That Smell
by Lynyrd Skynyrd
- 117
- BPM
- A minor
- Key
- 8A
- Camelot
- 47
- Danceability
- 1
- Acousticness
The idea for "That Smell" came from a car wreck. Gary Rossington crashed his Ford Torino into an oak tree on Mandarin Road in Jacksonville, Florida, after drinking and taking drugs. Ronnie Van Zant wrote a warning about careless overuse. He gave Rossington the nickname "Prince Charming". The band was then using alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, amphetamines and Quaaludes, and Van Zant said he had started on heroin and cocaine to cope with performing before large crowds. He told an interviewer, "I had a creepy feeling things were going against us, so I thought I'd write a morbid song."
Van Zant and guitarist Allen Collins are the credited writers. JoJo Billingsley is said to have helped too, though she was never credited, and roadie Gene Odom confirmed her as a co-writer.
Lynyrd Skynyrd put the song on Street Survivors in 1977. Three days after the album came out, a plane crash killed several members of the band, including Van Zant. "That Smell" has been used in Blow, Joe Dirt and Wild Hogs, and in episodes of True Blood, Entourage and Miami Vice.
That Smell runs at 117 BPM, the tempo of pop, funk and disco-leaning dance. In classical terms it sits in moderato territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 2.05 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 513 ms. It is in A minor, Camelot 8A, which shares its notes with C major and mixes cleanly with D minor and E minor.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.