“Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ’99, wear sunscreen.” You may recognise this line from film director Baz Luhrman’s hit Everybody’s free (to wear sunscreen) from 1999. That hit song however is composed of a number of ‘samples’.

First off, the ‘speech’ sampled in the song is actually an essay written by Mary Schmich in 1997. That essay in turn is somewhat inspired by the poem Desiderata from 1927. The essay by Schmich was recorded by Baz Luhrmann using a voice actor who reads the essay word for word.

Half way through the song, some vocals kick in which are borrowed from the song Everybody’s Free (to feel good) sung by Quindon Tarver on the soundtrack of the 1996 film Romeo + Julliet. The film was directed by … Baz Luhrmann. Hence the title of Baz Luhrmann’s song is Everybody’s Free (to wear sunscreen).

The acapella version sung by Quidon Tarver however is a cover of the 1991 dance hit Everybody’s Free (to feel good) by Rozalla. Baz Luhrmann/Quindon Tarver haven’t been the only ones to ever sample/cover it. The lyrics of Rozalla popped up in Bob Sinclar’s 2007 song Sound of Freedom. According to whosampled.com, Moby also sampled the song, but since the video they link to is down, I can’t verify this. It’s not on the single I own in any case.

One more important thing about the Rozalla version; it also uses a sample. It uses the classic drum break from the 1972 track Think (About It) by Lyn Collins. But since I could list tons of tracks that sample Think , here’s Rozalla – Everybody’s Free.