My favorite Skynyrd song and damn near makes me cry every time because I’ve lived it. Been an addict on the verge of death a few times. I know that smell. 15 months sober and counting now
45 years later it's hard to believe how good the music still sounds. A lot of music from this era sounds dated, Lynyrd Skynyrd doesn't. No questions one of the best bands ever
Ronnie wrote this to Gary Rossington, the lead guitarist, after he crashed his car into an oak tree after binging on drugs & alcohol. This song was a message to straighten up before he dies from it.
@@tomwilliams5137 That's not the way I heard Gary tell it, and Allen was in a car accident later after the song was wrote, with his then girl friend who died in the accident 😔
Growing up we lived on a hill in a rural area, and one of the curves was close to 90% about half way up. In the winter it would get very slick, and the trick to making it to the top was to not lose to much speed on that curve, but also not hit the tree (I don't remember if it was oak or not... probably maple). My dad would sing that line EVERY TIME we would make the attempt, LOL. I habit that I found myself recreating once I was driving.
Gaines was hitting it out of the park, he had just joined the band and a ton of his material is on his record. He was a budding superstar and died right after this. AWFUL!
This is when music was real!!! You knew how to sing play instruments the whole nine yards!!! This is pure raw talent!! No autotune no nothing!! Back when music was real and good!!!
I know right! I can honestly say he's brought back GREAT memories from when I was younger and jamming with my family. Needless to say, my playlist has grown lol.
This song was written about Gary Rossington, who was one of the bands' guitar players (he is the one playing the solo that starts at 4:37), wrapping his car around a tree while high on Quaaludes in 1976. Ironically, Gary is one of only two original members of Lynyrd Skynyrd still alive today.
Damn that's a deep statement bro very deep and I was born in 69 so I grew up in the seventies 70s was kind of spooky yet good at the same time if that makes any sense LOL
True... Ronnie Van Zant was a great song writer and singer... and most all of his music was based loosely on places events and people in his life... Truck Driver was about his dad... I'm a big fan of RVZ's Skynyrd... JVZ's just ain't the same...
@@toonzboss Correct. Ronnie was giving up drinking and a lot of stuff that goes along with sudden fame. RVZ was a simple guy that loved fishing and his family. Work ethic like people would not believe. He knew what they had and knew how quickly it can be taken. He even predicted his own demise. What an eerie song, what an eerie situation.
It was really all of them. Gary's crash was just the straw that broke the camel's back. Or the slap in the face of reality,whichever. They were so out of hand on the road that original guitarist (and the man who came up with the guitar hook for "Sweet Home Alabama",their biggest hit) Ed King just up and left the group in the middle of the night while on tour.
This is the ultimate anti-drug song in my book. Great lyrics and guitar work. Opening guitar is one of the best ever done in the history of rock n roll.
I think the Nine Inch Nails version of Hurt is a bit better in that regard. It just captures the despair and total sense of failure of an addict perfectly.
Saw them in Fayetteville Arkansas 1976. Massive confederate flag. Stone sober before the concert. Worked at the concert for the University unloading/ loading semi's. Best band performance of my life. They were the best then and now. Absolutely well rehearsed and flawless.
Definitely a band that makes you wonder how they would be today if the OG band members who died in the crash were still around. Especially Ronnie Van Zant.
Ronnie was trying to groom Steve Gaines to take over his role AFAIK and this band had a lot of internal problems in general. Would have definitely been interesting to see how they made it through all of it.
They would have had a lot more hits I know that I know that I know that that was a sad day that the plane went down that was very sad but I've Lynyrd Skynyrd was done after the after the crash I mean that was
My favorite all-time Skynyrd song! Sad times for fans of the band...hitting their peak and then it changed forever. :( Still the most underrated bunch of southern boys to ever grace the stage.
Drive-By Truckers do a great job with 3 guitars and they are big Lynyrd Skynyrd fans. Even have an album called Southern Rock Opera thats got tribute songs to Skynyrd!!
Living in Jacksonville Fl, Westside, Ronnie had no tolerance for acting a fool. Ronnie and Allen wrote the song together because they were fed up with Garys antics
Yet years later it was Allen Collins that ended up getting paralyzed from driving drunk,and also ended up killing his girlfriend..Funny thing is Gary Rossington is the only original member of the band that is still living.
@@MegaSammy70 Artimus was the original drummer of this song. He's still living. Artimus played on more pre-crash Skynyrd albums than Bob Burns! People want to split hairs about who was "original". By some people's standards Leon Wilkeson and Billy Powell wouldn't be considered "original"! I think anyone in the Hall of Fame,...or who actually played with Ronnie Van Zant is pretty original!
