What this wasn’t, was the Allman Brothers. Instead, it’s an incredibly well-thought out piece of music, tighter than ever-living fuck, and planned so well that one moment, all three guitarists are doing their things over that fabulous stop-time part, and a few bars later all hell would be breaking loose over Artemis Pyle’s drum rolls until the moment they slammed back together. You can hear it right now, can’t you? On the studio version, it’s pretty much all Collins, but on the live version, after nearly two minutes on his own, he’s joined by Steve Gaines and eventually Gary Rossington, all spinning pinwheels around each other and then coming back into lockstep at exactly the right moments.Īnd that’s the thing about the “Free Bird” guitar solo: it’s not really improvisation. That’s Allen Collins playing the instantly recognizable opening part. According to Discogs, which helpfully adds pictures for veracity, they put out a 4:41 single from (Pronounced ‘L?h-‘nérd ‘Skin-‘nérd) 1974 and a 4:55 single from the live album.ĭoes anybody remember this? I mean, the guitar solo on the live version doesn’t even start until six minutes into the song, and while the words and music of the ballad half of “Free Bird” are pretty enough - especially Billy Powell’s piano solo - it would seem to me that the guitar solo was kind of the point of the song, no?Īh, the guitar solo. I have to be somewhere in 14:00!Īnd yet, Skynyrd put it out as a single, not once but twice. Indeed it is: this live version - which on the fucking CD doesn’t even have the “What song is it you wanna hear?” intro, the single most egregious instance of that shitty digital trend where live album intros are at the end of the previous song instead at the beginning of the song that’s being introduced - runs nearly 14:00. And as the story was passed from kid to kid at their graduation, “Free Bird” is competing with her screams and the sound of the ambulance’s “si-reeens.”īecause, as Patterson Hood wryly noted: “it’s a very very long song.”

The car crash kills the best friend, and the and the girl is left alive, pinned to her seat, screaming into the night, waiting for for the ambulance. At the beginning of Southern Rock Opera, the Drive-by Truckers’ magnificent concept album about Lynyrd Skynyrd and their fans, there is a deadly car crash involving the narrators best friend and his “best girl”, who had abandoned him at night-before-graduation party to go for a joy ride and listen to some Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Free bird lynyrd skynyrd