Ronnie and Neil
February 7, 2012 1:16 PM Subscribe
Lynyrd Skynyrd and Neil Young is a long and link-heavy examination of the relationship between Neil Young's "Southern Man" and Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama." If you'd prefer a briefer, much more rocking version of the story, try the song "Ronnie and Neil" by the Drive-By Truckers.
This is amazing. I JUST read about this feud in the Neil Young thread further down. Thanks, Bookhouse!
posted by Phire at 1:39 PM on February 7, 2012
posted by Phire at 1:39 PM on February 7, 2012
I made there be a post!
posted by shakespeherian at 1:41 PM on February 7, 2012 [5 favorites]
posted by shakespeherian at 1:41 PM on February 7, 2012 [5 favorites]
In the old days we would have said "NeilYoungFilter". Don't we do that anymore? Good links!
posted by Shane at 1:41 PM on February 7, 2012
posted by Shane at 1:41 PM on February 7, 2012
Enjoyed this, as a born-and-bred Alabamian who isn't racist and also casually, not fanatically, enjoys quite a bit of Skynard's offerings this is comforting. But at heart I knew that the people that wrote The Ballad of Curtis Loew couldn't be racist.
posted by RolandOfEld at 1:46 PM on February 7, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by RolandOfEld at 1:46 PM on February 7, 2012 [2 favorites]
By the way, I can't say enough about the Drive-By Truckers' Southern Rock Opera, which is one of the most intellegent takes on the South in recent memory. Along with "Ronnie and Neil" the album also features "The Three Great Alabama Icons," also mentioned in the OP.
posted by Bookhouse at 1:57 PM on February 7, 2012 [7 favorites]
posted by Bookhouse at 1:57 PM on February 7, 2012 [7 favorites]
Let me put in a plug for the whole damn Drive By Trucker's Southern Rock Opera recording. As Bookhouse points out, it is an extremely intelligent take on the South, but its also a retelling of the Skynyrd story, remade into the story of a young man who is so inspired by Skynyrd that he ends up following that bands' path.
Their song "Let There Be Rock" is as great a celebration of being a teenager and a rock music fan as has ever been recorded.
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:03 PM on February 7, 2012 [3 favorites]
Their song "Let There Be Rock" is as great a celebration of being a teenager and a rock music fan as has ever been recorded.
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:03 PM on February 7, 2012 [3 favorites]
As I mentioned once before, I have read that Neil Young got interviewed when "Sweet Home Alabama" was on the charts and was asked how he felt about being attacked by name in a top ten song. His response was to the effect of: "When I first heard the song, I liked the way they played their guitars. Then I head my name and thought, 'Hey, this is pretty cool.'"
A pretty low-temperature dude is our Neil.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:14 PM on February 7, 2012 [9 favorites]
A pretty low-temperature dude is our Neil.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:14 PM on February 7, 2012 [9 favorites]
Is Neil Young the new Musical Director of MetaFilter?
When wasn't he?
posted by Mental Wimp at 2:20 PM on February 7, 2012 [1 favorite]
When wasn't he?
posted by Mental Wimp at 2:20 PM on February 7, 2012 [1 favorite]
"Everyone said that when the paramedics got there, they could still hear "Free Bird" playing on the stereo. You know, it's a very very long song."
posted by asterix at 2:25 PM on February 7, 2012 [4 favorites]
posted by asterix at 2:25 PM on February 7, 2012 [4 favorites]
I'm glad to see this explanation of the "boo, boo, boo" bit as mocking, because otherwise this verse always struck me as the opposite of being blase about Nixon or endorsing Wallace:
In Birmingham they love the governor, boo boo boo
Now we all did what we could do
Now Watergate does not bother me
Does your conscience bother you? Tell the truth
Nixon won all but two states in 1972, the first year 18-year-olds were allowed to vote. Either what you'd think would have been a massive youth vote didn't bother to show up for McGovern, or more of them voted for Nixon than you'd think. I've always read "does your conscience bother you" as "I'm not responsible for Nixon. Are you? 'Cause dude won in a landslide." (We know he didn't vote for Wallace, because that was the year Wallace was shot.) In this context "we all did what we could do" is "we did what we could to keep our guy out of office, unlike what would have to be a large number of you jerks."
posted by Adventurer at 2:26 PM on February 7, 2012 [2 favorites]
In Birmingham they love the governor, boo boo boo
Now we all did what we could do
Now Watergate does not bother me
Does your conscience bother you? Tell the truth
Nixon won all but two states in 1972, the first year 18-year-olds were allowed to vote. Either what you'd think would have been a massive youth vote didn't bother to show up for McGovern, or more of them voted for Nixon than you'd think. I've always read "does your conscience bother you" as "I'm not responsible for Nixon. Are you? 'Cause dude won in a landslide." (We know he didn't vote for Wallace, because that was the year Wallace was shot.) In this context "we all did what we could do" is "we did what we could to keep our guy out of office, unlike what would have to be a large number of you jerks."
