We moved to Florence, Alabama last October 2023 from California. This past June my wife had to fly back to California for 3 weeks to be with her 80 year old mom who was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer in late May. My wife spent 3 very stressful, very busy weeks taking care of her mom’s affairs and getting her into a hospice facility. My wife finally came home flying into the Nashville airport 2 and a half hours away. I picked her up at the airport and on the ride back to Florence, she commented at least 5 times how happy she was to be home. As we approached the Tennessee/Alabama state line, about a hundred yards away that familiar riff came over the radio. I reached over and patted her knee and said “Your home honey”. At that moment I could see her relax and she started to cry. Just thought I’d share this ironic coincidence since the song is the topic today. I really enjoy your channel, keep up the good work. Thanks!
I wouldn't call it "ironic". More like a perfect moment, sent courtesy of the Universe, to welcome your wife home after her hard ordeal. She showed true loyalty and famial love towards her mother, and the Universe returned the favor. 😊
@@TheKBK2 greetings from Conecuh County and welcome to the dirty South. Act accordingly lol. We are polite and kind people... Until we're not. Hope you've been enjoying yourself. Hate to hear about your family troubles man! May the Universe grant you and yours peace and blessings. JJ -South Alabama
Before the Covid outbreak in China, we were saying goodbye to a teacher from Alabama. I was the only other American. All of us were celebrating in a Karaoke lounge. ( definitely not to miss out when in China). I looked over the limited list of English songs and found Sweet Home Alabama and said that has got to be the one final song of our farewell party. She agreed and we belted that song out at full blast. Such a great memory
@Whisper_292, It should have been a feud. Neil Young is liberal trash. He wrote 2 songs completely ridiculing and mocking the South. F Neil Young and I don’t need him around.
My dad believed in the feud, but he figured it was a friendly feud between friends. Like how bffs will poke at each other. He felt that way because of the lyrics, interviews, and the fact that they wore each other's swag. It was obvious how big a fan they were of each other.
I love both of these songs. I never knew the backstory. That’s why I listen to this channel. Thanks Adam, and kudos to your father. We are all benefitting from his teachings.
I'm a big fan of Lynyrd Skynyrd I've had all of their records and heard all of their songs i liked some of Neil Young's songs but was never a big fan and I remember hearing of this fued but I never believe what the media says anyhow as always Thank You Professor.🎤🎸🎹🥁🇺🇲
And then start a barroom brawl, just for fun, no harm meant. AND he was the same guy who wrote the Ballad of Curtis Loew. He was so full of contradictions, and an extraordinary and sensitive person and poet. (Curtis Loew is a song that needs a lot more attention.)
Lynard Skynyrd stood up to the Rolling Stones at a concert in England - (can't remember exactly where). The Stones told them to stay off of a certain part of the stage while they were performing as the Stones opening act. Ronnie and the boys made it their business to proceed directly to that part of the stage in the first few minutes!! Maybe the Professor can do a video about that one!! 😊
Ronnie also would get stone drunk and pick fights with the other members of the band and having enough of his antics, Ed King somehow got on the receiving end ronnie went to hit him with a whiskey bottle and broken Ed's hand, they made up...finally went to bed. Now they were on tour, anyways the next morning waking up they found that Ed had already left for back to the states... That is how the band found out Ed King had quit so they contacted Rick Madlocke to help them finish that tour or the next few dates of that tour. Then they hired Steve Gaines soon after getting back to the US in Missouri i believe...
