Kid Rock performs 'For the First Time,' up close and personal

In an online video posted Friday afternoon, Kid Rock gives Rolling Stone writer David Wild a personal performance of the “Born Free” track “For the First Time (In a Long Time).”

Rock sings Wild the song mere inches from his face.

“For the first time in my life, I’m coming out of my shell,” Rock tells Wild in the beginning of the clip, a bottle of Jim Beam resting on the console behind him. He then gets into the song, which opens with the line, “I’ve been living like a drunken sailor, playing in a rock roll band/ far from a failure, I feel like a brand new man.” Rock sings the song in his falsetto voice, in which he explains producer Rick Rubin told him to sing the song.

“I’m finally standing tall, I feel I just can’t fall, your love takes me to a higher place,” Rock sings. “For the first time in a long time, I’m done paying my dues/ for the first time in a long time, I don’t feel used.”

Check out the video here:

http://vimeo.com/41164454

The song is the closing track from Rock’s 2010 album “Born Free.”

Rock is currently sailing the high seas on his third annual Chillin’ the Most Cruise, and is due to perform with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra May 12 for the DSO fundraiser where he hopes to raise $1 million for the finally strapped organization.

UPDATE (5:55 p.m., April 27): An earlier version of this post mistakenly identified “For the First Time” as a new song.