I remember hearing this song when I was young, and my parents partook of the herb and this song was so appropriate. My daddy had a oak tree in his way, peeled back the hood and his head. I have so many stories from my childhood( my dad stuck a needle in his arm when he was in Nam thank God he got off it) Lets just say I should write a book. Sorry, this song just brought all those memories rushing back. Lost my daddy when I was 30 and my momma 14 years later. RIP MOM& DAD. LOVE U💗✌
One of the deepest southern rock songs ever. There is no wasted space in this song about wasted space. Those guitar solos give me the chicken skin every damn time I hear them. Ronnie was gettin' serious about the problems in the band toward the end. RIP guys. Loved how it impacted you, Jamel. Strong T-shirt, brother.
This song is perfect. From the guitars to the lyrics to the Honkettes in the background. It's all just so perfect. Always been one of my favorite Skynyrd songs.
The addition of Steve Gaines injected new life into the band and Street Survivors was the result. I didn't think they could top their earlier recordings but this album was their magnum opus.
It's kinda funny. People think of Skynyrd being a southern conservative staple, but early Skynyrd was progressive as hell in message. They bashed segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace (Sweet Home Alabama), they made anti-gun violence songs (Saturday Night Special), bashed interventionalist government warmongering (Things Goin On), espoused environmentalism (All I Can Do Is Write About It), and call attention to drugs from a caring, people-first perspective in this song as well as Needle And The Spoon. People just see the rebel flag and think "Hurr, those conservatives", though oddly the band stopped using it after becoming more conservative.
I remember I got a dog when I was about 15...named him reefer. My dad said reefer? what kind of name Is that? 😂 I told him when I was about 30..we laughed our asses off.
Had the privilege of seeing them once in concert and when Ronnie was out there in bare feet and would give that whistle, everyone went nuts! What a birthday that was, less than a year before the crash.
This being one of my favorite bands of all time, I gotta tell you besides their top played hits, listen to songs like "Tuesday's gone", " Cry for the badman", "On the hunt" and on and on!
Skynyrd was primarily 3 guitarists: Allen Collins, Gary Rossington, and either Ed King or, later, Steve Gaines. The Freebird solo at Oakland was Allen Collins. In That Smell, the shorter, "plucky" solos early on are Steve Gaines. At the point when you asked who was playing, the slightly more muted parts before you said "the guitar work" are Allen and then just before you paused to ask the slightly louder, more shrill parts were Rossington, the man the song was written about ("Prince Charming")
"Now they call you Prince Charming, Can't speak a word when you're full of 'ludes! You say, you'll be alright come tomorrow, But tomorrow might not be here for you!" Ronnie was a master poet!
Well it’s about drugs and they have another song called the needle in the spoon if you really want to hear a song that’s a deep cut fantastic song. They are so so so much more than just sweet home Alabama
One more Time is a dark, foreboding song that frightened some Ar Guys back when Jimmy Johnson was trying to get them to just listen to Free Bird but no, it didn't happen. ALL Of you should watch the incredible music documentary Movie, especially if you love Skynyrd, called MUSCLE SHOALS. Most Reviewers called it the best music doc ever. Interviews with Aretha Franklin, Ed King of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Steve Winwood, Keith Richards, the famous Muscle Shoals Swampers and on and on!
This song really hits home for me., I lost a couple of friends several years ago to meth. My wife & I tried to get help for them. They weren't having it. Now they are both gone.. I really do miss them. Awesome people until that zombie dust got them..
I've preached "stick to weed" for about 47 years, having lost at least 50 friends to hard drugs and...ALCOHOL! Don't drive if you're even tipsy. Surely somebody wants you alive even if you don't. Peace! Oh yeah Jamal, real rock and roll always makes you sweat! Peace brother!
Sorry for your loss. Addiction sucks. I recently found this artist named Benjamin Tod, he has a song called Using Again, and even though I personally have never been addicted, this song cut me to the core. Worth a listen IMO: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NACMpkxm-fA.html
@@MidwestFarmToys sorry that's not an interpretation that came from the guy who wrote the song Ronnie Van Zandt. I'm well aware of the meaning of smell when refering to drugs. Trust me I did my share of most of them for about 30 years. Although some see it as a double entedre he did not intend for it to be so.
"The smell of death surrounds you" is what he says. That smell comes in a variety of scents but weed isn't one of them. Death always smells like crazy no matter how you get there.