I took my friend and my little sister to a skynyrd concert sometime around 1990. having only 2 tickets I figured I could buy another once we got there and we could sit on the grass together in general admission. the parking was quite a bit more than I had counted on and when I got to the ticket booth I was short for the ticket price. I asked if anyone had a scalp ticket and started to walk back when a older man in a wheel chair with a cowboy hat and leather vest stopped me. he asked if I needed a ticket and I replied that I did. the man reached into a leather pouch and pulled out a ticket and handed it to me. I offered to give him the money I had but he just smiled and said not to worry about it. after thanking him I went off to find my party and told them about the kind man that had given me a ticket and pointed him out to them. we went in and sat on the lawn and were rocking out with one of the most energetic crowds I have ever seen until something I never saw before or since in my entire life happened. the band started playing sweet home alabama, I believe, and the crowd went nuts. some of the groups had started forming a giant dance lines and I half jokingly said 'oh no watch out! if they start a congo line it's all over!' then they started running in a large circuit around the lawn area from one side to the other, then down the side and then back and kept doing it for the entire song. thousands of young people running around the entire area and the congo line swayed higher and lower as they ran the line came to where we were sitting and many hundreds of people ran by or leaped over our legs as the ran by us. it was one of the most incredible things I have ever seen. I was sitting there just taking it all in when it struck me that the guy in the wheel chair looked like one of the band members, just older than the pictures on my albums. I am pretty sure that I got a free ticket to see Lynyrd Skynyrd from a member of Lynyrd Skynrd they are one of the best live bands I have seen and I still have my ticket stub, safely tucked in my stub collection
My favorite memory of this song was in 2008. We were living in Korea and took a cruise around Incheon. There was a Filipino band playing Sweet Home Arabama. They did a decent job of it
You might get a kick outta this. I saw Skynyrd at Capitol Centre in Maryland and between sets of Be-Bop Deluxe and Pure Prairie League I was headed to the bathroom and actually walked next to Ronnie in the concourse he noticed me cause I was one of the few people wearing a cowboy hat and a leather vest and just before he went into a doorway that lead behind to the warm up area, I saw the rest of the band waiting for him. Great memories. Keep up the good work man.
In the 1970s, my brother (we're Americans) managed a VERY popular restaurant/bar in Brussels, Belgium. Staffed with American ex-pats, one of the two owners from Chicago, it served traditional US fare - burgers, chili, etc., and was just like stepping into any place back home. Every American act touring the area would visit. A who's who of American music of the day. neil young's manager came in one day to prep things. Told my brother all the dos and don'ts for anybody being blessed by his appearance. As they walked the place, the manager says young doesn't listen to anybody else's music but his own, and takes a stack of young's records from under his arm. This was the big rule numbah one. My brother took him to the bar and told the bartender and guy in charge of the turntable, a giant blond surfer from California the important rule - only neil young music while he's there and handed over the records. Wink wink. Next day young comes in. The entire stay, not one young song was played. Marshall Tucker, Bob Seger, Allman Brothers, Zeppelin, etc. Ole Mr Young was a lil bit pissed when he left. F neil young.
Neil Young I believe was born in Toronto but as a teen moved to Winnipeg with his folks. There he was beaten up almost daily at Kelvin High School by the local bullies for being a Torontonian "weirdo". He vowed to show them all one day by leaving Winnipeg and make it big in the States. He succeeded spectacularly! He may have been a weirdo (to this day LOL) but no doubt extremely talented. I drive by that school from time-to-time and thank the circumstances there that gave us the Great Neil Young. Thanks Adam for shedding some light on some of the non-controversies around him. Cheers! 🟥🍁🟥
You have a way of putting questions incontrovertibly to bed, and this is absolutely one of those times. I've always questioned whether or not there was a feud between them, and well, now I know! Thanks again!!
They were heroes to those of us who grew up on the west side of Jacksonville, Florida in the 70s. We often made the pilgrimage to Ronnie Van Zandt's and the Gaines's graves in Orange Park to leave homage in the form of a beer bottle and flower. I still have an etching of Charlie Daniel's eulogy engraved on the bench beside Van Zandt's grave. We left the grave in immaculate condition, but apparently that wasn't continued by later generations. Last time I was there, gates and fences block visitors from getting too close to the tomb. Sad.
I'm not a hard core fan but it greatly angered me when I heard their graves had been desecrated. Just to see if he was buried in a Neil Young shirt! That's just wrong! My Dad's cemetery was broken into & a few graves were desecrated. The hole in the fence was rt by his grave & luckily it was untouched but one of his "neighbors" head stone was broken. 😡
I fully appreciate the popularity and respect Neal Young's fans have for him. I've just never been one of them. I listen to rock and pop music to escape from everything that is troubling in the world. Sweet Home Alabama is one of my escapes.
