“Lynyrd Skynyrd Jones” by Eric Church

“Lynyrd Skynyrd Jones” is given such a moniker firstly because his mother and father met, in the 1970s, at a Tallahassee-based Lynyrd Skynyrd show. To note, his mother was White and father is Black. And he grew up with his mom in a part of Alabama known as Gadsden, as his dad abandoned the family when he was too young to really remember him.

Meanwhile Jones himself grew up depressed, alienated “and confused” due to his biracial background. That is until he discovered a love of playing music, at the age of 13, after buying a guitar from a pawn shop. 

Indeed he naturally proved to be a talented guitarist. And the theory which Eric Church is putting forth is that Jones inherited the spirit of Lynyrd Skynyrd, so to speak, due to his mom being a true fan of the band.

So the story concludes as it began, with Lynyrd Skynyrd Jones’s parents. His mother, who of course played a major advisory role on his life, eventually passes away. And lo and behold, at the funeral there is a ‘Black man dressed in all black’ who identifies himself as his dad.

And that’s just about it as far as “Lynyrd Skynyrd Jones” is concerned. The lyrics are put together like a comprehensive short story centered around the biracial and musically-inspired Jones. And in that latter regard, the wording of the song is based heavily on a motif honoring Lynyrd Skynyrd, a band whose heyday was during the 1960s.

Did Eric Church write “Lynyrd Skynyrd Jones”?

No. A songwriter named Casey Beathard composed this tune. Casey is an award-winning American songwriter, and the son of famed National Football League (NFL) manager Bobby Beathard. Casey is the sole composer of “Lynyrd Skynyrd Jones”.

Release Date

“Lynyrd Skynyrd Jones” was released on 23^rd April, 2021. It is the last but not least track listed on Church’s 2021 album titled “Heart & Soul” album of Church. The album was recorded in three separate parts.

Eric Church’s “Heart & Soul” Album

Eric Church’s seventh studio album titled, “Heart & Soul” is a triptych. While the entire release was done by EMI Nashville, the musician decided to divide it into three separate parts namely:

• “Heart”, a 9-track set issued on April 16^th, 2021
• “&”, a 6-track vinyl record released exclusively to his fans on April 20^th 2021
• “Soul”, another 9-track set released on 23^rd April 2021

The unlikely circumstances under which Church composed this music added more weight to the content of the album.

The recording was done with a 28-day period inside a shuttered restaurant-turned studio on the North Carolina Mountains. As a composer, Church had a few more lyricists on his team helping in the whole writing process of the album’s 24 tracks.

Church solely wrote the first track Heart on Fire for Heart and Jenny for Soul. For the other eight tracks in “Heart”, Church received assistance from a bunch of other writers. Some of them include Travis Hill, Jeff Hyde, Jeremy Spillman, Ryan Tyndell, Casey Beathard and Monty Criswell.

“&”, the part-two of the album, also employed Beathard and some of the names above.

The final part, “Soul” had Beathard alongside most of the aforementioned writers collaborating on lyrics.

The album’s first official single, “Stick That in Your Country Song” was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Country Solo Performance following its 2020 release. The second official single for “Heart and Soul” is titled “Hell of a View“.