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Melissa Etheridge - I Need To Wake Up

I Need to Wake Up is a song by Melissa Etheridge, written for the 2006 documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth.

It is the first instance of a documentary film winning the Best Song category, beating three songs nominated from the musical film Dreamgirls.

Etheridge received the 2006 Academy Award for Best Original Song for "I Need to Wake Up". Upon receiving the award, she noted in her acceptance speech:

Mostly I have to thank Al Gore, for inspiring us, for inspiring me, showing that caring about the Earth is not Republican or Democrat; it's not red or blue, it's all green.

The song was on the enhanced version only of her greatest hits album, The Road Less Traveled.

The lyrics:

Have I been sleeping?

I’ve been so still

Afraid of crumbling

Have I been careless?

Dismissing all the distant rumblings

Take me where I am supposed to be

To comprehend the things that I can’t see

Cause I need to move

I need to wake up

I need to change

I need to shake up

I need to speak out

Something’s got to break up

I’ve been asleep

And I need to wake up

Now

And as a child

I danced like it was 1999

My dreams were wild

The promise of this new world

Would be mine

Now I am throwing off the carelessness of youth

To listen to an inconvenient truth

That I need to move

I need to wake up

I need to change

I need to shake up

I need to speak out

Something’s got to break up

I’ve been asleep

And I need to wake up

Now

I am not an island

I am not alone

I am my intentions

Trapped here in this flesh and bone

Oh I need to move

I need to wake up

I need to change

I need to shake up

I need to speak out

Something’s got to break up

I’ve been asleep

And I need to wake up

Now

I want to change

I need to shake up

I need to speak out

Oh, Something’s got to break up

I’ve been asleep

And I need to wake up

Now