All I Can Do Is Write About It

This isn’t the Lynyrd Skynyrd people expect. No triple-guitar attack. No Confederate-flag swagger. Just Ronnie Van Zant, sitting somewhere quiet, watching the South he loved get paved over and parceled out.

The song came out in 1976, before most people were talking about environmental destruction. Before “think globally, act locally” became a bumper sticker. Van Zant saw what was happening to Florida—the forests cleared, the rivers dammed, the old ways disappearing—and he didn’t know how to fix it. All he could do was write about it.

There’s something devastating in that honesty. Protest songs usually pretend they can change things. This one doesn’t. It’s an elegy, not a rallying cry. Van Zant knows the developers will win. He knows the old-timers will die and their grandchildren won’t remember what the land looked like before the strip malls. All he can do is create a record of what’s being lost.

The arrangement matches the mood—mostly acoustic, gentle, almost lullaby-like. When the electric guitars finally enter, they’re mournful, not triumphant. The whole thing feels like a long goodbye to a place that’s already halfway gone.

This was the same band that cranked out “Saturday Night Special” and “Workin’ for MCA.” Van Zant could have kept making barroom anthems forever. Instead, he stopped to ask what was worth fighting for. The answer: not fame, not fortune. Just the pines and the dirt roads and the way things used to be.

Some songs kick down doors. This one closes them gently, knowing they won’t open again.