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This is an acoustic tune about Ronnie Van Zant's outlook on how things were changing around him and how he enjoyed the natural world and the laid-back honesty of the American South. It is probably about the growth of his hometown as he was cautioning about urban and suburban sprawl. This song helps refute the image of Lynyrd Skynyrd as just a bunch of racist rednecks. (thanks, adam - galveston, TX)

Comments:

I dont have the regular version, but i have the acoustic, personaly, i think the acoustic version is better.
- Luke, Dayton, OH

will always miss ya Ronnie! truly a great & under appreciated songwriting genious!
- Lonnie, North Liberty, IN

... simplicity ...honesty... raw Skynyrd
- Bob, Boston, MA

I was born and raised in Jacksonville and I think you would have to lived here and watch the changes to really understand what Ronnie meant with this song,When there was nothing but woods between St Johns bluff(it was a dirt road then) and the beach on Atlantic blvd now. etc... He wrote about what he saw and lived simple but true Scott, Jax,fl
- scott, Jacksonville, HI

listen, im from wisconsin and im going to see the new lynyrd skynyrd band when they come to the waukesha county fair. this song is so great that everytime i ride in my brother's truck i turn it on. and these men knew how to really make down-home music and that's what really matters. and this song shows it.
- Warren, Mukwonago, WI

Curtis Loew was written about a black man according to Gary Rossington that they would go and get bottles as the song says. I have the interviews, so its thier voices telling the story. on the same Red Beard interview is Ed King talking about it too.
- Alex, Bunnell, FL

This came straight from Ronnie Van Zant himself,I'll quote him; "I wrote that song because the way things are goin on in todays time,I just know one day they are gonna build a holiday inn in the middle of the Everglades and what I'm basically sayin' is I dont wanna see it! thats why I say lord take me and mine before that comes"
- Randy W, Atlanta, GA

Curtis Loew was not about a black man! The song was written about an old picker named Shorty Medlocke The Guitar players Daddy who plays with them now Rickey Medlocke. When Ronnie and Gary were kids they would go by and listen to shorty play a dobro he was 70 then and used get them to hang around and listen to him.Gary said he could outlast them all! The Curtis Loew name was meant as a joke by Ronnie Naming a black man with a jewish name wich was after the "Loews" Movie theatre chain. so now yall know the real story!
- Randy W, Atlanta, GA

to Kristen in Jacsonville, hometown of Lynyrd Skynyrd... they DID write the songs. Most of therm. but Curtis Loew was written by RVZ about a real black man (real name unknown) and titled by Ed King (according to Ed King in a radio interview). RVZ wrote most of all the Lynyrd Skynyrd lyrics. PS Kristen: you will know more than every one else for about another 5-8 years. Then you wont know as much as you do today. So enjoy it now! Make the best of it and carve a great life :) To anyone else... Mythbusting: No they were not racists, drunken, simpletons (Hicks), it was media hype that the record company MCA slammed out there to sell records. They wrote SHA as a joke in one afternoon and like most songs that are done carefree and come easily, it was their best radio hit (at the time). They were not stupid rednecks. They were just boys (studio musicians) from the country mostyl (40 miles north of my home land area) that knew what it took to make it and God rewarded them big time for their extreme hard effort! Like He will anyone. RVZ was the leader and made them what they are today. He had a vision and he worked for it. He didnt have to sell out to make it like many other artists and bands have. They were poeple that loved country living plain and simple. Anyone who has lived or grew up in a country environment knows the difference in big city life VS country type life. Country = having to drive 25-35 miles to get to the next city with a grocery store. not much of that left here in FLA. Agreed: They would not have written a song praising a black man if they were racists. Make sense to you article publishers? hope so. Dig deeper and do your homework before puking out an inaccurate article and smearing someone's character through the mud for eternity. If there are even many writers left alive with morals these days. Now FLA is becoming a giant Home Owners association with cookie cutter homes and more more land (yep, the wetlands too) being churned under and levled for new homes. So he was RIGHT on track with this song. I personally would have found a couple different lines different than two in the song he wrote but its a great song about a foreseen evil that had to be. It will be worse as time goes on. get your land now. Read their lyrics and listen to the songs. If they were stupid they would not have made the fame that STILL have today. How many bands have came and went since their time or even before? So many its not countded. How many other bands had just about ALL Platnum record sales for all their albums? They earned it. Im linking to this page, thanks for the site, WOW what an excellent idea you have! i wish I woulda thought of it. Of course every song isnt going to get the response that LS band gets. Some songs are meaningless. just good songs.
- Alex, Bunnell, FL

love this song; it makes me proud to be southern.
- Andrew, Bartlett, TN

Yeah whatever, you know they are not racist. They just dont kiss black peoples ass. They dont think tha black people can do no wrong, and they ayre as hell dont feel bad for them just because their black like you all people do. How could they wrote a song about a black man if they were racist. And yeah I know THEY didn't write the song, but if they were so rasist, then why would they sing it. Yeah i know im only 13 years old, but all i know is Ronnie was one of my heros, He died before I was even born, but if he was still alive today he would still be one of my heros. I hate it when people try to say they dont like black people, thats not true. You people dont know anything. Im only 13 and I know more than you do!
- kristin, jacksonvil, FL

