Lyric discussion by thisishardcore 

Cover art for Gimme Three Steps lyrics by Lynyrd Skynyrd

This is based on a true story. Lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, who was 18 at the time, used a fake ID to get in a bar while his band mates Gary Rossington and Allen Collins waited for him in a truck. Van Zant danced with a girl named Linda, whose boyfriend came up to Ronnie and reached for something in his boot. Figuring he was going for a gun, Van Zant told him to give him a few steps and he would get out. He ran to the truck, and he, Rossington, and Collins wrote this that night.It's local legend that the song takes place in Bowling Green, Kentucky. After a gig at the Tobacco Warehouse, the boys from Skynyrd went down the road to a bar in town called The Little Brown Jug, thus "I was cuttin' the rug, down a a place called The Jug," which is where Ronnie Van Zant ran into an angry local man with a gun.

And the Little Brown Jug is still open on the Bypass like it always has been.

@thisishardcore That's a lot of BS. It happened at a bar on Jacksonville's westside known as the Pasttime, later changed to The Jug. All of the members of the band as well as the crew have acknowledged this.