Gimme Three Steps

"Gimme Three Steps"
Single by Lynyrd Skynyrd
from the album (Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd)
B-side "Mr. Banker"
Released November 1973
Recorded March 29, 1973
Studio Studio One, Doraville, Georgia
Genre
Length 3:17 (single version), 4:26 (album version)
Label MCA
Songwriter(s) Ronnie Van Zant, Allen Collins
Producer(s) Al Kooper
Lynyrd Skynyrd singles chronology
"I've Been Your Fool"
(1971) 		"Gimme Three Steps"
(1973) 		"Don't Ask Me No Questions (remix)"
(1974)
Live video
"Gimme Three Steps" on YouTube

"Gimme Three Steps" is a song by American southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, released from the band's debut album, (Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd) (1973). It was written by bandmates Allen Collins and Ronnie Van Zant.

The single release contains the song "Mr. Banker" as a B-side.

Background

Band member Gary Rossington based the lyrics on a real-life experience Ronnie Van Zant had at a bar in Jacksonville, Florida, having a gun pulled on him for dancing with another man's woman. It narrates how the singer was dancing with a girl named Linda Lou at a bar called The Jug when a man, either the girl's boyfriend or husband, enters with a loaded gun and catches them, angrily believing her to be cheating. The song's title refers to the chorus, where the interloper begs for a head start out of the bar: "Won't you give me three steps / Give me three steps, mister / Give me three steps towards the door? / Give me three steps / Give me three steps, mister / And you'll never see me no more."

Of the live single released in 1977, Cash Box said it is "a traditional rock and roller, featuring some tight harmony vocals and the obligatory high-distortion guitar solo." Record World said that "the triple pronged guitar attack and Ronnie Van Zandt's vocal have never sounded better."

Personnel

Lynyrd Skynyrd