What Do You Think of the Song "Sweet Home Alabama"?

[violetpastille]

I'm on hold to Whirlpool customer service.

They are punishing me with their hold musics. "Sweet Home Alabama" has to be my unfavorite song ever. It's visceral for me.

I think it's like a Confederate statue and should not be played in stores or as hold music.

If I have to search Google for 15 minutes to begin to decipher what the lyricist "really meant" then that's a fail as hold or shopping music, sorry not sorry.

What do you think?

(Now they are rewarding me with "Green Onions".)

21 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	It's fine.
	10 (48%)
	It sucks.
	11 (52%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
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[bearsfootball516]

1. I didn't think much of it until I looked up the lyrics.

"Now Watergate does not bother me"

Yeesh. Not something I'll be upset over, but seems a little off.

[MiniMe]

13. "Does your conscience bother you?"

[redstateblues]

2. I wish I had a dollar for every time I played it in nightclubs

I would have a house on the beach!

[guillaumeb]

3. A very weak reply to Young's "Southern Man". eom

[violetpastille]

5. And "Alabama" by Neil Young

Oh Alabama
Banjos playing
Through the broken glass
Windows down in Alabama.
See the old folks
Tied in white ropes
Hear the banjo.
Don't it take you down home?

A very weak reply. You are right.

[dem4decades]

6. Just another proud of their heritage moment.

[byronius]

4. Green Onions -- there's an awesome song.

Sweet Home Alabama is melodically, rythmically very cool. The lyrics drove me away for decades, but then I found out Neil Young was a pallbearer at Van Zant's funeral.

Coupla quotes on the history --

But the ultimate irony of "Sweet Home Alabama" is that for so many, the song's implied put down of Neil Young was NOT meant as criticism but as support of Young's anti-racism. Thus, for those who think it's so clever to put down Neil Young using the phrase "Hope Neil Young will remember, a southern man don't need him around anyhow" little do they realize that they have the meaning backwards. Every day, someone blogs or tweets the "Neil Young putdown" without comprehending that they've actually praised him. Similarly, with the State of Alabama using the phrase "Sweet Home Alabama" as an official slogan on license plates, one truly has to wonder what they were thinking the song was about.

George Wallace, who fought for segregation, was the governor of Alabama when this was released. He loved the song, especially the line, "In Birmingham they love the governor," and he made the band honorary Lieutenant Colonels in the state militia.
Wallace may not have listened very carefully however, as Ronnie Van Zant explained: "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." Van Zant added, "We're not into politics, we don't have no education, and Wallace don't know anything about rock and roll."

The reference to Watergate in a song about the South mystifies some people: "Now Watergate does not bother me, Does your conscience bother you?" Although it is open to interpretation, Shmoop.com says if taken to mean northerners have their own problems and therefore shouldn't throw stones, this reference might be heard this way: "Van Zant ...wasn't judging all individual northerners to be bad people because their president had committed bad acts; they shouldn't judge him for the things George Wallace did either."

I can listen to it now without flinching. They were Southern potheads, not racists.

[hlthe2b]

7. Put on Neil Young's Southern Man after you get off the phone...

--a true "palate cleanser" for that musical choice.

[bif]

8. Absolutely sick of it. Like most of early 70s rock.

Heard all those songs way too many times.

[randr]

10. NPR has a great series going--American Anthem

Everything you ever wanted to know about "Sweet Home Alabama"
https://www.npr.org/2018/12/17/676863591/sweet-home-alabama-lynyrd-skynyrd-southern-discomfort-american-anthem

[Paladin]

11. Knuckle-dragging, neo-confederate trash anthem.

I trust I make my feelings clear.....

