Free Bird

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"Free Bird"

Single by Lynyrd Skynyrd
from the album Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd
Released	1973
Format	7"
Recorded	1973
Genre	Southern rock
Length	9:08
Label	MCA
Writer(s)	Allen Collins/Ronnie Van Zant
Producer(s)	Al Kooper
Chart positions
#19 (US) (1975) #38 (US) (1976)
Lynyrd Skynyrd singles chronology
–	"Free Bird" (1973)	"Gimme Three Steps" (1973)

"Free Bird" is a song by American Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. Despite not being their biggest hit (an accolade belonging to "Sweet Home Alabama"), the song has gained a prominent place in music history over the years next to Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" , The Who's "Baba O' Riley", and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" as one of the greatest hard rock songs in rock history as well as a classic rock radio staple.

1 History
2 Reception
3 Popular culture cliché
4 Credits
5 External links

[edit] History

Skynyrd guitarist Allen Collins came up with the basic chord sequence for "Free Bird" in 1969, when he would play it at rehearsals and other band hangouts. Vocalist Ronnie Van Zant thought at first that, "It had too many chords to write lyrics for it", Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington commented in an interview with Blender, "but after a few months, we were sitting around, and he asked Allen to play those chords again. After about 20 minutes, Ronnie started singing, ’If I leave here tomorrow,’ and it fit great. It wasn't anything heavy—just a love song about leavin' town, time to move on."

They put together a rough version of the song and added it to their live playlist, playing it at bars and clubs in the South. "At first, we didn’t have the fast part at the end, with the three guitars jamming," Rossington comments. "It was after playing it in clubs, where we needed to extend the material because we didn't have enough songs, that it started to evolve. I think I came up with the three chords at the end, so Allen could play some lead." Skynyrd first recorded the song in Jacksonville, Florida but "that didn't have Billy Powell's piano part on it, because Billy wasn't in the band," Rossington continues. "He was our roadie back then. After about a year with us, he showed us how he played Free Bird on the piano, and it was beautiful. So we got him in the band." At live shows, the song took on a special poignancy after October 1971, when Duane Allman, leader of The Allman Brothers Band, was killed in a motorcycle crash. "It wasn’t written as a tribute to Duane Allman, but when we would play it, we would dedicate it to Duane, and Ronnie would say, ’He’s a free bird now’", says Rossington.

As the song became popular at their performances, Skynyrd decided to re-record it now with Powell's piano part in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. They included this recording on a demo. Alan Walden, Skynyrd’s manager at the time, recollects how the song got rejected by nine record companies to Blender: "Atlantic, Columbia, Warners, A&M, RCA, Epic, Elektra, Polydor and even Capricorn all passed after hearing ’Free Bird,’ ’Gimme Three Steps,’ ’Simple Man,’ ’I Ain’t the One’ and about 12 other originals. Their comments were, ’They sound too much like the Allman Brothers!’" Finally in 1972 they signed with MCA, after producer Al Kooper witnessed them perform in Atlanta, Georgia. "As far as I was concerned, they were green, recording wise," Kooper remembers. "I taught them how to use the studio."

Kooper was particularly interested in polishing up "Free Bird," but he met with some hostility from the band. In 1976, Van Zant told Britain's Melody Maker that Skynyrd and Kooper fought incessantly: "Al was very hard to get along with in the studio. It had to be his way, or that was it. No compromise, and that just wasn’t cuttin’ it with us." Even so, Rossington acknowledges that Kooper made some significant contributions to the song. "Al put the organ on the front, which was a very good idea. He also helped me get the sound of the delayed slide guitar that I play –it’s actually me playing the same thing twice, recording one on top of the other, so it sounds kind of slurry, echoey."

What had begun as a simple love song had become a detailed song featuring keyboard parts, studio trickery and an extended triple-guitar jam session that added up to a very uncommercial 10 minutes. Against the band's wishes, MCA edited the song down to four minutes for its radio release in 1973, although, as Rossington points out, many FM stations ignored it and played the full-length version from the album. "Free Bird" was a hit on FM radio, but failed to make the pop charts in its original run. After the single "Sweet Home Alabama" caught the public's attention and soared the Billboard Hot 100 in August 1974, "Free Bird" was re-released and reached #19 in January 1975. A live recording was released as a single in 1976, reaching #38 on the charts.

