Gimme 10 Songs

GARY ROSSINGTON dissects some of LYNYRD SKYNYRD's greatest songs - and Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London"!

-  ALAN PAUL

ROSSINGTON’S RECOLLECTIONS (BELOW) about the writing and recording of some of his and the band’s greatest songs come mostly from a memorable 1993 interview. However, wherever possible, I’ve supplemented the entries with quotes from some of our later conversations to provide a fuller picture.

“Free Bird” 

pronounced leh-nerd skin-nerd (1973)
“Allen had the chords for the beginning, pretty part for two full years. We were just beginning to write — that was actually one of the first songs we ever completed — and Ronnie kept saying there were too many chords so he couldn’t find a melody for it. He thought he had to change with every chord change. We kept asking him to write something to these chords, and he kept telling us to forget about it!

“Then one day we were at rehearsal and Allen started playing those chords, and Ronnie said, ‘Those are pretty. Play them again.’ Allen played it again, and Ronnie said, ‘Okay, I got it.’ And he wrote the lyrics in three or four minutes — the whole damned thing! He came up with a lot of stuff that way, and he never wrote anything down. His motto was, if you can’t remember it, it’s not worth remembering.