I always thought that Neil Young, as a Canadian, should STFU about the history of the US. Love his older work like with Buffalo Springfield and CSNY but could not stand him as a person. I always loved Sweet Home Alabama as an answer to a southern Man. RIP Mr Van Zandt
@@wilhelmhagberg4897 I don’t insult Europeans for their history or Canadians for their treatment of Indigenous people. It’s called “staying in my lane.”
@@kateherman2254 OK. As far as I’m concerned you’re welcome to criticize whatever you want as long as you have a point. In fact I think people “from the outside” in many cases can make better, more objective observations than people who are already part of a culture.
Kid Rock's All Summer Long, a homage to Sweet Home Alabama, sounded to me like Werewolves of London, especially the piano. My friend couldn't think of the name of the Kid Rock song, so I told him it was Werewolves of Alabama, a perfect mash up.
It was Werewolves of London. He noticed they're both basically the same song so they would fit over each other well. Those two and a million other 1-4-5 songs. 😂😂😂
I lived down South in Louisiana when this song came out. When the line "Southern man don't need him around any how" me and all my friends would scream that line out loud together.
I didn’t get to see Skynyrd until the 80s when they would do Freebird without the Vocals. Saw Young a few times. Both bands with soulful thoughtful songs… and songs that made you want to drive fast or party. The feud was a fun discussion topic during parties.
Underrated??? I've heard that term badly abused many times here in YT, but Lynyrd Skynyrd? Underrated? Maybe by you, but elsewhere they're one of the most celebrated (and unfortunately controversial) bands of all time, and not just in the US. True music lovers have known Skynyrd's standing among the all time greatest.
@@jonhammer7109 Jon, my advice to you is to stop wastinjg your time commenting on RU-vid videos and take a basic English class. That way, if and when you ever come back people might have a clue what you're trying to say.
First time I heard "Sweet Home Alabama", I was at basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, MO, in 1977, which I thought was just fantastic. It was being played by a cover band at the EM club, but they did a very good job. It was the only song I remembered going through basic and advanced training, because that was the last time I heard any music until I graduated and was on my way back home to San Diego. I was flying out of the Airport in Augusta GA, and the first song I heard on my little transistor radio before I boarded the plane, Sweet Home Alabama.
Well, I guess I'm exceptionally grateful that you told this story. I've grown up in Alabama, and..heck, as a general fan of classic rock I've been a fan of both Neil Young And Skynyrd... I always just assumed the reference to "Southern Man" in Sweet Home Alabama was an "Eff you" to Young, and I ultimately just had to put them in 2 bubbles, and just NOT take sides... Thanks for setting the record straight!!
Wonderful video, Adam. Johnny Van Zant told me the same thing in an interview: Skynyrd and Neil were friends and it was just a joke. My favorite line in the lyrics (since I'm older than you) is: "Now Watergate does not bother me/Does your conscience bother you? Tell the truth'. Ronnie Van Zant's razor wit and commentary went over most of our heads back then.
Dear Professor: this has nothing to do with Neil or Lynyrd, but your tribute to your father at the end. It made me choke up and tear up. Thanks. Just your "thanks, Dad" at the end made me grateful for my dad (back in 1970s) turning me on to the Modern Jazz Quartet. I was into Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Elton, Yes, Styx.
@@wildpinto3291 I am a big Skynyrd fan, great country rock. Free Bird has one of the greatest opening lines of any song ever written. I don’t understand what you’re looking for. Neil Young’s a little more political, and I grew to dislike his music.
For years I had no idea what "In Muscle Shoals they love the Swampers" meant until I finally watched a documentary about the Muscle Shoals recording studio. *EDIT* I always heard Ed King came up with that main riff.
@@josephliptak that's what I thought. I specifically remember reading an interview with Ed King in an old guitar magazine back in the 90s where he talked about writing that. That riff was like his claim to fame because he was only in Skynyrd for like a year.
Two of the most moving and important units (person/group) creating music from the 70's forward. I still listen to all of their music in every format they give it. From the far north folk to the depths of southern rock...you just don't get much better than these people. ❤ them all.
One of my favorite bands and my very favorite artist. I had read that Neil was honored to hear his name in Skynyrd's song, and of course I spotted that 'Tonight's the Night' T-shirt on Ronnie!
