All-Time Greatest Hits | Lynyrd Skynyrd
release date: 2000 record label: MCA
(songs recorded between 1972-1977)
track listing: 1) Tuesday’s Gone*
2) Sweet Home Alabama
3) Gimme Three Steps
4) Simple Man
5) Saturday Night Special
6) Swamp Music
7) The Ballad of Curtis Loew
8) Free Bird (studio version)*
9) Call Me the Breeze
10) Comin’ Home
11) Gimme Back My Bullets
12) What’s Your Name?
13) You Got That Right
14) All I Can Do Is Write About It
15) That Smell
* not included on original release
“Tuesday’s gone, with the wind…”
The other night, I was flipping channels, when I stumbled upon Jay Leno’s Tonight Show. In the ever-waging late night wars, I proudly fly the flag of Jimmy Fallon. But with more than an hour before he would take the air, I lingered as Leno brought out his first guest, actor Charlie Sheen. Sheen, as most of you can remember, was fired from his hit prime-time comedy Two and a Half Men for being, well, insane. The few months that followed are the definition of a public relations nightmare. Mr. Sheen went through a very high-profile meltdown, which culminated in the posting of several bizarre online videos in which he blasts his former bosses, speaks of drinking tiger’s blood, and “winning.” For weeks, Charlie Sheen was a train wreck that no one could avoid.
Eventually, Sheen worked through his problems and has recently landed another acting job on an upcoming sitcom. That night, Leno began his interview with Sheen by noting the cheers of approval from the crowd and remarking that “Americans will accept anything but hypocrisy.” Turning to Sheen, he continued, “the one thing you are not is a hypocrite… you always said, ‘I like girls,’ ‘I like to party,’ and I think that’s why people rolled with you through this [turbulent year].”
Thirteen albums into my quest to listen to (and then write about) every album on iPod, I have come face-to-face with my own hypocrisy. In my original post (which you can find here), I decried a culture that no longer has time to listen to entire albums, instead choosing to purchase only singles from online outlets such as iTunes. I felt as if I soared above this practice until I came across the next album on my iPod, All-Time Greatest Hitsby Southern-rockers Lynyrd Skynyrd. It forced me to hold up a mirror and see, in myself, the problem that I condemned in others. But, if there is to be redemption, it must come through confession – so here goes. All-Time Greatest Hits, in my opinion, didn’t live up to its name. So I changed it. Edited it, until it became the record I wanted it to be. I added songs through purchasing them from iTunes, and removed a track I didn’t like. Funny how my self-righteous tones diminish when I start preaching to myself. But more on that later.
I didn’t grow up a Skynyrd fan. My little hometown in central Kentucky had two high schools. I graduated from the city school. We fancied ourselves a strange mixture of top-40 popular kids, punk rock outcasts, and hip-hop street thugs. In actuality, we were none of the above, but we thought ourselves mighty tough. On the other side of town was the county school. We city folks knew that the kids over there were nothing but rednecks, listening to country music and flying their rebel flags high. Lynyrd Skynyrd was associated with the county school, so I didn’t have much to do with the classic rock icons. (It’s funny, or maybe sad, how we draw lines in the sand to separate “them” from “us,” even at such a young age.)
Ironically, in college, I dated one of those “redneck” girls from the county school. She helped expand my musical taste beyond three chord punk-rock anthems. Janis Joplin, Bob Seger, and Skynyrd were always in her CD player. I didn’t mind Janis, and I warmed up to Seger pretty quickly – but I fought against Skynyrd as long as I could. I didn’t want to like their music. First, I objected to them on the grounds that I was raised a Neil Young fan. His 1970 release, After the Gold Rush, contained a song entitled Southern Man, in which Young decried Southern racism. Sweet Home Alabama, easily Skynyrd’s most popular song, was written as a counter-attack to Young’s song. In my justice-driven mind, I equated choosing Skynyrd over Young as tantamount to supporting racism over equality. Secondly, and I’m not proud to admit this, but I judged Skynyrd based upon their fan base, which I perceived to be party-hungry frat boys and beer-guzzling NASCAR fans – and I wasn’t interested in joining the ranks of either. Even before I gave Skynyrd’s music a chance, I had decided not to like them.
