Songfacts®:

• This is Ronnie Van Zant's protest song. Instead of writing from the perspective of the war, it is written from the perspective of the government.
• An acoustic version of this song is featured on the album Endangered Species sung by Johnny Van Zant. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Aaron - Twin Cities, MN, for above 2
• This song, track one, side two, of their debut album (pronounced 'l?h-'nérd 'skin-'nérd), was part of Lynyrd Skynyrd's initial audition tapes. Then-producer Al Kooper brought them all into the studio to record every original song they knew to live-to-two-track, so he could then pick and choose from that to make the first album. However, it turned out that all 14 songs were top-notch, so Kooper used everything that didn't go on the first album for either B-sides for single's releases or on later albums.
  Kooper's initial work with the band was sometimes a power struggle. In his memoir, Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards, Kooper mentions how they broke in Billy Powell, a keyboardist with training in classical music. While the classical music training gave him a rich, textured sound, he tended to play too much with his left hand, drowning out the guitars. Kooper got so frustrated trying to break him of this habit that he took to tying Powell's left hand to the piano bench during takes!