{"id":587587,"date":"2026-04-16T11:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T11:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/587587\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T11:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T11:00:09","slug":"lynyrd-skynyrd-neil-young-and-sweet-home-alabama-the-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/587587\/","title":{"rendered":"Lynyrd Skynyrd, Neil Young and Sweet Home Alabama: The Truth"},"content":{"rendered":"

The legend of Sweet Home Alabama<\/a> is bound up in the notion \u2013 false, as it turns out \u2013 that the lyric was penned as an attack on Neil Young<\/a>, the Canadian hippy rock superstar known to his friends as \u2018Shakey\u2019, for his songs Southern Man (from 1970\u2019s After The Gold Rush) and Alabama (from 1972\u2019s Harvest), and their condemnation of the institutionalised racism as perpetrated south of the Mason-Dixon line.<\/p>\n

The \u2018offending\u2019 section comes in the second verse, with a reference to Young and his South-bashing songs. \u201cWell, I hope Neil Young will remember,\u201d rasps Ronnie Van Zant, \u201cA Southern man don\u2019t need him around anyhow.\u201d<\/p>\n

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“Ronnie wrote those lines about Neil Young \u2013 that we don\u2019t need him around, talking about the South,” the late Gary Rossington<\/a> told Classic Rock, “because we\u2019d just been in Alabama touring all the back roads, meeting all the people and seeing all the pretty countryside and blue skies, and we thought it was great. There were a lot of hardcore racists in the South, but we thought they were just silly. We all loved Neil Young\u2019s songs. And it\u2019s funny, because people still say to me, ‘What have you got against Neil Young?’ Nothing! It\u2019s crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

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“We loved Neil Young,” added Gary. “That was a joke lyric about him.”<\/p>\n

Young later declared his love of Skynyrd, and said he was honoured to be mentioned in Sweet Home Alabama.<\/p>\n

“They play like they mean it,” Young said in 1976. “I\u2019m proud to have my name in a song like theirs.”<\/p>\n

Young also admitted that one of his songs was misguided. “Alabama richly deserved the shot Lynyrd Skynyrd gave me with their great record,\u201d Young wrote in his 2012 book, Waging Heavy Peace. “I don\u2019t like my words when I listen to it today. They are accusatory and condescending, not fully thought out, too easy to misconstrue.”<\/p>\n

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Lynyrd Skynyrd – Sweet Home Alabama (Lyric Video) – YouTube
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Indeed, Young went as far as offering them one of the gems of his songbook \u2013 his moving requiem for lost innocence in the Civil War, Powderfinger, which he later released on 1979\u2019s Rust Never Sleeps \u2013 before he\u2019d even recorded it himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cLynyrd Skynyrd almost ended up recording Powderfinger before my version came out,\u201d he said in 1995. \u201cWe sent them an early demo of it because they wanted to do one of my songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rolling Stone journalist Cameron Crowe was the conduit for these Young tunes, later recalling that \u201cNeil loved that band, and said they reminded him of [Young\u2019s first band] Buffalo Springfield, and they made him yearn for the days of the Buffalo Springfield. Being a huge Neil Young fan, I sort of appointed myself as cheerleader for that \u2018love affair\u2019 [between Young and Skynyrd] to happen and blossom.<\/p>\n

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“Neil Young gave a tape to [photographer and Young confidant] Joel Bernstein to give to me, which I gave to Ronnie, that had three songs on it \u2013 Captain Kennedy, Sedan Delivery, and Powderfinger \u2013 before they\u2019d come out. Neil wanted to give them to Lynyrd Skynyrd, if they wanted to do one of his songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rossington further revealed that the band once planned to have Young join them on stage. “He wanted to come out and play Sweet Home Alabama with us. Ronnie was gonna say, \u2018We don\u2019t need him around anymore\u2026\u2019. We were really looking forward to it. But it never happened.”<\/p>\n

The “bad blood” myth was explored by Drive-By Truckers<\/a> on their brilliant 2001 album Southern Rock Opera, which explored Skynyrd’s rise, fall, and cultural legacy. On Ronnie And Neil, frontman Patterson Hood told the story of Young and Van Zant’s misunderstood friendship.<\/p>\n

“And out in California, a rock star from Canada writes a couple of great songs about the bad shit that went down,” wrote Hood. “Southern Man and Alabama certainly told some truth, but there were a lot of good folks down here and Neil Young wasn’t around.”<\/p>\n

Later in the song, Hood finished the story.<\/p>\n

“Now Ronnie and Neil became good friends \/ Their feud was just in song \/ Skynyrd was a bunch of Neil Young fans, and Neil he loved that song \/ So he wrote Powderfinger for Skynyrd to record \/ But Ronnie ended up singing Sweet Home Alabama to the lord.”<\/p>\n

Ronnie Van Zant, who wore a Neil Young Tonight’s The Night t-shirt at Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Knebworth Park show with The Rolling Stones<\/a>, died in October 1977. According to Hood, Neil Young was an honorary pallbearer at the funeral (it’s likely this is another apocryphal tale), while rumours persist that Van Zant was buried in that shirt.<\/p>\n

Three weeks after the funeral, Neil Young gave a rare performance of Alabama at the Miami Music Festival Of The Arts. And towards the end, he broke from his own song to mournfully repeat the lines, “Sweet Home Alabama” over Skynyrd’s iconic riff.<\/p>\n

It’s still the only time he’s played it.<\/p>\n

Neil Young pays tribute to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Ronnie Van Zant: Alabama \/ Sweet Home Alabama – 11-12-77 – YouTube
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