When you think of Lynryd Skynyrd you don’t think of an Environmental Friendly band but Van Zant was that. They all grew up in Gainesville Florida and were around wildlife and natural tropical areas. This song is a warning about the growth of his hometown and he was cautioning about urban and suburban areas claiming wild lands as their own.
‘Cause when I can see the concrete a slowly creepin’Lord take me and mine before that come
Van Zant saw this happening all through Dixie which include South Carolina, North Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, and Tennessee.
This song was on their Gimme Back My Bullets album released in 1976 after Ed King had left the band. It was the B-side to Gimme Back My Bullets.
Gimme Back My Bullets is mistaken for meaning real gun bullets but it’s not…it meant the chart positions of songs…” with a bullet.” The definition I found was “That has entered the charts in a high position, or has climbed rapidly in the charts, or is thought to have the potential for further rapid advancement.”
The song was written by Ronnie Van Zant and guitar player Allen Collins. The band was an album band that also included some hit singles and now classic radio staples such as Simple Man, Free Bird, Sweet Home Alabama, Gimme Back My Bullets, Saturday Night Special, The Ballad Of Curtis Lowe, and more.
What if the plane crash wouldn’t have happened? Bill Bentley, the author of “Smithsonian Rock and Roll: Live and Unseen,” said: “I think if Lynyrd Skynyrd had lasted, they would have become one of the foundations of American rock bands, much like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers or Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, I think Ronnie Van Zant had enough artistic strength to grow and they really would have been individuals, there wouldn’t have been another band like them.”
I’m not sure what would have happened but I don’t see them ever conforming to the trends of the day. Ronnie Van Zant in parachute pants? I just don’t see it happening. I can’t see them changing their sound like ZZ Top, Heart, and Cheap Trick. Personally, I think they would have had a huge follow-up to Street Survivors…as the 80s came they might have carried on as before like Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen.
If they didn’t make it in the 80s I could see them reforming in the 90s like The Allman Brothers and others. Most people think of these guys as backwoods good old boys…which some of that is true but they varied on their writing. An environmental song and a gun control song in Saturday Night Special. No one talks about that much.
All I Can Do Is Write About It
Well this life that I live took me everywhereThere ain’t no place I ain’t never goneWell it’s kind of like the sayinThat you heard so many timesWell there just ain’t no place like home
Did you ever see a she-gator protect her youngin’Or fish in a river swimmin’ freeDid you ever see the beauty of the hills of CarolinaOr the sweetness of the grass in Tennessee
And Lord I can’t make any changesAll I can do is write ’em in a song‘Cause if I can seen the concrete a slowly creepin’Lord take me and mine before that comes
Like to see a mountain stream a flowin’Do ya like to see a youngin’ with his dogDid ya ever stop and think aboutWell the air your breathin’Well ya better listen to my song
And Lord I can’t make any changesAll I can do is write ’em in a song‘Cause when I can see the concrete a slowly creepin’Lord take me and mine before that comes
I’m not tryin’ to put down no big cityBut the things they write about us is just a boreWell you can take a boy out of ole’ Dixieland, LordBut you’ll never take ole’ Dixie from a boy
And Lord I can’t make any changesAll I can do is write ’em in a song‘Cause when I can see the concrete a slowly creepin’Lord take me and mine before that comes
If I can see the concrete a slowly creepin’Lord take me and mine before that comes
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