[Ptah]

12. Leningrad Cowboys Red Army Choir SWEET HOME ALABAMA

[Brother Buzz]

14. It's the quintessential Southern Rock anthem - Nothing more, nothing less

Callout to Muscle Shoals' session musicians, The Swampers (arguably the birth place for Southern Rock) - check
Cryptic hat tip to CCRW's John Fogerty, Southern Rocker extraordinaire from California - check
Appropriate dig at Neil Young - check

It is what it is just as long as you let the good old boys debate that Gov Wallace shit.

[violetpastille]

15. Heh.

Indeed.

[IcyPeas]

16. Merry Clayton talks about singing backup on Sweet Home Alabama

mostly known for her backup singing on Gimme Shelter. We ALL know that chorus. "War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away."

You must watch the movie "20 Feet from Stardom" where she talks about singing on this song with Lynyrd Skynyrd

AVC: 20 Feet talks about that conflict mostly through your wrestling with the decision of whether to sing on Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama.” What was that process like for you?

MC: I got a call from Clydie King, a great friend of mine. She was a big session singer, and we worked together all the time. She called me and said that this producer talked to her about doing this session with this guy, she thought his name was Leonard Skynyrd, but we came to find out that the group was called Lynyrd Skynyrd. Either way, she 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.” So I’m just going on and on and my husband passes by in the other room and he says, “What’s wrong?” And I said, “We’re going to do this session with this white boy called ‘Sweet Home Alabama.’” He said, “‘Sweet Home Alabama.’ Merry, are you serious?” He says, “Give me the phone,” and he talks to Clydie and says, “She’ll be there.”

I get off the phone and said, “Curtis, why are you telling Clydie that I’m going to be at a session that I do not want to do? You know I’m not going to sing anything about sweet home nobody’s Alabama.” He says, “Oh, but sweetheart you must sing ‘Sweet Home Alabama.’” He said, “You’re young, Merry. You don’t understand.” He said, “What you don’t know is that you can’t picket and you can’t stand on the front lines because with your mouth, you’d be dead. But you have the biggest platform there is to partake in and what you should do is let the music be your protest.” And I got it; at that moment, it clicked in my head and I got it. So I said, “Okay, I’m going to go to this session, but you better believe I’m going to be singing through my teeth ‘Sweet Home Alabama.’”

So the girls and I had a big prayer and we asked that God would just use us in this and that His will be done through this song and that this song would be a big hit and to let this be our protest and let people know that the whole world was screwed up, but that this was our protest as background singers and as music people, period. So we went to the session, the guys were great, we sang “Sweet Home Alabama,” and the rest is history.

[applegrove]

17. Liked the movie. Then realized it was supporting confederate culture in

Last edited Wed Dec 26, 2018, 09:01 PM - Edit history (1)

a quaint way.Threw the movie out. Never realized the lyrics to that old song were confederate too. But then I never listen to lyrics of songs.

[MrScorpio]

18. It's an anti-Neil Young diss track

I don't have a dog in this fight

[pressbox69]

19. I'm okay with Freebird

but not this junk. Here is a great assessment of Southern culture.

[LeftInTX]

20. It's better than the usual elevator music!!

[GulfCoast66]

21. Well, it's complicated...

They expressly boo the governor, which everyone knows means Wallace. So I always took it to be a response to Neil Young’s song declaring that not all southerns support racism.

Unfortunately most of the band died in a plane crash and I don’t know that they ever told their thoughts. And of course they were young rockers. I doubt they did much soul searching. But they made good music.

And as a Southerner, there are things I love about the South. Things I hate as well. And they were 15-20 years older than I am so grew up in a different South.

Like I said, it’s complicated.

[Wolf Frankula]

22. I Heard Lynyrd Skynrd Sang About Me

I heard that Lynyrd brung me down.
I hop Lynyrd Skynrd will remember,
Blowpipe Missile bring him down any time.
Fuck you Lynyrd Skynyrd,
You greasy Bama hick.
Up yours Lynyrd Skynyrd.
You can suck my hoser dick"

Thank you Royce for that, thirty plus years ago.

Wolf