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Even though a cloud’s white curtain in a far-off corner flashed
An’ the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
An’ for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Starry-eyed an’ laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an’ we watched with one last look
Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained
thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.
— Robinson Jeffers
Reason will not decide at last; the sword will decide.
The sword: an obsolete instrument of bronze or steel,
formerly used to kill men, but here
In the sense of a symbol. The sword: that is: the storms
and counter-storms of general destruction; killing
of men,
Destruction of all goods and materials; massacre, more or
less intentional, of children and women;
Destruction poured down from wings, the air made accomplice,
the innocent air
Perverted into assassin and poisoner.
The sword: that is: treachery and cowardice, incredible
baseness, incredible courage, loyalties, insanities.
The sword: weeping and despair, mass-enslavement,
mass-torture, frustration of all hopes
That starred man’s forehead. Tyranny for freedom, horror for
happiness, famine for bread, carrion for children.
Reason will not decide at last, the sword will decide.
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
— Eliot
The scientists are in terror
and the European mind stops
Wyndham Lewis chose blindness
rather than have his mind stop.
Night under wind mid garofani,
the petals are almost still
Mozart, Linnaeus, Sulmona,
When one’s friends hate each other
how can there be peace in the world?
Their asperities diverted me in my green time.
A blown husk that is finished
but the light sings eternal
a pale flare over marshes
where the salt hay whispers to tide’s change
Time, space,
neither life nor death is the answer.
And of man seeking good,
doing evil.
In meiner Heimat
where the dead walked
and the living were made of cardboard.
Even though a cloud’s white curtain in a far-off corner flashed
An’ the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
An’ for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Starry-eyed an’ laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an’ we watched with one last look
Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Gerard Van der Leun
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FluhhhK YeaHHH!
When my stockers would work an all night shift, every Thursday night, in Seattle at the old REI, the playlist was always topped by Freebird. The crew would go nuts and be energized for a couple hours after that. This is the same exact place that, 30 years hence, was declared the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. Although I’m certain that there was a lot of free-bird’n in the CHAZ, in my estimate that fukn place was anything but free. Unless you were the warlord who slept at the Olympic every night, free-basin coke off of hooker tits, and handin’ out M4s to lucky kids in the zone after breakfast. That guy was free. He was goddamned Che Guevara and Joseph Stalin all rolled up into one. FreeeeBrrRRRRRRddd!
It was LS that performed one of the greatest rock songs of all time, which of course was banned/flagged on YouTube for awhile.
https://youtu.be/MDjQkGql9r8
Sign over the jukebox in a San Diego bar:
NO STAIRWAY!
NO FREEBIRD!
I could understand.
JWM
I think that’s an item in the film THE BLUES BROTHERS.
NOPE. Wrong. Waynes World and Stairway.
If I owned a bar anywhere, I think I might post that sign.
It’s not that either tune is bad, but that they were both so overplayed….like, forever.
No Cat and no Paranoid.
I’m slowly waving my Zippo (it’s not lit since it is dry and I don’t know where the fluid is).
That song is one of my traveling songs along with ‘Three Steps”
He said, “Hey there, fellow
With the hair colored yellow
Whatcha tryin’ to prove?
‘Cause that’s my woman there
And I’m a man who cares
And this might be all for you
I said, excuse me
I was scared and fearing for my life
I was shaking like a leaf on a tree
‘Cause he was lean, mean
Big and bad, Lord
Pointin’ that gun on me
“Oh, wait a minute, mister
I didn’t even kiss her
Don’t want no trouble with you
And I know you don’t owe me
But I wish you’d let me
Ask one favor from you”
“Oh, won’t you
Gimme three steps, gimme three steps, mister
And in the November of 1963 I found myself in a bar in Hannibal Missouri with a buddy with his college girl friend who was enjoying making the locals kind of jealous and I told my other two friends and our dates, it’s time to hit the floor and head for the door and we did. The girls were kind of slow coming along with us because they thought it was kind of funny, the townies did not think the same way.
Not many bands, nor many songs, can squeeze 3 guitars in like that.
And, this was a rare instance when all guitars and bass were Gibsons.
Rossington – SG Special
Collins – Explorer with tremolo
Gaines – Les Paul
Wilkeson – Thunderbird
Gaines usually played a Strat.
Rossington is the only one still alive.
