And I went on and on and on.”Īnd yet, there she is on the finished track. I said I don’t want to sing anything to do with Alabama. “I said four little girls lost their lives, and it just broke everyone’s heart. She remembers her reaction when she got the call to do the “Sweet Home Alabama” session: “I really don’t want to sing anything about Alabama after what happened in Alabama.”Ĭlayton is African-American, and says she could not stop thinking about the infamous 1963 Ku Klux Klan bombing of a church in Birmingham. She was an in-demand background vocalist who famously recorded with The Rolling Stones, Joe Cocker and Ray Charles. Ronnie Van Zant was among the dead, and he remains the ghost in the room when the intent of the song is discussed.įor Merry Clayton, the song’s meaning was crystal clear. In 1977 - just three years after the song hit the airwaves - three members of Lynyrd Skynyrd and their road manager, as well as a pilot and copilot, died when their chartered plane went down. That’s another thing: The definitive take on the meaning of “Sweet Home Alabama” may have left the world decades ago. I’m sure if you asked the other guys who are not with us anymore and are up in rock and roll heaven, they have their story of how it came about.” But he also added that there were “a lot of different interpretations. We put the ‘boo, boo, boo’ there saying, ‘We don’t like Wallace,’ ” Rossington said. “A lot of people believed in segregation and all that. Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington co-wrote “Sweet Home Alabama,” and in the Showtime film he addressed that line. In 1963, when he was elected to his first term, Wallace famously said, “I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever.” “In Birmingham, they love the governor (boo! boo! boo!) “Sweet Home Alabama” does name-check one of the state’s most controversial leaders, George Wallace, who was governor when the song was released: They are accusatory and condescending.”Īnd yet, maybe Young wasn’t completely off-base. In his 2012 autobiography, he stated that he deserved that musical jab, writing, “I didn’t like my words when I wrote them. It’s an integral part of our nation’s history.” “At the root of it is a very human dilemma of bigotry and stereotyping,” Kemp says. Mark Kemp, originally from Ashboro, N.C., offers one perspective he’s the author of a book called Dixie Lullaby: A Story of Music, Race and New Beginnings in a New South, a memoir about his relationship with rock and roll from the region. And in the documentary, Van Zant offered this: “Everybody thinks we’re a bunch of drunken rednecks … and that’s correct.” So which is it? Back then, Lynyrd Skynyrd performed in front of a large Confederate flag - at the suggestion of its record label. ” From what I’m told you were born in Canada.”Įven as the song was positioned to dispel some stereotypes of the South, the band was embracing others. “What are you talking about, you know?” Van Zant said.
And I did attack Neil Young in that song,” Van Zant said, referring to a verse that called Young out by name:Ī Southern man don’t need him around, anyhow
“We knew that by doing that song, just writing those lyrics, we knew from the beginning that we’d get a lot of heat for it. In the Showtime documentary If I Leave Here Tomorrow, one of the song’s composers, lead vocalist Ronnie Van Zant, explained that the musicians wanted to counter what they saw as Young’s one-dimensional stereotype. Neil Young’s song “ Southern Man,” released in 1971, took the entire South to task for the bloody history of slavery and its aftermath. So where did members of Lynyrd Skynyrd get the gumption to write about a state they had only driven through? In part, it was because a Canadian got there first. In a way, the song began as a contradiction: It was written by two guys from Florida and one from California, none of whom ever lived in Alabama. But its history and meaning are complicated. Since then, it’s become a kind of anthem for the state and the fight song for for the University of Alabama’s Crimson Tide football team.
Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “ Sweet Home Alabama” cracked the Top 10 back in 1974. What follows is a down-home ode to the state that is known as the heart of Dixie: folksy colloquialisms, eternal blue skies, family. It starts with one of the best known guitar riffs in rock and roll.
This story is part of American Anthem, a yearlong series on songs that rouse, unite, celebrate and call to action. PHOTO: Ronnie Van Zant in 1975, onstage with Lynyrd Skynyrd at the Omni Coliseum in Atlanta.