Some of the best lyrics in rock ‘n’ roll history don’t come from flowery prose and opaque metaphors, whipped up by a poet. Some of the greatest songwriters lift these lines verbatim from everyday interactions, some of which don’t seem all that extraordinary.
These four iconic lines from Lynyrd Skynyrd songs came directly from real-life conversations, proving that a good hook can be anywhere if you know how to find it.
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“Gimme Three Steps”
“Gimme Three Steps” has the raw authenticity of a classic autobiographical blues song because it was autobiographical. According to Gary Rossington, the story and chorus behind “Gimme Three Steps” actually came from Ronnie Van Zant dancing with a girl—yes, named Linda Lu—at a place called The Jug.
“This guy came in and was going to beat him up, and Ronnie said, ‘Just give me three steps, and I’m gone,’” the guitarist told Guitar World. “The guy had a gun, and he was a redneck, and he was drunk—a nasty combination of things. And Ronnie said, ‘If you’re going to shoot me, it’s going to be in the a** or in the elbow.’ And he took off like a bat out of hell.”
“Free Bird”
“Free Bird” is one of those all-time great classic rock tracks that everyone relates to in a different way. But for Kathy Johns, the girlfriend of Allen Collins, guitarist of Lynyrd Skynyrd, the opening lines of the career-defining song came straight from a question she asked her boyfriend. Johns was thinking about how she would always be competing with Allen’s main passion in life, music.
She was watching him practice one night when she asked, “If I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me?” The question was meant to highlight how she felt neglected compared to Allen’s music. Somewhat ironically, he took that line and immediately began writing the basis of “Free Bird”. Six years later, the song—and those opening lines—would take on a more tragic meaning after Johns died of a hemorrhage while miscarrying their third child together.
“Double Trouble”
In some cases, like the story that helped inspire “Gimme Three Steps”, the protagonist (or antagonist, depending on which character you’re siding with) of the tale, Ronnie Van Zant, made it out unscathed. Other times, like the circumstances that bore “Double Trouble” from the band’s fourth album, Gimme Back My Bullets, Van Zant wasn’t so lucky. Neither were his pals.
In Whiskey Bottles And Brand New Cars: The Fast Life And Sudden Death Of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Gary Rossington remembered a time he was in jail with Van Zant. Rossington asked Van Zant how many times police arrested him, and Van Zant said eleven. Rossington called him “double trouble,” which helped inspire the hook of their 1975 track.
“Mississippi Kid”
The final song on this list of Lynyrd Skynyrd songs inspired by real-life conversations comes with an asterisk, because technically, the title is the one aspect of this song that came from comments Ronnie Van Zant actually made. The Lynyrd Skynyrd frontman inexplicably started calling himself the Mississippi Kid, despite the fact that he was from Jacksonville, Florida, and had never lived in Mississippi.
After Lynyrd Skynyrd’s plane went down in a swamp outside of Gillsburg, Mississippi, Van Zant’s comments suddenly took on new meaning. When he called himself the Mississippi Kid, he also often talked about how he didn’t expect to live for a long time. His tragic death at 29 years old made these once fairly innocuous (if not dramatic) comments sound like ominous premonitions in hindsight.
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