Charles Tatum Van Zant's inspiration for the song was the increasing reckless indulgences of the band members culminating in the evening when guitarist Gary Rossington got drunk and high and survived the crash of his new Ford Torino into an oak tree along Mandarin Road in Jacksonville, Florida,[1] where the band was founded. Van Zant was thus inspired to write the song as a warning about the consequences of careless overuse of drugs and alcohol.
Oh! never realized. I got the rest of the song but somehow got lazy in interpreting the title itself. Also, never picked up on the direct reference to death. It still means the same thing to me as it did before, but augmented now. thx.
I’ve seen them so many times I can’t even count I love them so much every time I see them they’re fantastic they sound great the music is great I hope he deep dives into so many Lynyrd Skynyrd songs it would make me so happy
True story: A former boss of mine is a huge Skynyrd fan. Was at their final concert in Greenville SC before the fateful plane crash back in the day. His father was a baptist preacher, didn't really approve of this kind of music. He gets up the next day after attending the concert, and pop had the newspaper open, and asks him if he heard what happened? No. "Them damn hippies you saw last night just died in a plane crash" or something close to that. Wow. He still has the ticket stub to this day.
I was doing a 9-midnight shift at a college radio station the night this happened. It was an interesting evening, to say the least. The teletypes (the internet of the day) were going crazy. I had the station to myself that night. Trying to keep up with the story and playing tunes were interesting. Lots of 12-minute cuts that night.
The really exceptional guitar work on That Smell was done by Steve Gaines. All 3 guitarists shine in the song(Rossington, Collins and Gaines) The lead to FreeBird was done by Allen Collins
I remember at parties in the 70’s , so many of my friends were always so high and loved this song, but as Ronnie said in this song, you fool you. It was telling the danger of drugs.
Zelda Williams I believe the OP was just speaking on the fact that no one ever mentions Leon. His bass lines in the majority of Skynyrd songs are difficult to play but funky.
My Favorite band of the 70"s .Love them so much. Free Bird is one of my funeral songs. I told my children they better play it at my funeral or I will come back and haunt them. I saw them right before plane crash. BEST Band Ever!! Love ❤️ you Jamal Keep up your great reaction video. Peace ☮️ love 💗 Lynyrd Skynyrd!!
Can’t wait for you to React to Ronnie’s childhood story “The Ballad of Curtis Lowe”...its a beautiful story and you’ll shake you head at the allegations that they were racist!
@@dev...5150 They quit using the rebel flag at their shows. If you still wave it, well, you're on the opposite side from Lynyrd Skynyrd on an issue of southernness, so you might want to check your everything.
The harmonizing feedback from the lead guitars at the end of the song is completely EPIC!!! It gets my vote for the greatest song in Rock and Roll history just for that alone...
Guitar players were Gary Rossinton...Allen Collins & Steve Gaines...all three great great guitar players! Allen Collins is the one in Freenird Live in the awesome awesome guitar solo...Gary Rossinton playing the solo in the beginning making bird sounds on the guitar...Allen Collins & Ronnie Van Zant lead singer wrote Freebird...Leon Wilkeson played Bass Gutiar...Ronnie's Mules they were called...those guitars together...just couldn't get any better!
To Django Dunn and Ron Nelson- From the live album. Ronnie says that line when he introduces Steve as a new band member noting that Steve was from Oklahoma. "Watch out, I'm gonna sic an Okie on ya". I believe it's right before T for Texas, although I might be mistaken.
"That Smell" is a great classic, I love it. But one thing: I wish that, instead of the chorus being "The smell of death is all around you," wish it was, "The smell is all around you." You caught it; by the end of the first verse, you know what the song is about.
WHAT A SONG! And, Jamel, that guitar work was artistry. If you check out the cover by LexingtonLab Band you will see the interplay between two guitars on the song. Steve Gaines played a Fender Stratocaster and Gary Rossington played a Gibson Les Paul. The interplay between the guitars with their different voices really works fantastically well in the song. "... Oooh that smell; the smell of death surrounds you." Well, I am not sure the poet could put it any plainer. What a song. From a rock-n-roll band immersed in the middle of all of the drugs and drink and wild excesses of the 1970s, a little push back, or recognition that if you keep going at that rate, you will not last too long. The lyric says "Now they call you Prince Charming: you can't speak a word when you're full of 'ludes. And you'll be alright come tomorrow, but tomorrow might not be here for you". When all is said and done, the band wrote a song that demonstrated their experiences with the excesses of the time and voiced a warning to all to recognize that continuing down that road only leads to death. A dark message but perhaps a stark truth. Great review Jamel, great tune, great message.
