Who knows why the Free Bird Sings?

[gurdonark]

I have to make a confession now. It's a hard one to place in the annals of this journal, but I feel my readers are entitled to know.


Last Saturday night, I was sitting in a coffee shop listening to
a jazz duo play bebop, nursing my hot chocolate as if it were the best cup of java in a noir movie. They were really good, a couple of kids who go to the great jazz program thirty miles up the road. But then I felt the urge. I felt the longing for a cigarette lighter, fully lit, waving in the air. I felt the need to wave that lighter and request a song. Yes, I had that strong soul urge to inappropriately ask them to play the song "Free Bird".

In life, there are really too kinds of people, people who appreciate "Free Bird" and people who did not grow up in the south. This old Lyrnyrd Skynrd chestnut, particularly in its album-length pompous full majesty, sends a certain thrill of discovery and well-being through all its true adherents. Sometimes, when we are in church, and we are belting out a hymn from the Unitarian Universalist hymn books (all of whose hymns, by the way, seem to focus lyrically on "gee, this is a really awesome world, maybe it'd be cool if we all got along", in more or less flowery language), I wonder if we could not get just as much soul-enrichment if we belted out, in unison, with a drawl:
"If I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me?
'Cause I must be travelling on now, there's too many
places I gotta see".
I know that this lyric is not quite as meaningful as "I sing because I'm happy, I sing because I'm free" or that song that likens some experience or other to "a rose in the wintertime" (which was,when I lived in Southern CA, a much less profound concept that I am sure that hymnist was imagining over in New England). But it's all a matter of good intentions. It's kind of like that effort to make "Born to Run" the New Jersey state song
some years ago. I have this mental image of first graders standing, with the hands over their heart, facing the New Jersey flag and singing "and strap your hands 'cross my engines!".

I must hasten to point out that I am not a "big" fan of southern rock or country rock, as my own tastes in those 70s southern rock days ran more to art and progressive rock. It's true that I had an early teenage Black Oak Arkansas fondness, but who could resist any band of self-taught musicians who sold millions of records with minimal musical skills and featured 2 minute scrub-board solos at their concerts? When I do my album of covers, then I'll certainly include a Black Oak Arkansas song in the mix. Now it's true that on any given Sunday drive, it's entirely possible to find me singing Pure Prairie League's "Amie", because "Amie" reminds me of being a teenager so much, and yet when I was a teenager, I don't think that the problem was "fallin' in and out of love with you" so much as "fallin' in love with you but romantically I don't exist for you", which would be much harder to put to a melody.

Still and all, though, I'm not the kind of man who listens to "Whippin' Post" and says "Dickie Betts--whutta guitarist!" or who went to Molly Hatchet concerts. But "Free Bird" is not limited to its narrow genre. "Free Bird" is not constrained by its lyrical road-song triteness.
That soaring guitar and twangy vocal just make my heart soar.

I see "Free Bird" as the "King of the Road" for my generation. You know, the song everyone likes although for virtually no reason. I know it's illogical, but this isn't Star Trek, and I"m not a Vulcan. But no matter what musical experience I attend, I frequently wonder if it wouldn't be enlivened by "Free Bird".

This Christmas, I hope we get carollers--but I want them to sing:
"and this bird you cannot change...and this bird you cannot chayeyeahyeahyeah--ange....oh no, I can't change.....".

Silly? Yes. Trite? Maybe. But what can I say. It's "Free Bird".

Comments

[nacowafer.livejournal.com]

Well, you know I'm a "Free Bird" person already, but, man! It's a great song. Who doesn't identify with it? No one I want to know, that's for sure. Rock on! Lord knows, I can't change. And isn't that why we go to church, because we can't change, we're fundamentally flawed ("I'm to blame"), and we seek forgiveness, redemption. I think "Free Bird" is a great hymn. I might even go to church if all hymns were as rockin'...and as simple and true.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's that air of resignation and celebration--he can't change, but he's gonna fly high, that free bird. I'd put it in my hymnal any time.

[sempereadem.livejournal.com]

The minister who married me & the Hubby was once the drummer for Lynard Skynard.

*sigh*

I think everyone who grew up listening to Lynard Skynard and "Southern" rock goes through a period of "oh-mah-gawd-did-I-really-listen-to-that" disassociation and embarrassment because of the gauche un-hipness that surrounds those "Southern" bands (I mean, who hasn't been offered cocaine by Greg Allman at one time or another?). Still, I've found as I get older, and less susceptible to peer pressure, that I really enjoy listening to them now.

I think, too, it has a lot to do with free association. I grew up listening to Willie and Waylon and the boys, and yes, Molly Hatchet and Lynard Skynard and Big Brother and the Holding Company and now, I think, I associate that sound with my childhood and home. Makes sense, to me at least.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I got Second Helping a few weeks ago in a cheap cassette at a truck stop,and it's really a good listen. So far I've missed having Greg Allman offer me cocaine, though :)

[licoricestick.livejournal.com]

I didn't grow up in the South and I have always had an appreciation for Free Bird. May be because part of my family was made up of bikers and I was exposed to it at an early age. Who knows, but I love that damn song.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Bikers! Free bird! now that's rockin'!

