Lynyrd Skynyrd – One More Time

This band was known mostly for Sweet Home Alabama, Gimme Three Steps, Simple Man, and Free Bird for the most part. It’s a shame really because they have some outstanding album cuts.

I’ve had love-hate feelings with them because people automatically think you have to like them…if you are from the south. Our band would refuse to play their music for the longest time. Now I’m embarrassed we thought that way.

After a little time, I started to realize how great of a  rock band they were…southern or not. Their influences were The Stones, Yardbirds, and most of all Cream…and it showed. At the time of their crash in 1977, Street Survivors had just been released 3 days and it was moving fast up the charts. This was going to be their big breakthrough album…and it was. They were a double-threat band…they could hit with singles and make superb rock albums. If not for the crash they would have been up in the stardom league of Aerosmith at least.

Ronnie Van Zant was a fantastic songwriter and a good singer. He is a singer who knew his limits and stayed within them. He would never write any words down…he would walk around the band during rehearsal and start to make up verses while hearing riffs and he would have a finished song.

I was really surprised by this song. I always liked it but…it sounded different from the other songs and I never knew why. I assumed that this song was recorded in 1977 but I was wrong. One More Time was recorded back in 1970 – 1971 when they were making demos and just starting their recording career. That was 2 years before they released their first album.

It was written by Van Zant and guitarist Gary Rossington. They worked on this album for a long time…they re-recorded every song on Street Survivors twice except this one. They dropped some other songs they worked on and pulled out this demo from the vaults and used it. The band re-mixed it and it blended in with the other new songs but I can hear now while listening to What’s Her Name and others on the album.

Street Survivors peaked at #5 in the Billboard Album Charts and #3 in Canada in 1977. The band has sold 28 million albums in the US since 1991 when Nielsen SoundScan started tracking sales, not including album sales for the band’s first 17 years.

His voice sounds a little different in this song because it was so early in their career and he was learning. Van Zant sings this song in a controlled cool while delivering this line.

So I’ll take the word of a liar
One more time, one more time

One More Time

How can you stand there smilin’
After all you’ve done
You know it seems to make you happy
When you’ve hurt someone
Twice before you fooled me
With your deceivin’ and lyin’
Come in and close the door
One more time, one more time

Yeah you’ve been gone so long
No one knows where
And you say that you still love me
Then show me you care
‘Cause you got what it takes sweet mama
To make a man feel fine
So I’ll take the word of a liar
One more time, one more time

Girl you’ve got me hungry
Losin’ my mind
I know I’m playin’ with fire
Get burned every time
Yes I’m a fool for you baby I can’t deny
But I got to have your sweet love
One more time, one more time

Girl you’ve got me hungry
Losin’ my mind
I know I’m playin’ with fire
I get burned every time
Yes I’m a fool for you mama I can’t deny
But I got to have your sweet love
One more time, one more time

Yes I’m her fool once more
I can read her brown eyes
But when the rooster crows tomorrow
Well its her turn to cry
I’m headed down that old road
She lost her free ride
So tonight I’ll take what I paid for
One more time, one more time
One more time

Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

19 thoughts on “Lynyrd Skynyrd – One More Time”

  1. My band played Sweet Home Alabama and Free Bird, which was a butt kicker to learn the proper way. I was never a big fan of LS, but did enjoy a few of their tunes. When I lived for a year on Jacksonville Fl, the folks there believed Skynard to be the second coming.

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    1. That is how it was in Nashville at the time. Later on we finally learned The Needle and the Spoon. I’ve seen so many bands fake their way through Free Bird…it isn’t pretty but when they play it the proper way…it is a great live song.

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  3. Good tune and I’m glad you called it out, Max, since I had not known it. Embarrassingly, for many years I only had been aware of “Sweet Home Alabama”, which I dug from the get-go and still do.

    But Skynyrd is definitely more than Alabama. What’s kind of remarkable about that tune is none of the writers were actually born in Alabama.

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      2. Good! I was forced to listen to them by a cousin…at the time I wasn’t happy about it but I grew to appreciate them a lot.

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      4. Wow Christian…that .was from the touring band…that is great to hear. They are very good in concert I will have to say. I’ve seen them 3 times and they always are on the mark.

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      5. I’ve seen Skynyrd once in July 2018 in New Jersey and thought they were pretty good. It was during the so-called “Last of the Street Survivors Farewell Tour”. I guess similar to Deep Purple that farewell tour in the meantime has morphed into some “long goodbye” tour! 🙂

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      6. I first saw them in 1987 when they had Ed King and most of the original band there. Allen Collins was even there in a wheelchair before he passed….the first time I saw them Van Zant’s brother didn’t sing Free Bird…they just played the music and had Ronnie’s hat hanging on a mic.

        Yea I know it’s hard to pass up that much money plus by now….they love playing.

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  4. In New Zealand a guitarist I played with liked to warm up with ‘Sweet Home Alabama’, so it’s not just the south of the USA. It’s crazy that that album came out three days before the plane crash with that cover. Apparently Natalie Merchant was scheduled to shoot an album cover with kids wearing gas masks on the day 9/11 happened.

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  6. They were a great band that got played to death on 96 Rock in Atlanta, where you could count on hearing “Free Bird” and “Sweet Home Alabama” at least twice each between 9 and 5 on weekdays…

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  7. I got to see Skynyrd twice in the mid ’70s. What a band! And while it is certainly very radio-friendly, it irks m e slightly that all wee hear (over here at least) is ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ on the airwaves. Or if ‘Fe Bird’ gets an airing, half the guitar piece at the end is faded out.
    To be honest, I haven’t listened to much of the ‘new’ band stuff, but certainly, before disaster struck, they could nowt wrong in my eyes. Ears.

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    1. Yea that is just awesome that you saw these guys…the original band. I live in the south so they get played here regularly for the most part.
      I’ve seen film clips of the old band…they seemed to be on the mark when they played live.

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