What song is that you don’t want to hear?

My local daily news tells me a new burrito place is soon opening in Beaumont called “Freebirds” and another is soon to follow in nearby Nederland. The shop in Beaumont is taking over where Geo Burrito was located, which took over one of Novrozsky’s places which moved down the street in the Kroger shopping center at Folsom and Dowlen. Novrozsky’s is a pretty good local hamburger chain but I really don’t eat there much anymore since they seem to have given up making their great buffalo burger. I’ve never eaten at Geo’s, either at the aforementioned old Novrozsky’s or another ex-Novrozsky’s and ex-Geo’s on Calder and Lucas.

The reasoning for my not checking out Geo’s and why I likewise will probably not try Freebirds is because their style of burritos and other items are a little too tres chic for my taste. I like tacos and burritos that either come from a cart, or from a place where English is a second, or sometime third language. Or else, I like my own tacos and burritos that I have, well I don’t know if “perfected” is the right word, but have crafted over time. Others might not like those food items. But I do. If I want to make something for someone else I will make chili con carne, a great old Tex-Mex dish of which there is no right and no wrong. Or I will make some Jambalaya on the bayou me oh my yo.

Also, I am not too taken in by a place that is named for probably my least favorite Lynyrd Skynyrd song. The only time I saw Lynyrd Skynyrd play was during their “Nuthin’ Fancy Tour,” on the best I can tell March 18, 1975, at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. A Wikipedia entry said “Free Bird” was on their “typical set list” for that concert tour so I might have heard them play it. I couldn’t guarantee that though. This would be during the time, also according to the Wikipedia, that “Free Bird” hit Billboard’s Hot 100 list at No. 19. Since all I had for a car radio was of the AM variety, back during that time while driving all around Mississippi or an occasional trip across South Louisiana back home for a weekend of Navy liberty to East Texas, I would hear “Free Bird” quite often. Ditto for a live version of “Free Bird” that peaked the charts at No. 38 in 1977. It is the same version that is played quite frequently on “Album Oriented Rock” FM stations or “Classic Rock” or whatever, played ad nauseum. The same song where LS asks: “What song is it that you want to hear?” and the answer is, unfortunately, “Free Bird.”

To shorten matters, I’ve long liked “Sweet Home Alabama,” “The Needle and the Spoon,” “The Ballad of Curtis Loew,” “Give Me Three Steps,” “Gimme Back My Bullets,” “What’s Your Name?”and a host of Skynyrd songs. It was quite a shock to hear, about 2 1/2 years later after I heard them in a great concert at USM, upon a beach in Guam from some “Good Ol’ Guamanian Boys” that Skynyrd lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, band members Steve and Cassie Gaines, the assistant road manager, pilot and co-pilot were killed on impact when their plane crashed in Mississippi.

I still like to hear the Skynyrd songs that I love to hear. I feel “Free Bird” has become a stereotype of the redneck Southern rocker who plays the song louder than it has a right to be heard on a stereo system that costs more than his 15-year-old pick-em-up truck does.

No, I don’t really like Freebird. I probably won’t like Freebirds burrito place either. I guess if someone, a guest, from out of town wants to try it, I will just to be polite. And I might like it. But I kind of bet that I won’t.

And, no the song I want to hear is “Sweet Home Alabama,” or perhaps “Give Me Three Steps.” Maybe even the Skynyrd version of the great J.J. Cale song “Call Me The Breeze.” I’d like to hear damn near anything by LS except “Free Bird.”