Love your channel man, just wanted to point out, while Gary was the last FOUNDING member of LS to die recently, Artimus Pyle, who did play with the original band after replacing Bob Burns, and who was also on that fateful airplane crash in 1977, is still alive and well. He is, for all intents and purposes, an original member as well.
Sweet Home Alabama...and Southern Man were both a history lesson...both are true...but like so much of history...not the whole truth. Glad you included Powder Finger...yet another history lesson. Thanks Adam...you are always digging deeper...3 chords...and the TRUTH.
I saw Lynyrd Skynyrd in concert in 1975 at Stokley Athletic Center on the UT campus in Knoxville, TN. One of the best shows I've ever seen. The crowd was crazy. There must have been 100 bras thrown on the stage by the lovely ladies in the crowd. Good times.
YO! Also if you were lucky enough back in the time to have a Grandpa who gave you silver dollars or your first pocket knife (a "Old Timer) and or your first slingshot,,,,, You Will Love This Channel!! ☮️
As a lifelong Alabamian who grew up and still lives less than an hour away from Muscle Shoals, I wanna say God bless you for this episode brother! You hear so much about the negative stuff from the civil rights era down here but at the same time you had many prominent black artists recording seminal tracks and albums in Muscle Shoals. We do have a very bipolar history, but more often than not in my lifetime most of the people I have encountered are good folks! Even some of the good ones grew up with and around racism but each generation has veered more and more away from that mindset. I've even personally seen some extreme examples just in my small town where the most ardent racists have completely turned things around and learned to love their fellow men and women!
Once in the 90's working graveyard I called the local rock station because the graveyard DJ had struck me as rather rock ignorant. He was new, so I called in and requested Southern man followed by Sweet Home Alabama. During the second song he star 69'd me, laughing, and called me an asshole.
I'm from alabama, and when I say I heard more than enough of this song growing up you can't begin to understand it unless you live there. Anyway I find myself living in upstate New York, I'm out with friends at a bar one night when suddenly guess what song they start playing? Everybody went crazy the dance floor filled up and I'm sitting there going I'm never going to escape the damn song
🤣 Yeah, there's real nascar/stock car racing ties upstate that go all the way back to the Prohibition era.. Upstate is a weird gumbo of Harlem, Manhattan and redneck influences..the Talking Heads sort of came out of that
@@panchonelson3573 you can always judge someone's intelligence by if they type in all caps or not. What part of I was listening to the song when it came out would lead you to believe that I enjoy Beyonce or Taylor Swift?
@@panchonelson3573😂 Wow, I see somebody woke up on the sensitive side of the bed this morning! Also, there's nothing wrong with a little Taylor Swift or Beyonce to brighten your day!🤘
Wouldn't you know it, I came in here to argue the point that that opening riff is far from the most bad-ass one ever, and I ended up learning a bunch about two classic artists. Thanks man!!!
❤🎉 I wonder what Mr. Skinner thought about this feud? Probably didn't even care about rock music. Have a great weekend Professor and Classmates. Stay positive.
One thing that people get wrong all the time about this song is that Skynyrd was NOT from Alabama. They were from Jacksonville, Florida. They went to Lee High School on the west side of Jacksonville. They recorded at Muscle Shoals which is in Alabama and before they broke it big toured around the south in Georgia, Florida, Mississippi and Alabama.
"Sweet Home Alabama" was meant to reverse the damage that "Southern Man" had done in reopening the scar that Slavery had done in the United States. It needed to be stated that the Old South was no more and new generations had grown up without those old hatreds! Rock and Roll Music had a lot to do with mending those scars. During the 1960's there were many interracial bands and it never seemed like Blacks and Whites ever got closer to being friends than back then. I was always a big Neil Young Fan and I always sang his praises even during that period when it seemed like everyone from Rolling Stone to to local DJ's were putting him down! I interpreted Southern Man as an historical remembrance of injustice, in the same vain as his song "Cortez The Killer". But without that perspective I can easily see that the song could be taken as an insult, as many obviously did. So it was a good move for Neil to set the record straight. I was there in Miami at the Bicentennial Park for Neil Young's 32nd Birthday Party and saw the performance. It was truly amazing! I have not seen one mention of Nicolette Larson's vocal backup at this concert! She was wonderful! Apparently she was dating Neil at that time. Her "Lotta Love" hit number one and the single off of the "Comes A Time" album called "Four Strong Winds" had an uncredited Larson on backup vocals. Neil could be a real dick sometimes! I guess it was already over by then.
