The History of yelling "Freebird"

I just finished compiling a premium for this year's marathon comprised of waffling stage banter from various artists. I thought about the next volume being the audience's heckling back, but honestly, wouldn't 50% of it be people yelling "Freebird?" Jason Fry of the Wall Street Journal recently took an extended look at the daily invocation of Ronnie Van Zandt that doubtlessly takes place on hundreds of concerts, and not just for artists whose music might be moronic enough to attract morons. Though I'm sure it helps:

One recent Tuesday night at New York's Bowery Ballroom, the Crimea had  just finished its second song. The Welsh quintet's first song had gone  over fairly well, the second less so, and singer/guitarist Davey MacManus  looked out at the still-gathering crowd.

Then, from somewhere in the darkness came the cry, "Freebird!"

It made this night like so many other rock 'n' roll nights in America.

"Freebird" has been a rallying cry for fans of Southern rock since the 1970s. This exchange between Lynyrd Skynyrd's Ronnie Van Zant and an  Atlanta audience introduces the version of "Freebird" from the 1976 live  album "One More From the Road". That cut has been a radio mainstay since the album's release, likely inspiring many more shouts for "Freebird."

Bands don't always welcome the request, though. Mike Doughty had a suggestion for audience members yelling for "Freebird," as captured in  this clip from the 2002 album "Smofe + Smang: Live in Minneapolis."

And in some cases, entertainers become slightly unhinged when they hear the song title, especially after Chicago DJ Kevin Matthews urged listeners to yell "Freebird."

"Freebird" isn't the Crimea's song; it's from the 1973 debut album by legendary Southern rockers Lynyrd Skynyrd. The band's nine-minute march from ruminative piano to wailing guitar couldn't be less like the Crimea's jagged punk-pop. But it was requested nonetheless.

Somebody is always yelling out the title. "I don't know that I've ever seen a show where it hasn't happened," says Bill Davis of the veteran  country-punk band Dash Rip Rock.

"It's just the most astonishing phenomenon," says Mike Doughty, the former front man of the "deep slacker jazz" band Soul Coughing, adding that "these kids, they can't be listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd."

Yelling "Freebird!" has been a rock cliché for years, guaranteed to elicit laughs from drunks and scorn from music fans who have long since tired of the joke. And it has spread beyond music, prompting the Chicago White Sox organist to add the song to her repertoire and inspiring a greeting card in which a drunk holding a lighter hollers "Freebird!" at wedding musicians.

Bands mostly just ignore the taunt. But one common retort is: "I've got your 'free bird' right here." That's accompanied by a middle finger. It's a strategy Dash Rip Rock's former bassist Ned Hickel used. According to fans' accounts of shows, so have Jewel and Hot Tuna's Jack Casady. Jewel declines to comment. Mr. Casady says that's "usually not my response to those kind of things."

Others have offered more than the bird. On a recent live album, Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock declares that "if this were the Make-a-Wish Foundation, and you were going to die in 20 minutes -- just long enough to play 'Freebird' -- we still wouldn't play it." Dash Rip Rock often plays "Stairway to Freebird," a mash-up of the Skynyrd epic and Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" that Mr. Davis boasts lasts "less than two minutes... You're finished before people get mad."

A few years ago, Mr. Doughty started promoting the Weather Girls' "It's Raining Men" as the new "Freebird," asking audiences at his solo shows to call for the disco chestnut instead. Now, he says, he gets yells for both songs at every performance.

A harsh reaction to "Freebird" came from the late comedian Bill Hicks during a Chicago gig in the early 1990s. On a bootleg recording of the show, Mr. Hicks at first just sounds irked. "Please stop yelling that," he says. "It's not funny, it's not clever -- it's stupid."

The comic soon works himself into a rage, but the "Freebirds" keep coming. "Freebird," he finally says wearily, then intones: "And in the beginning there was the Word -- 'Freebird.' And 'Freebird' would be yelled throughout the centuries. 'Freebird,' the mantra of the moron."

How did this strange ritual begin? "Freebird" is hardly obscure -- it's a radio staple consistently voted one of rock's greatest songs. One version -- and an important piece of the explanation -- anchors Skynyrd's 1976 live album "One More From the Road." On the record, singer Ronnie Van Zant, who was killed along with two other bandmates in a 1977 plane crash, asks the crowd, "What song is it you want to hear?" That unleashes a deafening call for "Freebird," and Skynyrd obliges with a 14-minute rendition.

To understand the phenomenon, it also helps to be from Chicago. When asked
why they continue to request "Freebird," Mr. Hicks's tormentors yell out "Kevin Matthews!"

Kevin Matthews is a Chicago radio personality who has exhorted his fans -- the KevHeads -- to yell "Freebird" for years, and claims to have originated the tradition in the late 1980s, when he says he hit upon it as a way to torment Florence Henderson of "Brady Bunch" fame, who was giving a concert. He figured somebody should yell something at her "to break up the monotony." The longtime Skynyrd fan settled on "Freebird," saying the epic song "just popped into my head."

Mr. Matthews says the call was heeded, inspiring him to go down the listings of coming area shows, looking for entertainers who deserved a "Freebird" and encouraging the KevHeads to make it happen.

But he bemoans the decline of "Freebird" etiquette. "It was never meant to be yelled at a cool concert -- it was meant to be yelled at someone really lame," he says. "If you're going to yell 'Freebird,' yell 'Freebird' at a Jim Nabors concert."

Comments

[Larry]

My best "Freebird" story was hearing it yelled during a lull in a matinee performance of the musical Mamma Mia. It happened at the "Fabulous" Fox Theatre in Atlanta, where, incidentally the Lynyrd Skynyrd live LP you mention above that started the "Freebird" mess was originally recorded at.
Poetic justice.

