You know how some say that certain people have the sixth sense? It’s when their intuition is more often accurate even before the event happens, or they know things that others don’t know. They have this natural ability to sense what is coming their way before it actually happens. Well, this might have been the case with the accident that took Lynyrd Skynyrd singer Ronnie Van Zant’s life, as prior to the incident, he had the gut feeling that he was not going to be around, not even till he was 30.
The band was on the rise, getting more recognition by the day with their last album ‘Street Survivors.’ They had their first five shows of the ‘Survivor Tour,’ and the album went gold immediately after its release. Although they were on track to becoming the biggest rock band there ever was, frontman Ronnie would always comment on his life and not making it to 30 and that he would not have a long life. While everyone around him always questioned his words about death, they would always brush it off and give words of affirmation that he would live to be old and bruised.
Apparently, those words were a hunch of what became the musician’s fate since the tragic plane crash took away his life 87 days before his 30th birthday while the band was on the road to their next tour destination on the afternoon of October 20, 1977. It was a horrific accident that took away so many lives, but the ringing of Ronnie’s words that he wouldn’t make it past 30 in his loved ones’ ears was one that didn’t stop for a long time.
The Classic Rock piece published in 2021 about the frontman’s story gave chills to readers as some of his closest family members gave their insight into how Ronnie’s predictions became his destiny. “When I heard that there had been a plane crash, I just knew Ronnie was one of the ones that didn’t make it,” Ronnie’s wife, Judy Van Zant Jenness, recalled. “He told me so many times that I realized that he really knew what he was talking about.”
“Ronnie could see the future, always had been able,” said his father, Lacy, about his son’s natural ability to foresee what was bound to happen. He also noted, “You know, prior to starting the Survivor tour, Ronnie gave my brother EC his best black hat and a beautiful ring that he used to wear. He also gave me several things, including his lawn mower and his 1955 Chevy pickup truck. That led me to believe that Ronnie may have known that he did not have long to live.”
He continued, “When we were in Glasgow, and they were playing with the Who or the Stones, I forgot. It was my birthday, and Ronnie gave me the trophy that they had won over there. He told those people in Scotland: ‘I don’t think I’ll be back to see you, to play for you anymore because I have never felt like I’d live to be 30.’ He was 29 when he said that.” And sure enough, that was the last show there because the singer tragically passed away before he could even finish the most extensive tour of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s career thus far.
Even though most people, when they hear the story of the late singer’s tragic passing like to call it a ghost story, it might very well be that he had the sixth sense, the intuition to predict what would become of him and how long he would live. The singer went off with his boots on and knew he wasn’t in it for the long haul.