I was on winter field exercise when they died. A soldier went back to post for supplies and returned to the field and let us know. Winter soldiering in the snow is always a difficult time and then the news of this plane crash made it more so. Off duty, overseas soldiers of that age range and of that era were heavily vested in music in all ways. Large scale audio equipment and hundreds of albums and tapes. It was pretty tragic. I never seen them in concert but I’ve seen their spin-off, 38 Special half a dozen times or more. Have no desire to see the reconstituted version.
I loved the recent post, “everything is a miracle” because it’s true. Everything. This song too. It flows together perfectly, the musicians were young, and somehow they captured just the right notes.
Always reminds me of the movie “Elizabethtown” and the Ruckus cover: classic. Sarandon’s best work too…
I’d add the Outlaws Green Grass & High Tides to the bar’s do not play list, even though I enjoy that tune as much as Skynrd’s Freebird. Best played on long asphalt highway, on a hot summer day, with windows down, and the pedal to the metal.
LOTS of stuff from that era was overplayed then, but these (FB and GG&HT) have stood the test and deserve not only to be played still but played LOUD. Three guitar southern rock is one of the best things to come of that era.
So many things from then are now banned by the Soviets among us; Stars and Bars being the first one that should be revived.
How many of those lush young things on their guys shoulders have turned into bitter harpies? I suspect a goodly number.
If you’re looking for three guitar stuff that didn’t get overplayed try Blackfoot’s “Highway Song”
Oh man, another of my favorites and you are right.
I’ve seen Blackfoot several times.
I’m a cracker and I likes me sum southern rock.
….molly hatchet
Very Guilty! of overplaying those and several more southern rock anthems in 8 tracks, then cassette players and on vinyl spinners. Most likely because my short term memory was inhibited in those dayz and or I was all out of fuks to give.
Marshall Tucker Band and CDB have found their way back onto my current driving play list.
Marshall Tucker Band is the other great one from the mid 70’s.
Think it was just before the China bug, we took in a Marshall Tucker concert, a bit sout of Carson City Nv, an outdoor venue. Tommy did a fair amount of singing he’s getting long on the tooth, freely admitted it. Had a kid, well younger man I would close my eyes and I swear to god I thought it was Toy Caldwell, sadly he’s been dead many years after rolling his Toyota Landcruiser.
Music is the language of the world. Music is a problem solver, a communications tool of the entire world.
ghost, the sound / production quality of the hatchet albums still amazes me every time I blast Gator County, Bounty Hunter or Dreams on a modern sound system.
Morning, Gerard. Perhaps you could fix up my coding error. Should’ve closed out the link after “Green Grass & Hightides.” Guess I better get another cup of coffee in me.
I was there that bright summer day in Oakland. Had no idea at the time how iconic that concert would become 40 plus years later. It was a different world back then, notice there isn’t a cell phone in sight. The world has changed, and not for the better.
Freebird!
Who knew that skinny girls and tube tops would represent a long-gone world?
Not much of a FB/LS fan. But I gotta say that their “Simple Man” is the best mother-son song ever written.
I was only 10yo when this concert happened, but my oldest brother at least had LS’s One More From the Road, which was the closest I came to seeing them live and which I must’ve played over a million times – especially side 4. The inside of that double album jacket mesmerized me like no album artwork ever.
As good as Freebird was, “That Smell” was their greatest song. Such amazing guitar work. I think the competition among the band’s guitarists was what made the band so good. That and RVZ cracking the whip, never settling for second best.
I concur “That Smell” was their best. The guitars closing out that song combined to form a sound that is unique, gets under your skin, and stands the test of time for sheer power. Music to my ear holes!!
Indeed, That Smell is my favorite for the past year I’ve been working on it. Been playing Skynyrd toons for 40 years and only recently turned my focus to that one. Hardly 2 days go by that I don’t tear into it.
Back then a series of Concerts named Day On The Greens, a series of concerts at Raider football stadium.Oakland Calif I was not there, in SE Asia. I did attend a lot of those event prior
I seem to recall these were Bill Graham productions, a legendary promotor., GV wondering did you ever meet Bill?
VI
Man,am I late to the party. Gerard’s Garage Band ‘O Bros done packed up and gone;nothing left but peanut shells and a mostly empty bottle of Jack Daniels…
Interesting point about the competition between 3 lead guitarists.They kept each other well-honed,to our immense benefit. “Saturday Night Special” is another great Skynyrd tune;bet many here can recognize it after 2 notes of the intro. At the time it was released,the Raven .25 was the hottest selling handgun in Phoenix,mostly to cholo gangbangers and their darker ilk. Cheap little gun,zinc alloy,firing pin designed to eject the spent round. Precisely the type of gun the song was written about.