Simple Man

Number three for me.

I'm going to go Shinedown doing Simple Man.

You absolute

bastard.

Nothing compares to you.

Hurt.

Simple man.

I've not gone emotional with my number

Um, Walden and Johnson, uh, presented those recordings to, uh, a number of major record labels, and they were turned down.

And you gotta remember that, you know, Walden recalled that Free Bird, Gimme Three Steps, Simple Man, uh, you know, they were all on there.

Um, band had been through some personal issues by that point, uh, personnel issues.

Larry Junstrom had been fired.

So, yeah.

Uh, I, I think what the band taught Billy were, was, was the feel for that style of music, but, you know, the rapid fire, uh, right hand that the man had, it is straight from that classical training.

Cooper initially didn't want Simple Man on the album.

Ronnie essentially sent him away while the band recorded it anyway.

and uh i didn't know that i was like where the fuck is philips where i can see the set about say like that doesn't look like a band and uh i i did not i did not see him play but i almost watched jelly roll play before he was before he before he like blew up it became like i don't know if he's a big deal but he became a big star in the couple years after this right this is when he was like first starting to get some traction and shit and um And he played that night, actually, you know, he played that night with, he came out and did at least one song.

I don't think he did more than one, but he did Simple Man with fucking Shinedown.

That was the closing act on Sunday.

And fucking Shinedown is great live.

I highly recommend anybody go see the play if you're interested in that.

You definitely will not be disappointed.

He came out and sang Simple Man, but he was just doing rap at the time.

So the fact this guy actually had a voice that could sing really good was pretty shocking to everybody involved.

Second, I guess, Phil, the good news for you is the person in your song is not the only one who really knows you at all.

So we will move on to the next round, which sees who is he going to go up against? Is it the two seed of Simple Man by Leonard Skinner or number seven seed Love Bites by Def Leppard? Oh, baby.

We are going to start with Mike Mott on this one.

Okay, so I get to start this one off.

All right,

um

So I mentioned in the last Matchup voting for against all odds about you know, you put on I'll get that song you bawl your eyes out now that is that is certainly one approach to what one is looking for in a power ballad, but for me a key aspect of something that I'm looking for in a power ballad is that there is a reasonable chance that people would be fucking to the song and I don't want to say nobody's ever got down to simple man.

I'm not trying to kink shame here.

Then we have Leonard Skinnerd pronouncing the world to Southern Rock.

you know and they become one of the more influential southern rock bands of all time with songs like Gimme Three Steps based on a real life incident with singer Ronnie Van Zant getting in trouble at a bar messing around with a woman and trying to get out of the fight and Simple Man a song about a son getting advice from his mother and then of course their most famous song Free Bird about freedom and living your life on your own you know You don't go to a concert without somebody yelling free bird at the top of their lungs, you know Like always, you know, i've heard that a few times I think I heard it one time at a green day concert And billy joel was just like really? wrong wrong wrong concert, bro uh And of course we have Shock Rock's defining album, Alice Cooper, Billion Dollar Babies.

The band got in trouble for the use of real money on the album cover and then having their own by the Treasury Department and Secret Service.

And it was found to be legal, so the album cover was actually allowed.

Sarah, do you recall how you first heard Shinedown?

I was a part of a band when I was 20, and we played a show where someone asked for Simple Man.

And, you know, they asked for the Shinedown version.

Simple

can.

And so I listened to the Shinedown version.

That was the first version of Simple Man that I heard.

Probably a lot of people.

And when, when he got here in 2023 before his injury, it was, it was electric.

Every, every Jacob deGrom start, you hear "Simple Man" and you get fired up.

It's like, "Oh my gosh, this team actually signed a legitimate number one ace who's a two-time Cy Young winner." And then he gets hurt, and it-- I think the excitement kind of fizzled from there.

And maybe winning the World Series, and we have all these nice, warm, fuzzy memories with Nathan Eovaldi, who's my favorite Ranger pitcher of all time now because of what he did.