After the plane crash in 1977 that killed Van Zant and two other band members, Lynyrd Skynyrd disbanded. Collins and Skynyrd co-guitarist Gary Rossington formed The Rossington-Collins Band, performing "Free Bird" without vocals as a tribute to Van Zant. The vocal version returned to the live arena in 1987 when Skynyrd reunited with new lead singer, Van Zant's youngest brother Johnny Van Zant.

[edit] Reception

"Free Bird" is included in such lists as The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll, and the List of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The song — half ballad, half up-tempo guitar boogie — quickly became a staple for Lynyrd Skynyrd at their live performances. It is perhaps most recognized for its nearly five-minute triple guitar solo section that closes it out, often turning into an extended jam session at concerts. The band would consistently play it as the last song of every show, as it was their biggest crowd pleaser. While the live version as played by the original band would include soloing by Gary Rossington and third guitarist Ed King as well as Allen Collins, the recorded version is triple-tracked by Collins alone. Gary Rossington plays the slide-guitar part in the song's first half.

[edit] Popular culture cliché

The popular culture cliché of "Free Bird" is the shouting of a request to hear the song by audience members at almost any concert, regardless of the performer or style of music. This can be traced back to Skynyrd's first live album, 1976's One More From The Road. This is due to the fact that Skynyrd did not play the song during the main portion of the concert, or even in the encore performance. Instead they saved it for their second encore. After leaving the stage following the first encore of the concert, the crowd was riled by the apparent omission of Skynyrd's signature song. The crowd then began chanting "Free Bird, Free Bird ...". No one left the auditorium. The band then returned to the stage for a second encore and upon taking the microphone Van Zant asked the crowd, "What song is it that you wanna hear?", which was immediately followed by several more shouts of "Free Bird". This interaction is recorded as an intro to the song on the album, and the band responded with a 14-minute version of the song. More recently, they play the song on the first encore.

In the 1980's, Chicago Radio DJ Kevin Matthews urged his listeners to shout "Free Bird!" at a Florence Henderson concert as a sort of joke towards the musician/actress. Credited with starting the tradition of yelling "Free Bird!", he stated that "It was never meant to be yelled at a cool concert -- it was meant to be yelled at someone really lame. If you're going to yell 'Free Bird,' yell 'Free Bird' at a Jim Nabors concert."[1]

One example is at a Nirvana concert, the first live performance of their hit single "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on April 17, 1991 at the OK Hotel in Seattle, Washington. Frontman Kurt Cobain says "This song is called 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'"; a crowd member yells "FREE BIRD!" immediately before the song begins. This occasion happened again during Nirvana's famous MTV Unplugged in New York concert, and the band responded by performing a brief, improvised jam of another Lynyrd Skynyrd classic, "Sweet Home Alabama".

A similar thing can be heard on Tesla's live album, "Five Man Acoustical Jam." When Tesla singer Jeff Keith announces that the band is going to play a song about their home town ("Lodi"), an audience member yells out "Free Bird!" Jeff responds "Free Bird! No, man, we're not from Alabama."

Joey McIntyre's live album "One Too Many: Live From New York" also contains a Free Bird reference. In a break between songs, a male fan yells out "Play some Free Bird man!" to which McIntyre replies "Play some Free Bird? People think I've got young fans and shit!".

Some artists have actually played the song or a version of it if it's shouted at them. Ben Folds for example has been known to play some of the song on piano and part of the guitar solo on a mouth organ and Phish performed it a cappella. Mike Doughty refuses to perform the song, and insisted on his live album Smofe and Smang that audiences should request The Weather Girls's "It's Raining Men" instead. Doughty then refuses to play "It's Raining Men," as he claims he does not know how. There's also a "Free Bird" moment on Dave Alvin's live album Out in California. After the last track "Everything's Gonna Be All Right" finishes and fades out, the sound fades up again on applause and an audience member shouts out "Free Bird!" Alvin groans humorously, then after a pause, asks "You really wanna hear it? You think we don't know it? You think we can't play it? Boys, the gauntlet's been thrown down..." The band then eases into a sloppy but energetic abbreviation of the song. After the song crashes to a close, and the band and audience are laughing, a voice from the crowd cries out "Stairway to Heaven!"

During an episode of The Adventures of Pete and Pete entitled "A Hard Days Pete" Pete takes requests for songs over the phone to raise money to keep his band together. After taking a couple of calls, someone calls Pete and yells "Free Bird! Free Bird! Wooooooo."

On The Simpsons episode "The Otto Show", the bus driver Otto takes Bart's guitar and plays a loud guitar riff. The kids cheer and are very impressed, so Otto says that he is going to slow it down a little. He starts to play Free Bird, including singing the lyrics in his very raspy voice. Some of the children produce lighters and hold them in the air.

