Pop Song 619 of 1000 Sweet Home Alabama Lynyrd Skynyrd 1974

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Pop Song 619 of 1000 'Sweet Home Alabama' Lynyrd Skynyrd 1974 • Official MV • Lynyrd Skynyrd - Sweet Home Alabama -... • None of the three writers of the song were from Alabama; Ronnie Van Zant and Gary Rossington were both born in Jacksonville, Florida, while Ed King was from Glendale, California. • Sweet Home Alabama was written in answer to two songs by Neil Young, Southern Man and Alabama , because the songs took the entire South to task for the bloody history of slavery and its aftermath. We thought Neil was shooting all the ducks in order to kill one or two, said Ronnie Van Zant at the time.The lyrics to Sweet Home Alabama include the following lines: • Well, I heard Mister Young sing about her • Well, I heard ol' Neil put her down • Well, I hope Neil Young will remember • A Southern man don't need him around anyhow • In Young's 2012 autobiography Waging Heavy Peace, he commented on his song: My own song 'Alabama' richly deserved the shot Lynyrd Skynyrd gave me with their great record. I don't like my words when I listen to it. They are accusatory and condescending, not fully thought out, and too easy to misconstrue. • Another part of Sweet Home Alabama was also controversial in its reference to George Wallace, the governor of Alabama and supporter of racial segregation: • In Birmingham, they love the governor (boo boo boo) • Now we all did what we could do • Now Watergate does not bother me • Does your conscience bother you? • Tell the truth • ... • Sweet home Alabama, oh, sweet home baby • Where the skies are so blue and the governor's true • The choice of Birmingham in connection with the governor (rather than the capital of Montgomery) is significant because it was the site of civil rights activism and violence in the 1960s. In 1975, Van Zant said: The lyrics about the governor of Alabama were misunderstood. The general public didn't notice the words 'Boo! Boo! Boo!' after that particular line, and the media picked up only on the reference to the people loving the governor. [16] The line 'We all did what we could do' is sort of ambiguous, Al Kooper notes, 'We tried to get Wallace out of there' is how I always thought of it. [16] Toward the end of the song, Van Zant adds where the governor's true to the chorus's where the skies are so blue, a line seemingly contradictory to the previous lyrics. Journalist Al Swenson argues that the song is more complex than many believe and is not an endorsement of Wallace.[16] Van Zant said: Wallace and I have very little in common. I don't like what he says about colored people. • Merry Clayton and Clydie King, two well-known black studio singers, are heard on the track as backing vocalists. In a 2013 interview, Clayton spoke at length about her decision to take the job. In her recollection, her initial response was negative: [Clydie King] said the song was 'Sweet Home Alabama.' There was a silence on the phone for quite a while. I said, 'Clydie, are you serious? I'm not singing nothing about nobody's sweet home Alabama. Period.' Nonetheless, Clayton was persuaded to take the job, to let the music be [her] protest. • Music historians examining the juxtaposition of invoking Richard Nixon and Watergate after Wallace and Birmingham note that one reading of the lyrics is an attack against the liberals who were so outraged at Nixon's conduct while others interpret it regionally: the band was speaking for the entire South, saying to northerners, we're not judging you as ordinary citizens for the failures of your leaders in Watergate; don't judge all of us as individuals for the racial problems of southern society. • Ed King, the song's cowriter, contradicted his former bandmates in a 2009 post on his website. He claimed that the song was originally intended as the unabashed defense of Alabama, and even Wallace, that the song appears to be: • I can understand where the boo boo boo would be misunderstood. It's not US going boo ... it's what the Southern man hears the Northern man say every time the Southern man'd say In Birmingham we love the gov'nor . Get it? We all did what WE could do! to get Wallace elected. It's not a popular opinion but Wallace stood for the average white guy in the South. • Watergate doesn't bother me because that stuff happens in politics...but someone's conscience ought to bother them for what happened to Wallace. Arthur Bremer may or may not have been a yankee but he sure destroyed whatever chance Wallace had to be president. And hardly anyone in America noticed. I still like the plaque that hangs here in my office that says I'm an honorary member of the Alabama State Militia...signed personally by George C. Sure, the man had his flaws. But he spoke for the common man of the South. And, whoa, I'm gonna get in trouble over this whole dang post!

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