Saturday, June 13, 2020

The Ten Minutes of “Free Bird”—Ranked


10. 9:00-9:07—This is the part where the song ends. The bastards.

9. 2:00-3:00—The song’s signature line technically starts in the second minute, but in this minute, we get most of the bulk of it: “..free as a bird now, and this bird you cannot change.” And for a twenty second or so stretch, one is led to believe that this song is about to really kick into gear. But then it reverts back to the ballad that is the first half of this song.

8. 3:00-4:00—The second verse isn’t as strong vocally as the first, but in the second part of it, the guitars start to kick into gear. Van Zant is still singing a ballad, but the guitarists behind him are gearing up for a party. The first half of this minute may be the weakest 30 seconds of the song, but by the second half, you are on the edge of your seat waiting for the song to burst out of its seams.

7. 1:00-2:00—The vocals kick in, and Ronnie Van Zant’s understatedly great lyrics begin. For me, a person who generally doesn’t care that much about lyrics, the ideal song has words that sounds good when sung but also aren’t completely cringeworthy when considered as a poem (I will always prioritize the former over the latter, hence why I love Oasis). Van Zant intentionally lacks any particular profundity but is still convincing in the role of instigator of a breakup as somebody who truly believes he is doing the other party a favor.

6. 0:00-1:00—The first minute of “Free Bird” opens as an almost-funereal processional. The opening keyboards belong in the church; the subsequent opening guitar belongs to the burial. The song is famously a tribute to the late Allman Brothers guitarist Duane Allman, so it is appropriate that such a tribute would have the bearings of both a funeral and an incredible, epic guitar jam.

5. 5:00-6:00—The first 20 seconds of guitar soloing are great and they are fun, but they are also somewhat typical. This isn’t an insult—I’m somebody who loves every single guitar solo Steve Jones ever recorded with the Sex Pistols. But around 5:15, the fact that Lynyrd Skynyrd did not care whatsoever about individual accolades becomes abundantly clear. Oh cool, Cream, you have three members? We have no fewer than three guitarists on any given song, and maybe Allen Collins and Gary Rossington aren’t going to be inner-circle famous guitarists but our sound is going to be legendary.

4. 8:00-9:00—“Free Bird” sounds improvised, which is amazing given that, despite their owing a debt of gratitude to the Allman Brothers, legendary improvisers, Lynyrd Skynyrd were a stridently professional and rehearsed band. Everything they did was orchestrated. It’s probably for the best—this song could have been terrible had they not had some sense of direction. And instead, it rules.

3. 6:00-7:00—For all of the attention “Free Bird” gets as a guitar jam, can we talk for a second about the drumming? It may not be complex but Bob Burns bashes those things so that you can hear them over three damn guitars, and to the extent that I headbang (inadvertently, as a muscular twitch), it isn’t to the guitar—it’s to the drum beat. And that includes the proto-Van Halen finger tapping of the second half of this minute.

2. 7:00-8:00—BOB DAMN BURNS Y’ALL. The drumming is absolutely relentless and the guitars are chaotic and by the time this minute ends, I’m halfway through a brick wall.

1. 4:00-5:00—The finger-tapping of the second chorus. “Lord help me I can’t cha-aaa-aaa-aaa-aaa-aaa-aaa-ange!” The first five seconds of a guitar solo that, even in its opening notes, clearly has a mind of its own. In a way, these are the only sixty seconds of “Free Bird” that matter. If you don’t like this minute, you aren’t going to like the song. And if you don’t like the song, I appreciate you reading this, but I can’t imagine why you are.

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