“When we went to record it, the record company said, ‘Man, they won’t play that, it’s too long.’ But we said, ‘We don’t care!’”: How the young Lynyrd Skynyrd turned a simple love song into a southern rock epic

Lynyrd Skynyrd.

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It’s the band’s signature song. The Stairway To Heaven of Southern rock. An epic track with a blistering guitar-solo coda that’s right up there with Hotel California. Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Free Bird is undoubtedly one of the most iconic rock songs of all time.