But then, I listened to them. I fought it as long as I could, but the music of the Southern-rockers eventually wore me down. It was too good to dismiss, and too important to judge unfairly. When I listened to Sweet Home Alabama with impartial ears, I didn’t hear racism, but boys who didn’t want an outsider (like Young, a Canadian) to judge them. If I’m honest, the same thing happens to me when outsiders turn their nose up at my beloved home state as being “backward,” or full of people who “don’t wear shoes and only eat fried chicken.” In fact, Young and Ronnie Van Zant, lead singer and principal songwriter for Skynyrd, were actually close friends. Young wrote a song for Skynyrd, while Van Zant was seen numerous times, most notably on the cover of Skynyrd’s Street Survivors album, wearing a Young t-shirt. Luckily, the choice between Young and Skynyrd isn’t an “either/or.” As for the idea that Skynyrd wrote only light-weight, party music – nothing could be further from the truth. Of course, they have songs like Sweet Home Alabama, Call Me the Breeze, and What’s Your Name which seem to extol the virtues of riotous living, but to assume that the band has nothing of significance to say is nonsense. Just a cursory listen to Skynyrd’s songs prove otherwise. In Saturday Night Special, a song which decries violence, Van Zant peaches that guns “ain’t good for nothin’ / but put a man six feet in a hole.” On That Smell, the band tackles the issue of substance abuse, “the angel of darkness is upon you / stuck a needle in your arm / so take another toke / have a blow for your nose / one more drink, fool, will drown you.” The Ballad of Curtis Loew finds the band daring to place value in a man whom the rest of society has rejected, “people said you was useless / but them people all were fools” and Simple Man, one of my favorite songs by Skynyrd, is full of worthwhile knowledge passed from a mother to her growing son, “take your time, don’t live too fast / troubles will come and they will pass / and don’t forget son, there is Someone up above.” Much to my excitement, I found that my premature judgments of the music of Ronnie Van Zant and company were completely off-base. Skynyrd was about so much more than just drinking music.
After deciding it was past time that I embraced Lynyrd Skynyrd, I went out looking for an album to add to my collection. Problem was, I couldn’t find one that included all the songs I wanted. I had only had three requirements: the album had to have 1) Simple Man, 2) Tuesday’s Gone (which, on a side note, has to be one of the best songs ever – heartbreak and trains, it don’t get much better than that) and 3) the studio version of Free Bird (I know, everyone likes the live version better – except me). Problem was, I couldn’t find that combination. So I took matters into my own hands. All-Time Greatest Hits included Simple Man, but its version of Free Bird was live and Tuesday’s Gone was nowhere to be found. Luckily for me, a Skynyrd album that my brother purchased at Goodwill did have the studio version of Free Bird – so, on my iPod, I made the first change to the All-Time Greatest Hits album by removing the live version of Free Bird and replacing it with the studio recording. My freshmen year of college, Coca-Cola was running a promotion that printed an iTunes code, redeemable for one song, on the bottoms of winning Coke caps. I drank a Coke a day until I became a winner, rushed home, and promptly spent my winning cap on Tuesday’s Gone, adding it to the All-Time Greatest Hits album on my iPod. Of course, changing an album so that it contains the songs I want makes me, at least to some degree, a music hypocrite. But, at least, the album now lived up to its name.
Great art has the ability to transport its beholder. So often, a song, a painting, or a sunset has created a story in my mind. Sometimes I attempt to record them; other times, I just delight in watching them unfold. A few years ago, I had the idea to create something I would call a M.A.E. – a multisensory artistic experience. The idea was to utilize music, writing and photography to tell a common story. For me, Tuesday’s Gone has always been a work art that has transported me into the middle of a story: its opening lines take me to a train track, a broken heart, and a grey fall sky. Over two years ago, I tried to record the story that Tuesday’s Gone crafts in my mind every time I hear it. A few weeks ago, I finally had the courage to try my hand at photography. A finally, after days of putting it together, my first M.A.E., years in the making, has been completed. I hope it has the ability to transport you to that train track, to that broken heart, and to the grey fall sky as well.