I am playing a gig in a couple of weeks with a friend and we're doing this song (along with Simple Man and Curtis Leow). Seriously, I agree that this song is massively underrated, but people sure seem to love it when we play it. Then again we are just hobbyists and we play in southern Tennessee, so a lot of people DO know the song. We have a lot of Skynyrd fans here.
- Josh, Fayetteville, TN

So underrated and so true. It's one of my favorite songs.
- Evan, Winchester, England

This song does get airplay. I just heard it on WKIT-FM, 100.3 in Bangor, Maine. It's a great song, and a few stations still will play it, I guess.
- Robert, Bangor, ME

Jeanette from N.C hit the nail on the head when she said radio treats Skynyrd poorly. I couldn't believe it when the critics were saying that Red White and Blue was the best song Skynyrd put out since the plane crash. What new songs have we heard on the radio since the crash. Radio WAKE UP, critics WAKE UP!!!!! There are songs out there like Born to Run, Smokestack Lightning, None of us are Free, Preacher Man. the Way, Edge of Forever, the Last Rebel. The Accoustic album of Endangered Species REALLY ROCKS but radio don't play it. I called our local radio station during Christmas Season because they were playing Christmas Music 24-7 and requested Mamas Song. The director told me he was familiar with Skynyrds Christmas Time Again album but felt the song wasn't right for some strange STUPID reason of his. Finally the Rock and Roll Hall of Shame give Skynyrd their LONG OVERDUE place in Music History but I sincerely wish that radio would give Skynyrd their recognition that they so rightly desertve. Play some NEW Skynyrd music on the radio
- Eddy K..., somerset, NJ

this is not only my favorite skynyrd song but it is my favorite song of all times! as some have metioned,gimme back my bullets was not the most "popular" of there albums but most true fans of the band see it as the true insight of ronnie vanzant and his personal views. he truelly was a simple man who held the most simple things in life as treasures, seeing a "youngun with his dog" or the "hills of carolina" or the "grass of tennessee", etc.... ronnie saw a changing world where the concrete poured over our natural recources and natures beauties and people forgot or took for granted the most enduring and important things humans can have, the simple things, nature, family, friends. even the "air we breath"! like ronnie, i share the same thoughts and values and also hope the lord "takes me and mine" before those things are gone. simply, the best song EVER written!!
- ben, gilbert, AZ

I can see the "concrete", This was not the first time Ronnie refered to concrete (which meant big business taking away the beauty of nature). I'm a Country Boy--"I don't even want a piece of concrete in my town". Ronnie was very aware of what was happening to the enviornment during his lifetime, (as well as many other social issues).
- Dan, Worcester, MA

The electric version of this song features a fiddle solo and a piano solo, while the acoustic version features two piano solos.
- Chris, Mechanicsburg, PA

This song also comes from one of Skynyrd's most underated albums;Gimme Back My Bullets. This album did poorly on the charts, but I feel that it is their most personal album. Radio has actually done more damage to Skynyrd than good, because they play the same ole Skynyrd standards all the time. Not that there is anything wrong with the hits but they wrote alot of songs that never get airplay. This song also tells a little about Ronnie. It has often been said that he stated he would never make it to 30 years old, he was 29 when he died, this song seems almost prophetic to me, hence, "please take me and mine before that comes." Long live Skynyrd.
- Jeanette, McGrady, NC

I'de have to agree that this is the most underated Lynyrd Skynyrd song of all. Aside from "Simple Man" this is the best song they have to offer. (I highly recommend you listen to their song "Simple Man").
- Jon, Oakridge, OR

Barry your exactly right this song is not known as much as there other songs and I think it is just a good if not better then some of the songs played on the radio the part that hits me and is so true because im from south carolina is the "Well you can take a boy out of ol' Dixieland But you'll never take ol' Dixie from a boy" The south is beutiful and this does help the fact that people from the south arnt all pissed off rednecks but i bet any person from the south sure as hell aint ashmed to fly a confederate flag. If you were ever to a skynyrd show are seen one recored they always had one waven they were proud of where they came from and so am I.
- matt adkins, huntington, WV

In my opinion next to Freebird this is one of the greatest Skynyrd songs. It embodies the soul of Southern Rock. The feelings of every concerned southerner are wrapped up into this song and we are still faced with the same issues today. This is probably one of the least recognized Skynyrd song too. You will never hear it played on the radio which surprises me. If you havent heard it I suggest you check it out.
- Barry Larkin, Cincinatti, OH