I Know A Little by Lynyrd Skynyrd

Album: Street Survivors (1977)

License This Song

artistfacts

Songfacts®:

You won't find diatribes on the complexities of interpersonal relationships in the Skynyrd catalog, but you will find simple explanations. This song is a great example.

Why to people get the blues? From digging what they can't use. And if you want to hold on to a man, a good way to do it is through commitment. You only need to know a little about love - the rest you can guess.
This is a great example of Skynyrd guitarist Steve Gaines' contributions to the band. He wrote the song himself, and also wrote or co-wrote three other songs on the album. Gaines replaced Ed King as the band's guitarist in 1976, but died in the 1977 plane crash that also claimed the lives of lead singer Ronnie Van Zant and Gaines' sister Cassie, who was a backup singer for the group. This song provides a glimpse of his clever songwriting, as Van Zant sings about a guy who has a strong feeling that his girl is cheating on him.
Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington told Guitar School magazine, July 1993, that he'd never heard anybody, including the current guitarists in the band, play the picking on this song quite right - the way Steve Gaines did.
This is one of many Skynyrd songs that was never released as a single but endured as a classic track in their catalog. It earned lots of airplay on Classic Rock radio and became one of their most popular live songs, performed at most of their shows when they re-grouped after the plane crash.

Comments: 7

Ed Minton from Joplin, MoSteve wrote this song long before he was in LS, in one of his earlier bands called Manalive. The band he was in when Skynyrd picked him up, Crawdad, was even better than LS, imho. They were less of a pop "Southern Rock" band, and much closer to the blues and jazz and funk of the Allman Brothers Band and Little Feat. All of the material recorded for the posthumous, self titled album was actually recorded by Crawdad in Leon Russell's Church Studio in Tulsa, and at Capricorn in Macon, Georgia on the Allman's gear. There is some wonderful live stuff floating around on YouTube as well. Enjoy!
Jimmy B. from Dallas TxSteve Gaines was so underrated, even w/ Skynyrd. When you look at all the songs that he has written, but didn't have the Forum to set them up properly, and then found Ronnie & Lynyrd Skynyrd as a venue/ vehicle to Showcase his many talents including writing (and co-producing 4 songs on the STREET SURVIVORS album) with Ronnie and lead guitar, I miss him dearly especially knowing what he could and would have been to Lynyrd Skynyrd and to himself. I've read many many articles about what a happy-go-lucky Midwest Heartland blues'r type of guy he was. So much talent & potential, musically and as a pure example of "yeah, he's cool as they come" / regular guy. Losing sister Cassie at the same time along with Ronnie was so tragic. She could sing like a bird. There must be an answer upstairs somewhere. I hope I'll find out and meet them again.
Sah From Li from South Carolina Love and miss the GREATEST AMERICAN BAND EVER!!
Rj from KentuckyOK, I know I couldn't make this up. Back in the late 8os I remember seeing a video of a female country group singing "I know a little". Anyone else remember this?
Beau St John from FloridaThis is another great skynyrd song
Camille from Toronto, OhLots of us 'old timers' love singing the chorus, after you been around the block a few times you know how things work. Great, fun song.
Oldpink from New Castle, InSteve simply BLAZES away with his guitar on this.
Nice bit of keyboards to match later on.
Great song!

see more comments

More Songfacts:

Blowin' In The WindBob Dylan

Thanks to a Newsweek article, there was a long-standing rumor that Bob Dylan stole the song "Blowin' In The Wind" from a high school student.

Love Is A BattlefieldPat Benatar

"Love Is A Battlefield" was written as a ballad, but Pat Benatar's guitarist/husband Neil Giraldo turned it into an uptempo song.

Cathy's ClownThe Everly Brothers

The first single to simultaneously top the UK and US charts was The Everly Brothers' "Cathy's Clown" in May 1960.

Sweet Baby JamesJames Taylor

James Taylor wrote "Sweet Baby James" during a road trip to Virginia in honor of his brother’s new baby, also named James, whom he was about to meet for the first time.

Soul Bossa NovaQuincy Jones

The Austin Powers theme is "Soul Bossa Nova," written by Quincy Jones in 1962 - the same year the first James Bond movie was released.

MMMbopHanson

Hanson's megahit "MMMbop," released when they were teenagers, is surprisingly profound. Zac Hanson told Songfacts it "represents a frame of time or the futility of life."