“Gimme Three Steps” by Lynyrd Skynyrd

"Gimme Three Steps" comes off Lynyrd Skynyrd's 1973 debut, the album that spells out how to say the band's name as its title, and it's a barroom yarn told at a dead run. Allen Collins and Ronnie Van Zant wrote it, and Gary Rossington has said the story came from a real night in a Jacksonville, Florida bar, when Van Zant danced with the wrong man's woman and found a gun pointed his way.

In the song the girl is Linda Lou, the joint is The Jug, and the narrator talks fast, swears he never so much as kissed her, and bolts the second the jealous gunman looks away. Collins and Rossington chop out a greasy, strutting riff, Billy Powell and Bob Burns keep the floor bouncing, and Van Zant plays the whole near-death scrape with a sly grin. Al Kooper produced it for MCA.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.