The Ballad of Curtis Loew

The Ballad of Curtis Loew is a Southern rock song by Lynyrd Skynyrd from their album Second Helping.

The song's narrator remembers when he was a young boy (around age 10), he would look for bottles to cash in (back before plastic disposable bottles came into vogue), and then give his money to the song's titular character (pronounced "low"), a Black man who was a talented musician but was also an alcoholic and had aged considerably as a result ("he looked to be 60"). Despite repeated punishment from his mother, the young boy would continue to give the man money in exchange for hearing him play.

When Curtis finally passed away, nobody came to his funeral (except, possibly, the narrator) and outside of a few words from a preacher he was "chucked (thrown) in the clay (grave)". Having lived a lifetime "playing the black man's blues", the day he died his life was "all he had to lose".