Patterson Hood, leader of Southern rock band Drive-By Truckers - which released a 2-CD exploration of Skynyrd’s legacy, “Southern Rock Opera” - said he grew up in a small town in Alabama in the 1970s and that song was “deadly serious, and still is. Which is how it played in the South - as a sassy thumb in the eye of encroaching cosmopolitanism, and a dare to other bands to deliver “the level of excitement that Skynyrd did,” said Marley Brant, author of 2002’s “Freebirds: The Lynyrd Skynyrd Story.” For him, “Freebird” had become “this defiant thing.” “What song is it you want to hear?” Van Zant asks the Atlanta audience and gets a roaring “Freebird!”Īccording to music publisher BMI, that version - 14 minutes long, with the audience shout - has been played on rock radio more than 2 million times. Which is how the best-known version - from the 1976 live album “One More for the Road” - came together. So they kept it in their back pockets to solicit applause, even after they graduated to stadiums. “‘Freebird’ was the first song we had (that) people clapped for.” “Thing is, though, people didn’t clap,” Rossington said. Skynyrd had become a monster on the Southern bar circuit, performing five sets every night.
She was frustrated with the band’s constant touring. He said the opening lines - “If I leave here tomorrow/would you still remember me” - came from Collins’ wife. Ronnie was laying on the couch, then just started singing the words.” But Odom remembers differently. The origins of the song date to a 1969 rehearsal, said guitarist Gary Rossington. Said Artimus Pyle (also injured in the crash), former drummer for Skynyrd: “Someone yells it as a joke, I’m in that room, I’ll punch them in the mouth. Knowing how hard that band worked, how much that song meant - that’s sad.” “So when you tell me people yell ‘Freebird’ as a joke?” Odom asked. Odom lost an eye, broke his back, broke his neck and lost a friend - Van Zant died, effectively ending Lynyrd Skynyrd. “Then someone said, ‘Trees,’ and I got thrown by the fuselage.” Three seconds before impact Gene Odom, head of security for Skynyrd and a close friend of Ronnie Van Zant, said he remembers grabbing the sleeping singer and slapping him. Tim Rutili, the Chicago musician who once fronted Red Red Meat and now leads Califone, said he only gets “Freebird!” shouted at him “maybe once every few years.” Which is sad, because what would going to a concert be without that one person who shouts “Freebird”? “The best thing about touring Europe is no one yells ‘Freebird,'” said James McNew, bass player for the indie band Yo La Tengo.Īnd yet, Finkelman is right - depending whom you ask, people aren’t shouting “Freebird!” like they used to. But what it has never been is forgettable - not to the band who played it, not to the disparate acts who still get a rowdy “Freebird!” shouted at them, regardless of what they play or who they are. Thirty-five years ago, Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd released the single “Freebird,” and in the decades since it has been an anthem, a demand, an ode to personal independence, the lamest heckle in the history of rock. It’s almost dead! There’s a generation out there for whom this song means nothing! They’re not yelling it like they used to!” ‘MAN, DO NOT write this,” said Bruce Finkelman, owner of the Chicago bar/music venue the Empty Bottle.
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