Access my first M.A.E. here - Tuesday's Gone.
release date: 2000 record label: MCA
(songs recorded between 1972-1977)
track listing: 1) Tuesday’s Gone*
2) Sweet Home Alabama
3) Gimme Three Steps
4) Simple Man
5) Saturday Night Special
6) Swamp Music
7) The Ballad of Curtis Loew
8) Free Bird (studio version)*
9) Call Me the Breeze
10) Comin’ Home
11) Gimme Back My Bullets
12) What’s Your Name?
13) You Got That Right
14) All I Can Do Is Write About It
15) That Smell
* not included on original release
“Tuesday’s gone, with the wind…”
The other night, I was flipping channels, when I stumbled upon Jay Leno’s Tonight Show. In the ever-waging late night wars, I proudly fly the flag of Jimmy Fallon. But with more than an hour before he would take the air, I lingered as Leno brought out his first guest, actor Charlie Sheen. Sheen, as most of you can remember, was fired from his hit prime-time comedy Two and a Half Men for being, well, insane. The few months that followed are the definition of a public relations nightmare. Mr. Sheen went through a very high-profile meltdown, which culminated in the posting of several bizarre online videos in which he blasts his former bosses, speaks of drinking tiger’s blood, and “winning.” For weeks, Charlie Sheen was a train wreck that no one could avoid.
Eventually, Sheen worked through his problems and has recently landed another acting job on an upcoming sitcom. That night, Leno began his interview with Sheen by noting the cheers of approval from the crowd and remarking that “Americans will accept anything but hypocrisy.” Turning to Sheen, he continued, “the one thing you are not is a hypocrite… you always said, ‘I like girls,’ ‘I like to party,’ and I think that’s why people rolled with you through this [turbulent year].”
Thirteen albums into my quest to listen to (and then write about) every album on iPod, I have come face-to-face with my own hypocrisy. In my original post (which you can find here), I decried a culture that no longer has time to listen to entire albums, instead choosing to purchase only singles from online outlets such as iTunes. I felt as if I soared above this practice until I came across the next album on my iPod, All-Time Greatest Hitsby Southern-rockers Lynyrd Skynyrd. It forced me to hold up a mirror and see, in myself, the problem that I condemned in others. But, if there is to be redemption, it must come through confession – so here goes. All-Time Greatest Hits, in my opinion, didn’t live up to its name. So I changed it. Edited it, until it became the record I wanted it to be. I added songs through purchasing them from iTunes, and removed a track I didn’t like. Funny how my self-righteous tones diminish when I start preaching to myself. But more on that later.
I didn’t grow up a Skynyrd fan. My little hometown in central Kentucky had two high schools. I graduated from the city school. We fancied ourselves a strange mixture of top-40 popular kids, punk rock outcasts, and hip-hop street thugs. In actuality, we were none of the above, but we thought ourselves mighty tough. On the other side of town was the county school. We city folks knew that the kids over there were nothing but rednecks, listening to country music and flying their rebel flags high. Lynyrd Skynyrd was associated with the county school, so I didn’t have much to do with the classic rock icons. (It’s funny, or maybe sad, how we draw lines in the sand to separate “them” from “us,” even at such a young age.)
Ironically, in college, I dated one of those “redneck” girls from the county school. She helped expand my musical taste beyond three chord punk-rock anthems. Janis Joplin, Bob Seger, and Skynyrd were always in her CD player. I didn’t mind Janis, and I warmed up to Seger pretty quickly – but I fought against Skynyrd as long as I could. I didn’t want to like their music. First, I objected to them on the grounds that I was raised a Neil Young fan. His 1970 release, After the Gold Rush, contained a song entitled Southern Man, in which Young decried Southern racism. Sweet Home Alabama, easily Skynyrd’s most popular song, was written as a counter-attack to Young’s song. In my justice-driven mind, I equated choosing Skynyrd over Young as tantamount to supporting racism over equality. Secondly, and I’m not proud to admit this, but I judged Skynyrd based upon their fan base, which I perceived to be party-hungry frat boys and beer-guzzling NASCAR fans – and I wasn’t interested in joining the ranks of either. Even before I gave Skynyrd’s music a chance, I had decided not to like them.
