The iconic song of the iconic Southern Rock band

Among the curious events that occurred in 2025 is the publication, which took place last May, of the official video of the song by Lynyrd Skynyrd “Free bird”. What’s so strange about the release of a clip, you ask? Well, the clip comes fifty-two years after the publication of the song, dated 1973. You can see the video below, further down you can read the history of the song and how it became a classic rock anthem.

“Free birds” of the Lynyrd Skynyrd is one of the most iconic rock songs of all time. It is the symbolic song of one of the symbolic bands of Southern Rock. But, as one of the group’s guitarists explained in an interview with Classic Rock, Gary Rossingtonthe song, when it was written, certainly didn’t have all these ambitions. “Free Bird” was written by the guitarist Allen Collins and the singer Ronnie Van Zantbut the whole group took part in its creation, especially the keyboard player Billy Powell.

Rossington said of the band’s early days from Jacksonville, Florida: “Like every kid in America, we wanted to be the Beatles. We wanted to play in a band, we started talking to each other and we all learned together: me, Ronnie and Allen. I knew a couple of chords, but Ronnie just couldn’t sing and we didn’t think we could write a song in our lives. We thought it took talent! We had just the dream of making it in a band, but we didn’t think we’d actually make it. We started rehearsing and playing around the city, at parties and stuff, and when we started writing, we started really getting into it. Al and I would compete for solos. We learned a song and whoever played the lead part best won it. So, after a while, we bumped into each other, and Ronnie noticed. He said to the other guys: ‘Look, Gary, why don’t you play the lead part?’ And Al would get so pissed off that he would come back the next day and play it better than me. Ronnie was smart. Then there were some real arguments! But it was fantastic. For a while I had a girlfriend and every day I would go to her house after the band had rehearsed for a couple of hours, whereas Allen didn’t have a girlfriend: he would come home and play. This meant that Al learned faster than me. So I ended up leaving this girl so I could play di more!”.

The musician passed away in 2023 at the age of 71 in the interview he mentioned the names of some bluesmen who at the beginning of his career had a decisive influence both for himself and for his bandmate and friend Allen Collins. “We loved the blues. Paul Butterfield and John Mayall, Muddy Waters and Son House, Howlin’ Wolf. Everyone was influenced by the blues, because rock ‘n’ roll evolved from the blues.”

Moving on to talk about “Free Bird” Rossington recalled that when Collins and Van Zant wrote it he didn’t think it was anything particularly special. “It was a simple love song about leaving a girl to be free as a bird. Ronnie wrote the lyrics, so we had a song, but that was it. We played it, liked it, and taught it to the rest of the band. But it was just a guitar piece. We didn’t have Billy Powell on piano yet. At that time Billy was our roadie, setting up the equipment and spending time with us. He played music classical, he didn’t even like rock ‘n’ roll. I made up the final three chords so Allen could play the lead part, and when we played the clubs – to save time, I swear to God – Allen would play thirty seconds of lead part and I would play the chords for a few passages, and that was it.”

Fishing in his memory his memory becomes more and more fluid and passionate: “We hadn’t recorded it yet, we were playing it in a club and Ronnie said: ‘Play it a little more, so I can rest my voice’. We played four or five hours a night, four or five sets. So it was two minutes, then three, then four. Then, punctually, Ronnie said: ‘Keep going until I tell you to stop!’. It simply evolved like this. When we went to record it, the record company and many other people in our circle said to us: ‘You can’t play it, it’s too long’. Because the songs could only last two or three minutes, like the old Beatles and Stones songs. But we said, ‘We don’t care!’ The truth is, we didn’t think it would be a great song.”

“Free Bird” is the track that closes the debut album of Lynyrd Skynyrd from 1973 “(Pronounced ‘Lĕh-‘nérd ‘Skin-‘nérd)”. The song – produced by Al Koopera musician of some experience who had played on songs such as “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” of the Rolling Stones And “Like A Rolling Stone” Of Bob Dylan – was released as a single in November 1973, but only reached 87th place in the charts in the United States.

Gary Rossington
to Classic Rock he said again, recalling the old days: “After the first album, we went back to playing clubs without earning anything. Every penny we earned we used for equipment, gas or whatever for the band. The first time we played in Jacksonville in front of three or four thousand people, we thought we had made it! We just wanted to play and tour. We thought it was the greatest thing in the world.”

A big boost to the career of
Lynyrd Skynyrd
occurred in 1973 when they performed as the opening act on the tour of
Who
. “We watched the Who every night, every second. It was amazing for us. We were like kids in a candy store. That’s all we wanted to do: stay there all day. It was during that tour with the Who, when we got a bigger audience, that our records started selling well and the radio stations started playing ‘Free Bird.'”

The song would, little by little, become a true anthem, and a staple in the programming of radio stations dedicated to classic rock. When to the singer of
Lynyrd Skynyrd Ronnie Van Zant
was asked to explain the meaning of
“Free Bird”
his answer was simple and immediate: “It means being free, in the sense that a bird can fly wherever it wants to go.”