[wildgarden.livejournal.com]

This made me smile. Growing up in New Jersey, I guess there was no stigma attached to liking southern rock and in high school we went to NYC for concerts, just as likely to see the Allman Brothers as Frank Zappa. My brother, one of the great unknown guitarists, cut his his first chops on Free Bird. Heck, when we get together we still warm up with Skynard and Marshall Tucker tunes.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

It was the radio-friendly Tucker, but I still love "Heard it in a Love Song".

[the-outsider.livejournal.com]

I'm going to take this time to come out of the closet and admit to being a huge southern rock fan. Skynyrd, Molly Hatchet, Allmans...even 38 Special and the Charlie Daniels Band. Of course I'd never go see any of them live. I'd be afraid of getting lynched or something by a bunch of guys with mullets wearing cowboy hats and cowboy boots.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I am impressed by the way you copped this plea. When you can admit 38 Special fondness in a public forum, then you know you are a fearless man indeed :).

[sun-set-bravely.livejournal.com]

Are you kidding? There's shame attached to liking "Free Bird"? I never knew this. I'm fond of the song, and most people I know have a liking for it as well. Plus, it's always fun to yell "Free Bird" at emo or hip hop concerts... Or at least suggest it jokingly to the people you're with.

I have a question about Unitarian Universalism. What's the history of this branch of Protestantism? And what's the difference, if any, between Unitarian Universalism and just plain Unitarianism? I grew up Methodist, which is a pretty relaxed bunch of Christians, but Unitarianism exerts a certain intrigue over my brain as well. Possibly because Robert Fulghum belongs to that group. What's your experience in this area?

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

The Unitarians and the Universalists are two disparate but similar movements which arose independently and them merged into the Unitarian Universalist church. The Unitarians arose in New England, a split-off from the Congregationalist church (I believe that denomination is now called United Church of Christ, not to be confused with the much less liberal Disciples of Christ). Boston was traditionally the seat of the Unitarian wing of the faith. Ralph Waldo Emerson was for a brief period a Unitarian minister.
The denomination had its roots in a theology more liberal than the Congregational churches from which it sprang, resulting in a schism in which individual congregations went one way or the other.

The Unitarian church arguably had roots among 'wealthier' New Englanders. The Universalist Church, by contrast, was more of a working peoples' church based on the notion of Christianity without eternal Hell. During the tent revival days of the late 19th C., the Universalists took quite a bit of root, and tended to be less New Englandcentric.

Both churches arose from the Christian tradition, but both churches came to emphasize tolerance and creedlessness over a required set of beliefs. In the early 1960s, the two churches merged, creating the current U/U church. So U/Us are pretty much indistinguishable from Unitarians. Of course, there's no requirement that one reject the Trinity--it is entirely possible to be a Trinitarian Unitarian.

If you're interested in this topic, check out www.uua.org, the U/U website. My own background, like yours, is United Methodist. Although a good many Methodists I knew were essentially Christian Unitarians, I felt the need to go to a faith that was more tolerant of other views. It's not so much that I lost my own faith, as that I lost the need to exclude others. I've been a U/U for some years now, and find the churches in that faith by and large easygoing, debate-filled collections of essentially lovable eccentrics :).

spear chucking

[platofish.livejournal.com]

As a teenager, growing up in grey, miserable Scotland, I used to listen to Free Bird constantly. Like MLK, I had a dream, or more accurately, a fantasy. I picured being old enough to drive, and having either a fast car, or a bike. At the instant the instrumental started I'd drop some gears, hit the gas, burn some rubber, and let the G force drive me into my seat.

As I got older, I started frequenting a biker bar at the weekend. And, of course, Free bird was one of the mainstays that every DJ had to play.

Then a long hiatus when I didn't really hear the track.

Until 6 years ago, I moved to sunny California, and bought a two seater cabriolet and a CD version Free Bird. Many, many, many times I lived out the twenty year old fantasy.....driving slowish on the Coastal Highway, sun bleaching my clothes, 200W of Alpine hi-fi assaulting the air....and then, as I imagined, .....

'on no, I can't..'

~throttle blip~

~drop a gear~

~throttle blip~

~drop a gear~

'..change'

floored the gas, and took it to the red line going back up the gears.

Yaaaawzaaaaaaaaaaa! Every time it was as good as I'd imagined.

Re: spear chucking

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

What a great story! I can hear tires squeal!

[gregwest98.livejournal.com]

I know it isn't in the same category but I always liked Dixie Dregs. I still buy stuff that Steve Morse puts out.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Dixie Dregs were cool, but, like Little Feat, they were definitely more a thinking redneck's music :)