You'll be hard pressed to find a rock song with more emotional and cultural impact than "Free Bird." The song is best enjoyed in the album version, which runs 9:08 with the last lyric uttered at 4:55 ("fly high, free bird, yeah"). Those last four minutes comprise perhaps the most famous instrumental passage in rock history. Skynyrd had three guitarists: Allen Collins, Ed King and Gary Rossington, allowing them to jam for extended periods long after most songs would peter out.
The radio edit was cut down to 4:41, with the closing instrumental cut to about a minute.
In the song, Skynyrd frontman Ronnie Van Zant explains to a girl why he can't settle down and make a commitment. The opening lines, "If I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me?" came from guitarist Allen Collins' girlfriend Kathy, who asked him this very question during an argument.
Many fans thought "Free Bird" was a tribute to Allman Brothers Band guitarist Duane Allman, who died in 1971, two years before the song was released. Skynyrd sometimes dedicated it to Allman at concerts, but it was written long before his death and not about Allman at all. The double guitar solo at the end is in the same style as many early Allman Brothers songs on which Duane played.
Lynyrd Skynyd came to an abrupt and tragic end at the height of their powers when the band's plane crashed en route to a concert in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 1977. Lead singer Ronnie Van Zant was killed along with guitarist Steve Gaines (who replaced Ed King), and other band members were badly injured.
Skynyd re-formed in 1987 with Ronnie's brother, Johnny Van Zant, stepping in as frontman. In a track-by-track commentary for their 2010 Live From Freedom Hall DVD. He talked about "Free Bird," saying: "For years Skynyrd has always closed the show with that song and the song has different meanings for different people. This kid was telling me that they used it for their graduation song and not too long ago somebody told me that they used it at a funeral. And really it's a love song, its one of the few that Lynyrd Skynyrd's ever had. It's about a guy and a girl. Of course at the end it was dedicated to Duane Allman from the band Allman Brothers because it goes into the guitar part. If you can get through that one you've had a good night at a Skynyrd show."
This song began as a ballad without the guitar solos at the end, and Lynyrd Skynyrd recorded it that way for the first time in 1972. Guitarist Allen Collins had been working on the song on and off for the previous two years. At the time of recording, the song was only 7 1/2 minutes long, but throughout the next year, Collins continued to refine the song until it was recorded for the final cut of Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd in 1973.
Collins wrote the music long before Ronnie Van Zant came up with lyrics for it. Van Zant finally got inspired one night and had Collins and Gary Rossington play it over and over until he wrote the words.
Lynyrd Skynyrd tradition is to always play "Free Bird" as the last song at their shows. After the death of lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, performing the song was very emotional for his brother Johnny, and for a while, he wouldn't sing it - the band played it as an instrumental and the crowd would sing the words.
Both the band and their record label had no idea this song would soar to the heights it did. In fact, some executives at the label (MCA), didn't want it on the album, thinking it was too long to ever get airplay. The band made sure it made the album, but had no idea it would become so popular. "We just play the music, and people get out of it what they get out of it," Ed King told Paul Ingles. "Sometimes we're just so close to it we just don't get it."
In places, the high-pitched guitar mimics a bird flying free. This is something Duane Allman did on the 1970
Derek & the Dominos track "
Layla," where at the end he plays the "crying bird." In that song, it signifies Layla's untamed spirit. In "Free Bird," the guy is the elusive one, refusing to be caged by intimacy.
Like "Free Bird," "Layla" loses most of its mojo when cut down for single release. The full version of that song runs 7:10, with the radio edit truncated to 2:43.
As attention spans have gotten shorter and the demand for very long guitar solos has waned, "Free Bird" has faded a bit. In modern times, Lynyrd Skynyrd's most popular song is the far more compact "
Sweet Home Alabama," which has roughly double the streaming totals of "Free Bird."
In the US, this wasn't released as a single until a year after the album came out. By that time, "
Sweet Home Alabama" had already been released, and the single version of "Free Bird" was edited down. The long version from the album has always been more popular.
Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd was Lynyrd Skynyrd's first album. They gave it the title because they knew people would not be able to pronounce their name.
This Southern rock classic was produced by a northerner:
Al Kooper, who discovered the band a year earlier when they were playing a gig in Atlanta. Kooper, a founding member of Blood, Sweat & Tears, is from Brooklyn, New York, but he gelled with Skynyrd, crafting their sound for wide appeal without diluting it. He produced their next two albums as well.
Despite having three guitarists, "Free Bird" opens with an organ as the lead instrument, giving the guitars more impact when they arrive. In early versions of the song, this section was done on piano, but Al Kooper convinced the band that organ was the way to go. He played the instrument on the track, credited on the album as "Roosevelt Gook." Kooper had the bona fides to pull it off: he came up with the organ section on Bob Dylan's "
Like a Rolling Stone."
Ronnie Van Zant thought at first that this song "had too many chords to write lyrics for." Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington commented in an interview with Blender magazine, "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. 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."
While the lyrics contain the phrase "free as a bird," the title itself ("Free Bird") is used just once, right before the guitar solos begin: "Won't you fly high, free bird."
This was used in the following TV series:
Family Guy ("The D in Apartment 23" - 2017)
House of Cards ("Chapter 2" - 2013)
Supernatural ("Free to Be You and Me" - 2009)
My Name Is Earl ("Two Balls, Two Strikes" - 2007)
Six Feet Under ("It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" - 2002)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer ("The Yoko Factor" - 2000)
Freaks and Geeks ("The Garage Door" - 2000)
That '70s Show ("Prom Night" - 1999)
The Simpsons ("The Otto Show" - 1992)
And in these movies:
The Counsel (2010)
Speed Racer (2008)
Elizabethtown (2005)
The Devil's Rejects (2005)
Forrest Gump (1994)
Kalifornia (1993)
Rush (1991)
It was also used as the encore song in the video game Guitar Hero II.
In 1976, a live version was released from the One More For the Road live album. It went to #38 in the US.
Skynyrd's 1991 boxed set contains a demo version of this song.
In 1973, the same year this song was released, BIC introduced the first adjustable-flame lighter - a colorful little contraption in a distinctive oval shape. These quickly became the lighters of choice at concerts, especially when Skynyrd played "Free Bird."