During an episode of King of the Hill the song is played repeatedly while Hank Hill tries to sleep. In another episode, Bill Dauterive sings the song while driving a tank. The solo to 'Free Bird' is also featured in the 1994 movie Forrest Gump, during a scene in which Jenny is experiencing the effects of heroin, and the fast-paced solo mirrors her reaction to the drug.

The song is also featured at the end of the film The Devil's Rejects. It is perfectly synchronized with the three murderers' actions. As they are dozing off in the car, the ballad began. As the three surviving murderers are blocked by a police barricade, they begin to shoot and drive full throttle at the cars. It is at that exact moment the song speeds up to the fast guitar solo. This finale of the movie is done in complete slo-mo to stay with the pace of the song. Another use of the song in film occurs in Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown, a great film moment similar to the "Danke Schoen" / "Twist and Shout" scene in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. The song was performed by the band My Morning Jacket.

In the Pixar film Cars, when Lightning McQueen is making his personal appearance for his sponsor "Rust-Eze Medicated Bumper Ointment", the lights go out in the Rust-Eze tent and a spotlight falls on McQueen who is on stage before a crowd of enthusiastic (and very rusty) cars. There are a few seconds of slightly awkward silence before a muffled voice can be heard somewhere at the back calling, "Free Bird!"

Even the avant-garde Blue Man Group gets into the act. After they play riffs from Devo's "Whip It" and other rock songs on their plastic-tubing instruments, a planted audience member shouts out "Free Bird." Blue Man's back up band starts to play the song, the Blue Men sway to the rhythm, and one of them whips out a cigarette lighter to wave. Another member douses him with a fire extinguisher.

In the PlayStation 2 game Guitar Hero, during a loading screen, a message appears that states, "They don’t really want you to play ‘Free Bird’. They're just heckling you", an obvious reference to the calling of the song to be played at various concerts. Ironically, the song is featured as the final encore track in Guitar Hero II. After completing the final song in the Guitar Hero II, the virtual audience begins chanting "Free Bird!," followed by a series of questions prompted to the player ("Do you want to play Free Bird? Really? Are you absolutely sure you want to play Free Bird?"). The deciscion to play the song is followed by a loading screen that reads, "Fine, they're NOT just heckling you this time. *sigh*"

A harsh reaction to "Free Bird" came from comedian Bill Hicks during a Chicago gig in 1989. On a bootleg recording of the show, I'm Sorry, Folks, Mr. Hicks at first just sounds irked. "Please stop yelling that," he says. "It's not funny, it's not clever - it's stupid." The comic soon works himself into a rage, but the "Free Birds" keep coming, eliciting the now infamous outburst: "Hitler had the right idea, he was just an underachiever; kill everyone, Adolf, kill them all!" "Free Bird," he finally says wearily, then intones: "And in the beginning there was the Word - 'Free Bird.' And 'Free Bird' would be yelled throughout the centuries. 'Free Bird,' the mantra of the moron."

The song was featured in That 70's Show at the prom when Kelso (Ashton Kutcher) and Jackie (Mila Kunis) get back together.

Brendon Small, a character from Home Movies, tells Melissa's dad to "Play Free Bird" in the episode "Get Away From My Mom". Melissa proceeds to tell Brendon not to encourage him.

In episode 20 of Season 4 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - "The Yoko Factor", Giles is playing 'Free Bird' in his apartment when Spike enters and frightens him.

Isaac Brock (musician) of the band Modest Mouse has said "...life is just too fucking short to play or hear Free Bird" after being heckled by fans. The reaction can be heard on Baron von Bullshit Rides Again, their live bootleg album.

On the DVD of Jeff Buckley's "Live in Chicago" performance, between songs, after performing "What Will You Say", Buckley switches guitars and dries himself off. Then, an audience member yells out 'Free Bird!', followed by another requesting 'Stairway To Heaven'. Buckley then mocks confusion asking "What? You want what? Stairway to Free Bird?"

On the live portion of Tenacious D's DVD The Complete Masterworks, a fan yells Free Bird to which guitarist Kyle Gass responds, "Dude, come on. Really? You really want to hear it?"

Free Bird appears in the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on the Classic Rock radio station K-DST.

In the webcomic Krakow, a professor asks after he finishes lecturing if there are any questions or requests. The students respond by shouting "Free bird!", to which he finally obliges.