Album: Southern Rock Opera
Year: 2001
The penultimate song on Southern Rock Opera, “Greenville to Baton Rouge” is pretty much all exposition. The entire lyrical function is to get inside the head of someone — lets call him “Ronnie” — on Lynyrd Skynyrd’s final plane crash.
And musically, it’s somehow the most punk rock song on Southern Rock Opera and the most Skynyrd-like. So, like a Replacements song from Hootenany! had they decided to steal from Lynyrd Skynyrd like they stole from The Beatles.
At first, Ronnie is more concerned with getting up in the air and getting to the next show, because that’s just who he is and what he does.
Greenville to Baton Rouge
I’ll call you up when I get through
The life I live is the life I choose
Greenville to Baton Rouge
And he’s stoked: the tour is going well. Sure, the plane is a bit wonky, but they’re getting a new plane soon, and at every turn, the guitars are screaming assent. If “Life in the Factory” made its point without any solos, then “Greenville To Baton Rouge” is the exact opposite, especially after just after Ronnie decides to get some shut-eye the plane starts to go down.
And as it goes down, Ronnie has one last thought:
Greenville to Baton Rouge
Can’t die now got a show to do
The life I live is the life I choose
Greenville to Baton Rouge
And then, channelling the famous three-guitars-over-drum-roll break in “Free Bird,” Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley and Rob Malone bring the plane down, with the best plane crashing guitar noise since Pete Townshend did it in “Glow Girl.”
Then, in a hail of guitar picks scraping on strings and feedback, they hit the ground.
“Greenville To Baton Rouge”