March 06, 2008

Freebird! Freeeeeebirrrrrrrrd!

I remember listening to Freebird for the first time in my life. I was standing in front of my television with a plastic guitar controller strapped to me. My brother and I had been taking turns on songs to finish up Guitar Hero, and we had done it, we'd finished the game. The game called for an encore and was preparing us for one final big finish song, and they said it was a song called "Freebird". Of course neither of knew what it was, so we were excited. The game kept asking:

"Are you ready?"
"Are you sure you're ready?"
"Are you really sure?"

And we were thinking YES damnit, let's play it!

So I'm playing the song, for about 5 minutes I was there, playing the guitar, and it was a joke. Turns out Freebird is a slow song by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Maybe it gained popularity because of it's lyrics? It's a slow song so it's a little bit anti-climatic. After all the songs we thrashed our way through, to end it all with this soft song, it's nice but it's not what we had hoped for.

So 5 minutes into the song, I'm getting bored and wondering if maybe I can transfer the guitar over to my brother and let him go for a few minutes. But then, hello, it starts to speed up a little bit. It's getting faster. Next thing I know, the tempo quickens and I'm playing a short solo, only it's not a short solo, it's a long song, like 2 minutes. Then 3. Then 5. What's this, a 10 minute solo? I'm going crazy now, my brother is like "what the heck.. does it end?", and I'm like "OMG this song rocks". I'm playing this impossible solo that I can barely keep up with and it lasts forever. It's like a crazy mother of a song, 15 minutes in total and the second half sounds nothing like the first. Just when you think it's over, it starts again. The two of us are going nuts. What the heck is going on, does it ever end?

Finally, the song ends. We erupt in excitement over what has just transpired. I feel like I just ran the marathon. My fingers are exhausted and I'm sweating like a hog. We go from "What the heck is Freebird" to "OH EM GEE.. Freebird is the best EVAR!".

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