I Know A Little Album: Street Survivors (1977)<br />by Lynyrd Skynyrd<br /><br />You won't find diatribes on the complexities of interpersonal relationships in the Skynyrd catalog, but you will find simple explanations. I Know A Little is a great example.<br /><br />Why to people get the blues? From digging what they can't use. And if you want to hold on to a man, a good way to do it is through commitment. You only need to know a little about love - the rest you can guess.<br /><br />I Know A Little is a great example of Skynyrd guitarist Steve Gaines' contributions to the band. He wrote the song himself, and also wrote or co-wrote three other songs on the album. Gaines replaced Ed King as the band's guitarist in 1976, but died in the 1977 plane crash that also claimed the lives of lead singer Ronnie Van Zant and Gaines' sister Cassie, who was a backup singer for the group. This song provides a glimpse of his clever songwriting, as Van Zant sings about a guy who has a strong feeling that his girl is cheating on him.<br /><br />Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington told Guitar School magazine, July 1993, that he'd never heard anybody, including the current guitarists in the band, play the picking on this song quite right - the way Steve Gaines did.<br /><br />This is one of many Skynyrd songs that was never released as a single but endured as a classic track in their catalog. It earned lots of airplay on Classic Rock radio and became one of their most popular live songs, performed at most of thei<br />Street Survivors is the fifth studio album by the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, released on October 17, 1977. The LP is the last Skynyrd album recorded by original members Ronnie Van Zant and Allen Collins, and is the sole Skynyrd studio recording by guitarist Steve Gaines. Three days after the album's release, the band's chartered airplane crashed en route to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, killing the pilot, co-pilot, the group's assistant road-manager and three band members (Van Zant, Gaines, and Gaines' older sister, backup singer Cassie Gaines), and severely injuring most who survived the crash.<br /><br />On October 20, 1977, only three days after the release of Street Survivors, and five shows into their most successful headlining tour to date, Lynyrd Skynyrd's chartered Convair CV-300 ran out of fuel near the end of their flight from Greenville, South Carolina, where they had just performed at the Greenville Memorial Auditorium, to LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Though the pilots attempted an emergency landing on a small airstrip, the plane crashed in a forest five miles (8 km) northeast of Gillsburg, Mississippi. Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, Cassie Gaines, assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary, and co-pilot William Gray, were killed on impact. The other band members (Collins, Rossington, Wilkeson, Powell, Pyle, and Hawkins), tour manager Ron Eckerman, and road crew survived, but suffered serious injuries.<br /><br />Following the crash and the ensuing press, Street Survivors became the band's second platinum album and reached No. 5 on the U.S. album chart. The single "What's Your Name?" reached No. 13 on the single airplay charts in January 1978.<br /><br />The original cover sleeve for Street Survivors had featured a photograph of the band standing on a city street with all its buildings engulfed in flames, some near the center nearly obscuring Steve Gaines's face. After the plane crash, this cover became highly controversial. Out of respect for the deceased (and at the request of Teresa Gaines, Steve's widow), MCA Records withdrew the original cover and replaced it with a similar image of the band against a simple black background, which was on the back cover of the original sleeve. An urban legend has long claimed that only those band members touched by flame in the photograph were killed in the crash, but this is not true (flame appears to touch nearly all band members).<br /><br />Yes sir<br /><br />Well the bigger the city well the brighter the lights<br />The bigger the dog well the harder the bite<br />I don't know where you been last night<br />But I think Mama you ain't doin' right<br /><br />Say I know a little<br />I know a little about it<br />I know a little<br />I know a little about it<br />I know a little about love<br />And baby I can guess the rest<br /><br />Well now I don't read that daily news<br />'Cause it ain't hard to figure where people get the blues<br />They can't dig what they can't use<br />If they stick to themselves they'd be much less abused<br /><br />Say I know a little<br />Lord I do know a little about it<br />I know a little<br />I know a little about it<br />I know a little about love<br />And baby I can guess the rest<br /><br />Play me a little<br />Whoa<br />Yeah<br /><br />Well now you want me to be your only man<br />Said listen up Mama teach you all I can<br />Do right baby by your man<br />Don't worry Mama I'll teach you all I can<br /><br />Say I know a little<br />Lord I know a little about it<br />I know a little<br />I know a little about it<br />I know a little about love<br />And baby I can guess the rest<br /><br />Well I know a little about love<br />Baby I want your best