Been listening to both songs for over 50 years. Learnt something today about them... And they are still in rotation as well as Free Bird and Cow Girl in the Sand and others.
RIP to Greg Kihn of the 1981 hit "The Breakup Song (They Don't Write 'Em)" this week. Didn't know where else to mention except with the knowledgeable fans of The Prof.
Some people have similar memories of this song that I do. Always been one of my favorites, but while in Japan doing comedy shows for the military in Okinawa, we were at a karaoke bar one night and this song came on and a little tiny Japanese man was wearing a Skynyrd shirt And sang with me. They were definitely huge in that country back in the 70s.
Alabama released their first album and we ran to get the vinyl as quickly as it came in while also having Neil Young in our house for a musical family. DO NOT KNOW OF EVER HEARING ABOUT ANY FEUD. Totally new information about the mastery of both artistic endeavors, THANK-YOU!!!
@TerrickTerran. Or...or top flight musicians write what they feel and not in any contrived or conspiratorial way. Both parties involved here have/had entirely too much respect & self respect to ever consider that possibility. I give you This Notes For You as an example. Do you think Neil wanted to be in bed with Budweiser or Coke? Can't you hear the absolute dripping sarcasm in his voice? Surely bands are guilty of manufactured feuds, Neil and Skynyrd aren't amongst them. BTW I gotta think Neil was a Royal Crown kinda guy. 🇨🇦Gotta represent the Leaf,eh? 🇨🇦
Thanks PoR… this video completely changed my perspective towards Lynyrd Skynyrd and ‘Sweet Home Alabama’. I’ve always been instinctively revolted by what I understood the song to represent and have always hated the band as a result. To have that unfair burden lifted has allowed me to appreciate the song and the band anew. Been a fan of your channel for a long time, but this video has impressed me more than any other you’ve done. Please keep up the good work.
It's interesting to me how politicians, who are supposed to represent us, often completely misunderstand popular songs and even use them INAPPROPRIATELY in their campaigns. Governor Wallace and Sweet Home Alabama, of course. Also Ronald Reagan and Born in the U.S.A. The list goes on. Perhaps ignorance really is bliss!
It’s completely inexplicable to anyone who remembers The Village People, how YMCA actually became a hit at Christian evangelist events, used a lot by them.
Born in the USA is interesting because it was a put down of the far left who treated Vietnam veterans poorly, cursing at them and spitting on them when they came home. Now Springsteen is friends with those who the song was written against.
Thinking of Jack Russell's recent passing and the song "Once Bitten, Twice Shy," especially with the piano in it, I wondered if that was a taste of what the original Skynyrd would have sounded like if they had reached the 1980's.
I expected to hear that Neil's song Walk On was a response to his being mentioned in Skynard's SHA. "I hear some people been talking me down bring up my name, pass it round They don't mention the happy times they do their thing, I do mine" It's a great song.
I was lucky enough to have seen Skynyrd twice before the plane crash, the first time with Bob Burns and Ed King. I'll never forget them and may they all be resting in peace and joy.
Saw the original Skynyrd in 1977-3 months before the plane crash. Saw Neil Young twice. Love both bands music. But Young is a Canadian Commy, and ruined his concert with his spewing of political nonsense. Would have been much better if he’d just play his music, and keep his socialistic views to himself. But, he is free to say what he wants. Stupid or not. Good episode, Prof.👍🥁🎸🇺🇸❤️
Born in raised in AL, and have traveled all over the world, hearing Sweet Home Alabama at least once in every country Ive visited, even on a cruise ship on the Antarctic peninsula! Always makes me smile.
I've been a fan of Lynyrd Skynyrd since I came out. When my ex-wife was a teenager she used to go down to the hangout at Gulf shores where Skynyrd would come and play free concerts before they got big
Wait a minute. Skynyrd fans didn't really dig up RVZ's grave to see if he was wearing a Neil Young shirt. I mean, tell me they didn't. How many bottles of Jack Daniel's were involved in that?
