"Free Bird" - Fifty Years

I've gotten sick and tired of the media gushing over the fiftieth anniversary of the start of hip-hop, most likely the worst musical form ever invented - mainly because it's not music. Ever hear any actual instruments in hip-hop? Or singing?  Two days after a lazy DJ took to scratching records to make weird sounds for kids to dance to at a Saturday party in the South Bronx, Lynyrd Skynyrd, who were from the South, released their debut album, (pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd), which included the American answer to Led Zeppelin's epic "Stairway To Heaven."

"Free Bird" is an incredible power ballad steeped in the blues and in country and western love songs, evoking the romance of youth, freedom, and limitless possibilities.  While it is true that "Free Bird" does highlight the self-absorption of Americans in the 1970s - the narrator is leaving a woman to travel and see more of the world - he accepts blame for breaking it off and laments that he's a bird that one cannot change.  It is to those lyrics that, under the direction of producer Al Kooper, the wailing guitar lines take a mellow vibe with unsettling undertones, taking flight at a faster tempo for one of the heaviest and most intense sets of solos that sear through the air for four astonishing minutes.

The song was composed by Skynyrd guitarist Allen Collins and lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, prompted by Collins' girlfriend (later wife) Kathy, who asked him, "If I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me?" Using images of freedom and regret to illustrate what the narrator envisions for himself, Collins and Van Zant wrote "Free Bird" in four minutes - as long as the guitar solos that take the song out on record.  (The solos were added to give Van Zant a rest on stage at a time when the band was playing long sets at night clubs and and were performing constantly.) When asked what the song ultimately means, Van Zant said that the song is "what it means to be free, in that a bird can fly wherever he wants to go," adding that "everyone wants to be free . . . that's what this country's all about."

Also, the song is about freedom from . . . life.  Van Zant once dedicated the song to the memories of the late Allman Brothers Band members Duane Allman and Berry Oakley, explaining that "they're both free birds."  On October 20, 1977, Van Zant became a free bird himself when he, guitarist/vocalist Steve Gaines (who joined the band in 1976), and Gaines' sister Cassie, a backing vocalist for Skynyrd, and members of the band's entourage were killed in a horrible plane crash in Mississippi - two days after Lynyrd Skynyrd released their ironically titled album Street Survivors. 

Death haunts this song.  All of the original members of Lynyrd Skynyrd are dead (guitarist Gary Rossington died this past March), and the song is a popular choice for funerals.  Like all the great epic rock songs '- Family's "The Weaver's Answer," Led Zeppelin's aforementioned "Stairway To Heaven" - it anticipates mortality, and in doing so presents a universal message.  And so, like any great novelist who leaves behind a classic book or a filmmaker who leaves behind a classic movie, the original Lynyrd Skynyrd (a band calling itself that led by Ronnie Van Zant's brother Johnny is still active) can survive as long as a song like "Free Bird" still exists.  When people who defend hip-hop talk about how it is always evolving, what they're really saying is that it has no longevity to sustain it without any sense of musical tradition to anchor it.  Rooted in musical traditions that pre-date rock and are likely to outlive rock, "Free Bird" is as timeless as any rock and roll song can get.  When the latest rap star fades away - or goes Hollywood and abandons hip-hop for a CBS drama series - we'll still be listening to "Free Bird." 

Why don't we listen to it now?  

Play it pretty for Atlanta.