[larry forney]

Freshman year in college, someone yelled "Freebird" during an art history lecture, while a slide of David's "Death of Marat" was up on the screen. That someone died a few years later, before graduating. COINCIDENCE!?!!?!?

[bruce]

Damm you!! Was playing a solo elliot smith bootleg this morning and while the crowd is asking for certain songs. You hear some drunk girl screaming for Freebird.

Personally I'm a huge fan of Neil Young banter from audiences especially during the Tonight's the night phase. Or this clueless girl who kept screaming to hear 'Carry On' during one of his solo shows.

[fkerm]

heard "freebird" twice last week:
Once at Sonic Youth at NorthSix
Once at Shellac in Chicago

I doubt it was the same guy.

[ahaa!]

Very funny that the radio personality from Chicago claims to have originated the tradition in the late 1980's.

How is it then that I have a live tape of the Dead Kennedy's recorded in 1979 at the Earth Tavern in Portland, OR during which a number of fans are screaming Freebird! between Holiday Inn Cambodia and I Kill Children among other points during the show?

At this point it is a fucked up and silly tradition but it can still be kind of funny when it happens during just the right show at just the right moment.

[Rich S.]

I once saw moby play freebird. But I don't think anyone shouted it. A preemptive freebird. I felt uncomfortable. Lollapalooza 2nd stage 1995. Turn it up. Same concert at which someone threw shotgun shells up on the 1st stage while Hole performed. they, err she and then they walked off. then sonic youth came on ~.5 hr later closed it up and set me straight.

[E-Man]

In Australia we've got our own Freebird. A song called Khe San by 70s bogan rockers Cold Chisel. Though I don't think it's quite as prevalent as the Freebird thing.

[krokus]

"What song is it you wanna hear?"

How come audiences always yell "Freebird!" but bands never ask us the question?

[E-Man]

"Bogan" is sort of like redneck, at least in Melbourne. "Westie" in Sydney, "Bevan" (I think) in Queensland. There you go.

[Ray]

If you happen to read this, can the guy with the tape of someone yelling Freebird at the DK's please get in touch with me?

I have kind of an interest in this story.

Thanky.

[Redneck]

I knew ronnie van zandt and allen collins; I met them for the first time back in 1972 when I was 12 years old. ronnie and allen are lookin down on us (from where-ever they are) and they're having a good laugh.

[toddsteed]

I've actually written a song about this-

http://www.disgraceland.com/SunsofPhere/

It's also on Itunes.

[Baz]

Dunno why Homer has never shouted on the Simpsons - although I do remember him requesting Grand Funk Railroad songs from The Who.

[Bob Winchester]

Kevin Matthews had just returned to WLAV in Grand Rapids 2 days earlier after his many years in Chicago and 38 Special was playing at the Allegan County Fair some 40 miles from Grand Rapids. 38 Special was actually replacing Lynyrd Skynyrd because of a throat surgery for one of the band members. As Kevin walked out on the stage to make his pre-show introduction I yelled Freebird in great Kevhead tradition as a welcome to Kevin's return to Michigan, "where it all began". Kevin responded with a comment and a big grin and talked about it on the air on his morning show.

[Danny Kelly]

FREEBIRD!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Roger]

The 'Freebird' cry from the crowd was not invented by some DJ in Chicago who is obviously way full of himself and overestimates his influence. We did shows in Philly in the early eighties and people were always yelling it. Being a hard rock band, it never bothered us. Once we even played it for an encore after a full original show.

[sandra]

At a black tie event a few years ago for my husbands company, a drunk coworker of his yelled it out and the band gladly obliged. They played the song 20 minutes, backwards, forwards and repeat. After they were finally done, they yelled...."Hey lady, that's what you get when you ask for Freebird!" As if to rub it in her face.

Then I heard it last summer at a Blue Man Group show. The guys actually did a great version on a set of PVC pipes. Sounded great. If you can learn to play it on a set of PVC pipes, you must have known it will eventually come out of someone's mouth!

Same thing as yelling "Stairway!" or "Mustang Sally!"

[Girlgeek]

My son and his teammates added "what song is it you want to hear? Freebird" into their script for their Odyssey of the Mind performance. The judges loved it! They won 1st place and are going on to world finals next month! Odyssey of the Mind is a competition that focuses on creativity and problem solving....

www.odysseyofthemind.com
Division 1, problem 3 Ancient Egypt
4th grade students

[sd]

dont forget 'whipping post', shitdicks.

[Scott Sprouse]

I am a part time DJ on are local stataion 99 rock.My on air name is Freebird.People ask why Freebird? I reply. Who else are you gonna call Freebird....thats WKSM 99 ROCK Fort Walton Bch. FLA.

[Marcin]

Does anyone know that movie where the character keeps yelling, "Play Freebird"?

[R3000]

But you all should see Rob Zombies "The Devils Rejects" - Its the final song of an extremely climaxing end of the movie...

[sarah]

wow i never knew this was nation wide, i thought it was just us southerners that did this. Personally I think bands that get offended by it should get down off their high horse, it may be annoying but its part of rock n roll history and chances are if fans are yelling 'freebird' one of two things has happened, either they are realling loving you and getting into it and enjoying themselves and they yell it out of excitement (maybe stupid but a worthy reason) or they bored out of their minds and you arent interecting enough with them so they decide to heckle and yell at you in which case you deserve it.

[Cal]

The Blue Man Group plants an audience member to ensure "Free Bird" is requested at the right moment in every show.

[John]

Wow, good thing I'm learning Freebird right now incase I decide to form a band, which i think I will.