{"id":348892,"date":"2025-12-14T21:17:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T21:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/348892\/"},"modified":"2025-12-14T21:17:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T21:17:08","slug":"the-true-meaning-behind-gimme-three-steps-by-lynyrd-skynyrd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/348892\/","title":{"rendered":"The true meaning behind ‘Gimme Three Steps’ by Lynyrd Skynyrd"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Lynyrd<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ MCA Records)<\/p>\n

Sun 14 December 2025 19:42, UK <\/p>\n

Florida\u2019s finest non-mouse-related export,\u00a0Lynyrd Skynyrd<\/a>, was first formed in 1964. Reaching the peak of their fame in the 1970s, with the release of tracks like \u2018Sweet Home Alabama\u2019, popularising the southern rock genre, Skynyrd boasts an enduring legacy and remains one of the most popular bands to grace the airwaves.<\/p>\n

As the 1970s rock scene was dawning, Lynyrd Skynyrd was responsible for putting southern rock on the map. Even if the listener wasn\u2019t from the southern part of the United States, everyone was an honorary member of the family when singing along to songs like \u2018Sweet Home Alabama\u2019 or \u2018Freebird\u2019. The southern rockers could get nasty when they wanted to, though, and \u2018Gimme Three Steps\u2019 was a look at the dark side of the good ol\u2019 boys.<\/p>\n

Coming midway through their debut release, \u2018Three Steps\u2019 feels like the typical upbeat rocking song, as Ronnie Van Zant tells the story about a reckless night at a dive bar that gets a little bit out of hand. While he may have been a master storyteller, there wasn\u2019t much fiction that went into the original draft of the tune.<\/p>\n

When discussing the song\u2019s origins, guitarist Gary Rossington said that the line about someone trying to tear Van Zant apart, telling Guitar World<\/a>: \u201cRonnie went into a bar to look for someone and me and Allen were too young to get in so were waiting for him outside, and we were waiting and waiting, then he came running out with a big ol\u2019 guy chasing him, yelling\u201d.<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t exactly the first time that Van Zant found himself on the wrong side of a fight, though. In the Behind the Music<\/a> episode on the band, pianist Billy Powell said that no one wanted to mess with the singer, saying, \u201cEveryone knew they didn\u2019t want to fight with them, because they knew they were going to get really really hurt\u201d.<\/p>\n

Despite the fun energy of the song, Van Zant is singing about admitting he was wrong, asking if this aggressor would just give him a minute to reach the door before he\u2019s out of there. Though the song ends nicely, Van Zant almost wasn\u2019t so lucky, with Rossington going on to say, \u201cThe guy had a gun and he was a redneck and he was drunk \u2013 a nasty combination of things \u2013 and Ronnie said, \u2018If you\u2019re going to shoot me, it\u2019s going to be in the ass or in the elbow.\u2019 And he took off like a bat out of hell\u201d.<\/p>\n

That one wild night for Van Zant was just a pit stop in the reckless behaviour of the band. Throughout their tenure, Rossington and guitarist Allen Collins would be involved in several auto accidents, one of which inspired the song \u2018That Smell\u2019. While they seemed indestructible at the time, it all came crashing down when the band\u2019s plane crash landed during their Street Survivors tour, leaving Van Zant dead.<\/p>\n

While Rossington certainly doesn\u2019t defend some of their action at the time, he was proud of the details they put in the songs until the day he died<\/a>, explaining, \u201cWe always just considered ourselves a working-man\u2019s band and thought every song should tell a story that people could relate to. When we finish a song, you know what it\u2019s about\u201d. <\/p>\n

The scene at the end of \u2018Gimme Three Steps\u2019 could have ended pretty grizzly, but for those few minutes that the guitars are playing, it\u2019s just a rip-roaring good time.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ MCA Records) Sun 14 December 2025 19:42, UK Florida\u2019s finest non-mouse-related export,\u00a0Lynyrd Skynyrd, was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,84886,216],"class_list":{"0":"post-348892","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-lynyrd-skynyrd","10":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}