The one playing the guitar solo in this song, is the one that the song is written about. "Prince Charming" is Gary Rossington. Ronnie wrote this about shenanigans going on in the band, namely Gary Rossington, who slammed into an oak tree while messed up. There's a picture of that tree online. Gary's still alive; he's in the regrouped Lynyrd Skynyrd, and one of only 2 original members from the 1970s that's still with us.
Southern Rock roared back in the 90s with The Black Crowes. My favorite stank-face vocal ever by the Crowes' Chris Robinson is their song "Sometimes Salvation." Do it, Jamel!
Skynyrd doesn't have any bad songs, but this is one of my favorites. The story is a few band members were getting too deep into drugs so they wrote this song to snap them out of it. Ironically several members of the band were killed in a plane crash shortly before this was released. Everyone got spooky vibes because of that.
Other way around. Street Survivors was released on my 15th B-day Oct, 17 1977. The plane went down in the Mississippi swamps on Oct, 20 1977. The band was cleaning up and tighter than ever. With the addition of Steve Earl Gaines they were on a rocket ship to the top. The rest is history.
when I was growing up in the 60, 70, and 80's. These groups seemed good, but compared to today's groups these groups, songs, song writers, and live performances were the BEST EVER!!!! Brings back a lot of good memories of friends and High School . Thanks for the journey Jamel. Keep exploring and digging into the best music of all times.
As a man born in the 90s we had some great music, but growing up with my dad jamming this, I would choose this music over any music ever created. Music that you can enjoy any time you want with great lyricism and musical talent.
That's a hot track! To bad that we've (as Americans) drifted away from appreciating that kind of musicianship. Love what you're doing man, you seem like you strive to be a quality human being.
Jamel, all the incredible guitar work in this song is the efforts of all 3 guitar players in the group. There has never been a combination of such great players since
One of the great biographical songs ever... highlighted by Gary Rosdington, and the late greats Allen Collins, and Steve Gains on guitars... Epic Skynyrd.
skynard was the first concert i ever went to. they were my childhood fav band, and still in the top 3 for me 20 years later. 3 songs that you really need to do... the ballad of curtis loew, saturday night special, and gimme back my bullets! all 3 songs are amazing and you would be so happy to listen to all 3!!!
Theirs is a very deep rabbit hole with so much great music 🎸🎤🎶 One of my top 5 favorite bands ever ♥️♥️ Skynyrd was a guitar band and they did the 3 guitar lineup better than anyone 🎸🎸🎸
One thing I've always thought made their music so timeless was they were never afraid to take a stance and stand behind it no matter how controversial it was. It's easy to respect that as much as respecting their musical and vocal skills. The song Saturday Night Special was one such song that no matter which side of the argument you're on you can't help but admit that as a performance it was a fantastic tune.
They are one of the best bands in the land of music,, from start to finish with every song.. and the Whole album was good from start to finish.. they are still the best in my eye's!!..
Gary Rossington, Steve Gains, & Allen Collins were the 3 guitarists and all played lead parts. Gary Rossington crashed his Ford Torino into an oak tree along Mandarin Road in Jacksonville, Florida,[1] after excessive consumption of alcohol and other drugs breaking several bones and knocking out his front teeth. The whole band were pretty heavy partiers (alcohol & drugs) and the realization this would kill them was the inspiration for this song. That partying lifestyle has the smell of death. Pretty inciteful for Ronny Van Zant to actually write a song about while in the middle of it.
Yes to heroin....the "smell" that the lyrics are referring to....is that junkies get a better high, when their pores are clogged/dirty....so they dont shower.
Yeah it was an intervention. Story goes That when they were home Gary got all fked up and missed a curve and hit an oak tree so like most Skynyrd songs it was about the real life of the guys in the band. Anyone who knows anything about Skynyrd knows I speak the truth. Lol.
Singer Ronnie Van Zant, Guitarist Steve Gaines, and his sister and backup singer Cassie Gaines were the ones killed in the plane crash. The band was never the same. Watch the VH1 Behind The Music on Lynyrd Skynyrd. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll buy a t-shirt.
I love the driving bass line in this song, and the dueling lead guitarists which was Lynyrd Skynyrd's signature. I was in high school in Jax, FL when this local band made it big. At the time, we didn't know how well-known they really were, and their songs have only only grown more popular since.
