"Gimme Three Steps" is a song by southern rock

Southern rock

Southern rock is a subgenre of rock music, and genre of Americana. It developed in the Southern United States from rock and roll, country music, and blues, and is focused generally on electric guitar and vocals...

 band Lynyrd Skynyrd

Lynyrd Skynyrd

Lynyrd Skynyrd is an American rock band prominent in spreading Southern Rock during the 1970s.Originally formed as the "Noble Five" in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1964, the band rose to worldwide recognition on the basis of its driving live performances and signature tune, Freebird...

 released on its 1973 debut album, . The song can often be heard on many classic rock

Classic rock

Classic rock is a radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format features music ranging generally from the late 1960s to the late 1980s, primarily focusing on the hard rock genre that peaked in popularity in the...

 radio stations today. It was written by Allen Collins

Allen Collins

Larkin Allen Collins Jr. was one of the founding members and guitarists of Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, and co-wrote many of the band's songs with late frontman Ronnie Van Zant...

 and Ronnie Van Zant

Ronnie Van Zant

Ronald Wayne "Ronnie" Van Zant was an American lead vocalist, primary lyricist, and a founding member of the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd...

.

The album became the band's first hit, driven by the success of the single "Free Bird

Free Bird

"Free Bird" is a song by the American southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd...

", but "Gimme Three Steps" never charted.

Content

The song is memorable for its opening riff and story of how the speaker was dancing with a girl named Linda Lou at a bar when a man, probably the girl's boyfriend or husband, enters with a gun (described as a .44) and catches them, angrily believing her to be cheating. The song's title refers to the chorus, "Won't you give me three steps/Gimme three steps mister/Gimme three steps towards the door?/Gimme three steps/Gimme three steps mister/And you'll never see me no more." essentially asking for three steps head start

Head start (positioning)

In positioning, a head start is a start in advance of the starting position of others in competition, or simply toward the finish line or desired outcome...

 to flee. The song is also based on a real-life experience Ronnie had at a biker bar in Jacksonville

Jacksonville, Florida

Jacksonville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Florida in terms of both population and land area, and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. It is the county seat of Duval County, with which the city government consolidated in 1968...

known as The Pastime, including having a gun pulled on him, and thus inspiring him to write the lyrics on his way home.