Historically speaking, one wouldn\u2019t necessarily associate Lynyrd Skynyrd with terms like \u201cliberalism,\u201d \u201cthe Democratic party,\u201d or \u201cleftism.\u201d They didn\u2019t position themselves as a particularly political band, and if they had, their Confederate flag imagery might have suggested a different ideological leaning. But there was more to this band and its members than often met the eye, and few songs exemplify this duality quite like \u201cSaturday Night Special\u201d.<\/p>\n
The lead single off Lynyrd Skynyrd\u2019s third album<\/a>, Nuthin\u2019 Fancy, has all the makings for a bluesy, violent-adjacent number \u00e0 la \u201cGimme Three Steps\u201d. \u201cMister Saturday Night Special \/ got a barrel that\u2019s blue and cold.\u201d Anyone who wasn\u2019t aware of what a \u201cSaturday night special\u201d was before they listened to the song would likely pick up on the fact that Ronnie Van Zant is talking about the slang term for a cheap handgun, not a weekend restaurant deal.<\/p>\n With driving guitar riffs and Van Zant\u2019s thick Southern drawl, the song offers three different scenarios in which someone might use a Saturday night special: catching their lover with someone else, during a poker game gone wrong, and getting so drunk that you \u201cmight even shoot yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n Lynyrd Skynyrd Wasn\u2019t Promoting the Use of Saturday Night Specials<\/p>\n If anything, they were doing the exact opposite. Indeed, amid all the rough-and-tumble imagery that went along with their Southern rock sound, Lynyrd Skynyrd had some surprisingly liberal ideas baked into their lyrics. \u201cSaturday Night Special\u201d is a prime example of this, as Ronnie Van Zant uses the third verse to denounce the use of these inexpensive and poorly made guns. After he presents the last scenario where this gun might go off (drinking too much whiskey and shooting oneself), Van Zant continues:<\/p>\n \u201cSo, why don\u2019t we dump \u2018em, people \/ to the bottom of the sea \/ Before some old fool come around here \/ wanna shoot either you or me?\u201d<\/p>\n Stricter gun control isn\u2019t exactly a policy associated with the South\u2014especially the South of 1975, which is when the band released Nuthin\u2019 Fancy. Yet, there they were, warning about the dangers of gun violence and calling out these weapons for being \u201cgood for nothin\u2019 but puttin\u2019 men six feet in a hole.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSaturday Night Special\u201d isn\u2019t Lynyrd Skynyrd\u2019s most successful track by any means. Although it did break into the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100, it was at a relatively modest No. 27 placement. Still, the song remains a unique standout in Lynyrd Skynyrd\u2019s discography. And considering that other bluesy, violent-adjacent track we mentioned earlier, \u201cGimme Three Steps\u201d<\/a>, also ends with a plea for peace, maybe these Southern rockers were more pacifistic than people realized back in the 1970s.<\/p>\n Photo by Richard E. Aaron\/WireImage<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Historically speaking, one wouldn\u2019t necessarily associate Lynyrd Skynyrd with terms like \u201cliberalism,\u201d \u201cthe Democratic party,\u201d or \u201cleftism.\u201d They…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,84886,216,2156],"class_list":["post-674916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-lynyrd-skynyrd","tag-music","tag-rock-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674916","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=674916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}