Having just recently had my first-born child enter my life, I have come to appreciate and be moved more so with Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Simple Man." If anyone is familiar with this song, can you tell me why this song is not mentioned in the same breathe as their more notable songs of Freebird, Sweet Home Alabama, Tuesday's Gone or What's Your Name?

 

IMHO, I find this their most moving and compelling song. *shrugs*

I don't mean to be nitpicky, but it's Lynyrd Skynyrd.

 

As for the meaning, I'm sure I can figure something out after school. I'm quite a big Skynyrd fan.

I don't mean to be nitpicky, but it's Lynyrd Skynyrd.

 

As for the meaning, I'm sure I can figure something out after school. I'm quite a big Skynyrd fan.

Sorry for the mispelling. I completely follow and understand the meaning of the song, I was just wondering why it is not as popular or as much of a musical stable as the above-mentioned ones.

I'm a marginal fan. I actually loved them growing up in Chicago, but quickly got overexposed when I moved down south.

 

As for Simple Man, I agree it's a great and under appreciated song. It's general lack of commercial success or familiarity is probably do to the fact that it was on their 1973 debut album ("Pronounced...") that got no national attention. I think that first album was easily the strongest of the first four, with the exception of 'The Ballad Of Curtis Loew' on the second release really picking up that disc IMHO.

 

On an ear-appreciation level, Simple Man is also, well..., too simple. There is no chord change with the refrain - just that same arpeggiated C - G - Am riff, so there's no contrast to the song. From that standpoint the song is musically flat, but I appreciate it in that it doesn't distract from the lyrics.

 

Finally, lack of radio play can't be equated with financial failure - although the payoff for the band came many years later (like, after-half-the-band-was-dead later). Busch Beer used Simple Man and Call Me the Breeze in their "Mountain Man" ad campaign in the late 80s, and I suspect that is the reason Simple Man made the cut for the "greatest hits" rehash compilation that came out around that time. If I recall tthat campaign correctly, the Call Me the Breeze was re-recorded by a session band with the added tag line "Ah'm just lookin' for a Busch... Beer!", while the Simple Man ads were actually the 1973 Skynyrd cut.

It is on every other hour on some radio station or another where I am at (and where I was previously stationed at that). I first heard it on a daily basis like this when my wife and I first found out she was pregnant, so I thought of it as an omen or what have you.

 

To this day, I still hear it twice while in the office and if I had an FM dial in my cockpit, I'm sure I'd hear it twice a day there as well. I still never tire of that song and can still hear faint snickers from some of the airmen when all of the words from that song can be heard being bellowed out from my office. If I ever find out which airman that is....

shinedown has a good version of simple man...

That song makes for a hell-u-va beer commercial.

I really like Skynyrd's version of Simple Man. I don't know why it's not as popular, I always thought it was but then again I don't listen to the radio.

 

Whoever it was that re-made it recently really needs to die though.

Whoever it was that re-made it recently really needs to die though.

That crap band from California that redid Sweet Home Alabama into "Sweet Home California (late 90s? early 00s?) -- they needed to die for that.

Any band who uses someone else's creation for their own profit should die.

Well I heard mister young sing about her

Well, I heard ole neil put her down

Well, I hope neil young will remember

A southern man don’t need him around anyhow

 

Southern rock can be very cool.

Southern rock can be very cool. 

I take it you don't like ole Neil, eh Tex?

 

I love the history of Young and Skynyrd.

I take it you don't like ole Neil, eh Tex?

 

I love the history of Young and Skynyrd.

Actually I like Young. I just love fueds. AKA Dixie Chicks and Toby Keith etc. All publicity.

I take it you don't like ole Neil, eh Tex?

 

I love the history of Young and Skynyrd.

The irony is how really Neil-esque a 3-chord, no refrain, no bridge song like Simple Man is. And anyway, Neil is the most southern sounding Kanuk there is, re, Everybody Knows this is Nowhere, Are You Ready For the Country?, Harvest Moon, Love is a Rose, man Needs a Maid, Down By the River, Powderfinger...

 

Crap, now I need me a Neil fix.

Southern rock can be very cool. 

I like that song, in spite of its blatant racism.

I like that song, in spite of its blatant racism.

Oak tree in my way...

The irony is how really Neil-esque a 3-chord, no refrain, no bridge song like Simple Man is.  And anyway, Neil is the most southern sounding Kanuk there is, re, Everybody Knows this is Nowhere, Are You Ready For the Country?, Harvest Moon, Love is a Rose, man Needs a Maid, Down By the River, Powderfinger...

 

Crap, now I need me a Neil fix. 

 

In one post you state:

On an ear-appreciation level, Simple Man is also, well..., too simple. There is no chord change with the refrain

 

Then later...

The irony is how really Neil-esque a 3-chord, no refrain, no bridge song like Simple Man is.

 

Eh?

 

A refrain (a verse the repeats itself throughout a song at given intervals) is the same thing as a chorus, no?

 

And be a simple kind of man.

Be something you love and understand.

Be a simple kind of man.

Won't you do this for me son,

If you can?

In one post you state:

 

 

Then later...

 

 

Eh?

 

A refrain (a verse the repeats itself throughout a song at given intervals) is the same thing as a chorus, no?

 

And be a simple kind of man.

Be something you love and understand.

Be a simple kind of man.

Won't you do this for me son,

If you can?

No, that's just it. Simple Man has a nominal refrain only - there are repeated lyric, but there is no accompanying change in the chord progression or tempo, etc. That is what I meant by saying 'no chord change with the refrain.

 

In the later post, I wrote what I thought to be the shorthand equivalent - song with no refrain. The point being there is no contrast or relief from C-G-Am in 2/4 between the verses and the nominal refrain. My apologies if it was misconstrued.

 

To point, a lot of those Neil songs are very much in that same vein. And I think their all quite wonderful - just as I feel Simple Man is - in their simplicity.