He further stated that 'everyone wants to be free.that's what this country's all about'. Van Zant replied that in essence, that the song is 'what it means to be free, in that a bird can fly wherever he wants to go'. Also in an interview filmed during a fishing outing on a boat with Gary Rossington, an interviewer asked Ronnie Van Zant what the song meant. Soon afterward, the band learned piano-playing roadie Billy Powell had written an introduction to the song upon hearing it, they included it as the finishing touch and had him formally join as their keyboardist.Īllen Collins's girlfriend, Kathy, whom he later married, asked him, 'If I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me?' Collins noted the question and it eventually became the opening line of 'Free Bird'. The guitar solos that finish the song were added originally to give Van Zant a chance to rest, as the band was playing several sets per night at clubs at the time.

After Collins played the unused sequence at rehearsal one day, Van Zant asked him to repeat it, then wrote out the melody and lyrics in three or four minutes. 5.2 Additional personnel (live version 1976)Īccording to guitarist Gary Rossington, for two years after Allen Collins wrote the initial chords, vocalist Ronnie Van Zant insisted that there were too many for him to create a melody in the belief that the melody needed to change alongside the chords.

Free bird lyrics