But then, I listened to them. I fought it as long as I could, but the music of the Southern-rockers eventually wore me down. It was too good to dismiss, and too important to judge unfairly. When I listened to Sweet Home Alabama with impartial ears, I didn’t hear racism, but boys who didn’t want an outsider (like Young, a Canadian) to judge them. If I’m honest, the same thing happens to me when outsiders turn their nose up at my beloved home state as being “backward,” or full of people who “don’t wear shoes and only eat fried chicken.” In fact, Young and Ronnie Van Zant, lead singer and principal songwriter for Skynyrd, were actually close friends. Young wrote a song for Skynyrd, while Van Zant was seen numerous times, most notably on the cover of Skynyrd’s Street Survivors album, wearing a Young t-shirt. Luckily, the choice between Young and Skynyrd isn’t an “either/or.” As for the idea that Skynyrd wrote only light-weight, party music – nothing could be further from the truth. Of course, they have songs like Sweet Home Alabama, Call Me the Breeze, and What’s Your Name which seem to extol the virtues of riotous living, but to assume that the band has nothing of significance to say is nonsense. Just a cursory listen to Skynyrd’s songs prove otherwise. In Saturday Night Special, a song which decries violence, Van Zant peaches that guns “ain’t good for nothin’ / but put a man six feet in a hole.” On That Smell, the band tackles the issue of substance abuse, “the angel of darkness is upon you / stuck a needle in your arm / so take another toke / have a blow for your nose / one more drink, fool, will drown you.” The Ballad of Curtis Loew finds the band daring to place value in a man whom the rest of society has rejected, “people said you was useless / but them people all were fools” and Simple Man, one of my favorite songs by Skynyrd, is full of worthwhile knowledge passed from a mother to her growing son, “take your time, don’t live too fast / troubles will come and they will pass / and don’t forget son, there is Someone up above.” Much to my excitement, I found that my premature judgments of the music of Ronnie Van Zant and company were completely off-base. Skynyrd was about so much more than just drinking music.
After deciding it was past time that I embraced Lynyrd Skynyrd, I went out looking for an album to add to my collection. Problem was, I couldn’t find one that included all the songs I wanted. I had only had three requirements: the album had to have 1) Simple Man, 2) Tuesday’s Gone (which, on a side note, has to be one of the best songs ever – heartbreak and trains, it don’t get much better than that) and 3) the studio version of Free Bird (I know, everyone likes the live version better – except me). Problem was, I couldn’t find that combination. So I took matters into my own hands. All-Time Greatest Hits included Simple Man, but its version of Free Bird was live and Tuesday’s Gone was nowhere to be found. Luckily for me, a Skynyrd album that my brother purchased at Goodwill did have the studio version of Free Bird – so, on my iPod, I made the first change to the All-Time Greatest Hits album by removing the live version of Free Bird and replacing it with the studio recording. My freshmen year of college, Coca-Cola was running a promotion that printed an iTunes code, redeemable for one song, on the bottoms of winning Coke caps. I drank a Coke a day until I became a winner, rushed home, and promptly spent my winning cap on Tuesday’s Gone, adding it to the All-Time Greatest Hits album on my iPod. Of course, changing an album so that it contains the songs I want makes me, at least to some degree, a music hypocrite. But, at least, the album now lived up to its name.
Great art has the ability to transport its beholder. So often, a song, a painting, or a sunset has created a story in my mind. Sometimes I attempt to record them; other times, I just delight in watching them unfold. A few years ago, I had the idea to create something I would call a M.A.E. – a multisensory artistic experience. The idea was to utilize music, writing and photography to tell a common story. For me, Tuesday’s Gone has always been a work art that has transported me into the middle of a story: its opening lines take me to a train track, a broken heart, and a grey fall sky. Over two years ago, I tried to record the story that Tuesday’s Gone crafts in my mind every time I hear it. A few weeks ago, I finally had the courage to try my hand at photography. A finally, after days of putting it together, my first M.A.E., years in the making, has been completed. I hope it has the ability to transport you to that train track, to that broken heart, and to the grey fall sky as well.
Access my first M.A.E. here - Tuesday's Gone.
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