to the idea that a song about living deliberately should itself feel unhurried. It practices what it preaches. By the time you reach the end, the message has had space to become something you feel rather than just hear. That’s a structural choice that matches the content, and it’s not accidental.
Where It Sits in Wray’s Story
By 1973, Wray had already been through the full cycle. The teenage fans, the banned records, the long stretches of obscurity. He’d recorded in a converted chicken shack in Virginia, putting out music that most major labels weren’t interested in touching. He wasn’t chasing trends on this album. He was making exactly what he wanted to make.
That context gives the song’s title a biographical edge. This wasn’t a young man’s bravado. It was a middle-aged artist who had actually lived by his own rules, sometimes at real cost, telling you it was worth it. Artists like Townes Van Zandt occupied a similar space, people who chose the honest path over the comfortable one and made that choice the subject of their work. Wray fits that lineage naturally.
What is “Be What You Want To” by Link Wray about?
The song is about self-determination and living authentically. Wray delivers a quiet but firm encouragement to be yourself without apology, letting the message breathe across nearly six minutes rather than rushing to a resolution.
What album is “Be What You Want To” on?
It’s the title track from Wray’s 1973 album Be What You Want To, which shares its name with the song.
Did Link Wray ever explain the meaning of “Be What You Want To”?
No documented public statement from Wray specifically explaining this song’s meaning is part of the verified record here. The song speaks clearly enough on its own terms, and Wray was generally more interested in the music than in breaking it down for interviews.
How does “Be What You Want To” fit with the rest of Wray’s career?
By 1973, Wray had moved well past his early reputation for raw, aggressive rock guitar. This song reflects the quieter, more personal direction he took in the early seventies, and it’s consistent with an artist who spent his whole career making choices on his own terms rather than chasing commercial expectations.
Some songs age because the world catches up to what they were saying all along. “Be What You Want To” is one of those. Wray recorded it over fifty years ago, but the central idea hasn’t dated a day. In a culture that’s constantly telling people who to be and how to present themselves, a nearly six-minute song that just says be yourself, plainly and without ornamentation, still cuts through the noise. That’s not a small thing. That’s the whole ballgame.
Jamie Reeves grew up listening to country radio on long drives through rural Tennessee, and never lost his ear for a song that tells the truth plainly. He writes about country, Americana, and folk music – the kind of stuff built on real life and real heartbreak. When he is not breaking down lyrics, he is probably on a back porch somewhere with a cold drink.