Bombin' The L

Album: Come Find Yourself (1996)
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Songfacts®:

  • Fun Lovin' Criminals steal from Lynyrd Skynyrd and Deep Purple on "Bombin' The L," which samples "Free Bird" and borrows the guitar riff from "Smoke On The Water."

    OK, they didn't really steal, they got permission to use the sample, and their "Smoke On The Water" riff is far enough away from the original to keep them out of trouble.

    The "Free Bird" section they use is a pitched-up snippet from Skynyrd frontman Ronnie Van Zant singing "Lord, I can't change." Van Zant died in a 1977 plane crash, so to clear the sample, Fun Lovin' Criminals frontman Huey Morgan appealed to his widow, Judy, writing her a personal letter explaining why they wanted to use the song.
  • Fun Lovin' Criminals formed in New York City, and many of their songs reference the area. The "L" in this song is the L train on the subway that runs from Eighth Avenue in Manhattan into Brooklyn.
  • "Bombin' The L" is a track from the first Fun Lovin' Criminals album, Come Find Yourself. The band positioned themselves as gangsters, telling outlandish stories in their songs and dressing the part in crisp suits. Huey Morgan wrote the lyrics and came up with a rap-sung style that worked well over the tracks created by their beatmaker, Brian "Fast" Leiser. In this song, Morgan drops clever rhymes about his fictional life of crime, dropping in references to guitar god Yngwie Malmsteen and drug company Pfizer along the way.

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