Yes I remember watching it on VH1 Rock Feuds. They tried to dig up his coffin but they never made it that far. I think his head stone might've been broken though. 😔
It happened. If I recall, they got down as far as the burial vault. The remains were then relocated and apparently it would be next to impossible to dig up the grave now, due to extra concrete being poured as reinforcement.
It's been a chrismas tradition of mine, for the last 20 yrs., to listen to "After the Gold Rush" in it's entirety first thing chrismas morning. I don't know why. It just kind of sets the mood. It's a fantastic album. I'm a fan of most of Neil's work. That album is an absolute classic. Thanks for addressing the most well known song from that record. ...which is a masterpiece, in case I've yet to make that opinion clear.
Great insight on this story. Especially today when our country seems so divided. We can acknowledge our past mistakes but still reach out to one another with love and respect. This is a story that's important for all of us to hear.
I've had this conversation with many people who see southerners raise the old Confederate flag and simply say "those people are racists who love slavery." That's a simpleton idea. Southerners are proud of being from the south and all that it entails, flaws included. Good people learn from those flaws and southerners are good people. Perfect? No. Find a perfect group. Good luck. My reply to those who say southerners should be ashamed of that flag is always well, think of the English, French, Portuguese, Japanese, Spanish, Dutch, Barbary Africans, Sub-Saharans, Greeks, Turks, Russians, GERMANS. Should none of those people, with the scars of their peoples' pasts not feel free to wave their flags? Should there be NO flags at The Olympics because most if not all of these nations have harsh parts in their pasts? The flag represents ALL of whom they are scars included.
So flying a flag with a swastika on it is okay? I'm pretty sure that in America it's perfectly legal to do that. In 2024, if you are flying the Stars and Bars, you are signaling one thing, regardless of the poor, ignorant, bs excuses given by those who do. And you can take down all the statues of Confederate Generals and replace them with a statue of General George Thomas who, like Robert E Lee was from the state of Virginia but chose to not betray his country. The Stars and Stripes represents the United States of America. We still fly it and are still proud of our flag even though for the first 75 years of our existence we enslaved human beings. Tell me again, why should we fly the flag that represents the dark and evil periods of our history? I will reiterate, that's like saying nobody should be upset about people flying a flag with a swastika on it.
@@johnnyjohnson1326 that's ridiculous. I guess my post got deleted because I mentioned symbol on a flag used in Germany during the 1930s. Whatever. Everyone knows that stars and bars stands for racism.
Best opening line ever in a song: Audioslave Like A Stone. "On a cobweb afternoon in a room full of emptiness By a freeway, I confess I was lost in the pages Of a book full of death, reading how we'll die alone"
As a fresh teenager I never seen it as a personal dig. I just heard it as being proud of heritage. Even as a youngster I saw Neil as a not well informed Northern liberal. I was in a new generation and never saw the 1800's view of the South. I had family in the South and I was from Detroit. I never saw any of Neils allegations in my experience. We treated everyone the same, so maybe Neil had different friends or family. We all understood the past, but we put it in the past, where it belonged. As to the song, it was GREAT ! Of course everything Skynyrd was great so....I recall even Freebird on the bus am radio, long version, unheard of until then. I was rural as a young teenager so 30 min bus ride was minimum
This is funny to me b/c I'm from CA (also had family from the South) and the only thing our teacher told us about the War Between the States, was that it happened back East. Like it literally had nothing to do with us!
Great video! Talking of feuds, how about John Lennon's "How Do You Sleep?" from the _Imagine_ LP, with the slide guitar solo played by George Harrison? That song was, by John's own comments, a response to McCartney's "Too Many People", from the _Ram_ LP. By the way, Harrison also felt underappreciated by Lennon and Maca, and his song "Isn't It a Pity" is his comment on The Beatles' break-up and legal battles.
I'm from GA and our entire football team would sing this song together, including the Black ones. I look fondly back to a time in the 70s where we got along so much better.
I always thought they were saying fool, fool, fool. If you listen hard enough to the song that is actually what it sounds like. What do I know. Thanks for setting the record straight!
As a Jacksonville native and also a casual acquaintance of several of the Van Zant family I can tell you that they are not now nor have ever been racists.
