I don't like what he says about colored people." įurther complicating the racial politics of the song is the fact that Merry Clayton and Clydie King, two well-known black studio singers, are heard on the track as backing vocalists. Van Zant said: "Wallace and I have very little in common. Journalist Al Swenson argues that the song is more complex than many believe and is not an endorsement of Wallace. 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." "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." 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. In 1975, Van Zant said: "The lyrics about the governor of Alabama were misunderstood. 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. Where the skies are so blue and the governor's true In Birmingham, they love the governor (boo boo boo) They are accusatory and condescending, not fully thought out, and too easy to misconstrue." Īnother part of "Sweet Home Alabama" was also controversial in its reference to George Wallace, the governor of Alabama and supporter of racial segregation: I don't like my words when I listen to it. 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. Well, I heard Mister Young sing about herĪ Southern man don't need him around anyhow The lyrics to "Sweet Home Alabama" include the following lines: "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. In addition to the original appearance on Second Helping, the song has appeared on numerous Lynyrd Skynyrd compilations and live albums. "Sweet Home Alabama" was a major chart hit for a band whose previous singles had "lazily sauntered out into release with no particular intent." The hit led to two television rock show offers that the band declined. Then Ronnie wrote the lyrics and Ed and I wrote the music." Ronnie and I were sitting there, and he kept saying, 'play that again'. It's the little picking part and I kept playing it over and over when we were waiting on everyone to arrive for rehearsal. In an interview with Garden & Gun, Rossington explained the writing process: "I had this little riff. 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.
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