posted by Adventurer at 2:26 PM on February 7, 2012 [2 favorites]
Let me put in a plug for the whole damn Drive By Trucker's Southern Rock Opera recording
Whaddya got against the rest of their catalog, Joey?
posted by yerfatma at 2:30 PM on February 7, 2012 [1 favorite]
Whaddya got against the rest of their catalog, Joey?
posted by yerfatma at 2:30 PM on February 7, 2012 [1 favorite]
I love this article because now I don't have to dislike Lynyrd Skynyrd anymore.
posted by Edgewise at 2:52 PM on February 7, 2012
posted by Edgewise at 2:52 PM on February 7, 2012
The Watergate line in particular is what makes me think that Sweet Home Alabama is not about defending racism, because that's the line that reminds me of Randy Newman's song Rednecks. Newman wrote Rednecks when he realized that the South was being scapegoated as the part of America where racism lived, when in fact, racism was alive and well in Harlem, in Oakland, in Chicago and all over America. (In fact, while I was reading Nixonland what stuck out to me the most was how uniform the racism was in America, because I'd always assumed from the footage I'd seen growing up that it was mostly in the South - but no, the South was just the place that was the dumbest about it, the most willing to be filmed doing terrible things that made for compelling visuals; before I read that book, I'd had no idea that Mayor Daley in Chicago regularly and specifically screwed over the black community who kept voting for him and that he got away with it because he was too smart to hold press conferences where he loudly proclaimed how much he loved segregation, even though he majorly reshaped that city in a very segregated way. And I didn't know anything about the Watts riots, etc.)
I've always taken "Watergate doesn't bother me" to mean "there's bad people doing bad things everywhere, but do you take credit for the bad things you didn't do? If you aren't going to take a bullet for Watergate because you didn't vote for Nixon, why should I be labelled as a racist when I'm not, just because I live in a racist place?" And I think that's a fair point.
posted by Kiablokirk at 2:58 PM on February 7, 2012 [3 favorites]
I've always taken "Watergate doesn't bother me" to mean "there's bad people doing bad things everywhere, but do you take credit for the bad things you didn't do? If you aren't going to take a bullet for Watergate because you didn't vote for Nixon, why should I be labelled as a racist when I'm not, just because I live in a racist place?" And I think that's a fair point.
posted by Kiablokirk at 2:58 PM on February 7, 2012 [3 favorites]
Whaddya got against the rest of their catalog, Joey?
NOTHING BUT THAT IT IS ALL SO AWESOME.
posted by Joey Michaels at 3:04 PM on February 7, 2012
NOTHING BUT THAT IT IS ALL SO AWESOME.
posted by Joey Michaels at 3:04 PM on February 7, 2012
It's not all *that* persuasive a reading (and boy could it do with some editing!). In the end, they knew how the fans were reading it, they knew why they got such huge cheers when they unfurled a Confederate Flag backdrop when they played it, they knew the subtext that was behind their various official political endorsements. Whatever they meant it to mean when they wrote it they had lots of opportunities to make their position clear when it might have mattered a damn and they avoided them pretty rigorously.
I don't know that it's a reason not to like the band (lots of artists have stupid opinions) but the piece seems like a someone one-sided attempt at a retrospective whitewash.
posted by yoink at 3:04 PM on February 7, 2012 [4 favorites]
I don't know that it's a reason not to like the band (lots of artists have stupid opinions) but the piece seems like a someone one-sided attempt at a retrospective whitewash.
posted by yoink at 3:04 PM on February 7, 2012 [4 favorites]
I'll wait for the vinyl edition of this post. I'm sure it will be even better.
posted by Dark Messiah at 3:13 PM on February 7, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by Dark Messiah at 3:13 PM on February 7, 2012 [1 favorite]
A pretty low-temperature dude is our Neil.
That doesn't quite capture it. Neil's one cagey, complicated dude. He's either a tightly coiled hippie or else the most laidback headcase ever or some impenetrable and constantly shifting mix of it all.
Jimmy McDonough's Shakey is one of the most fascinating messes of a biography I've ever read. If you can get past McDonough's repeated attempts to demonstrate that he too is the kind of hard-livin' hombre Neil is and how only he could stare down the misanthropes in Crazy Horse and live to tell the tale and all that, it's an exhaustive biography that never manages to actually crack the innermost nut of its subject. You get the sense that maybe no one ever has. In some sense it's a book about failing to fully grasp its subject, which winds up revealing quite a lot about that subject somehow.
posted by gompa at 3:24 PM on February 7, 2012 [1 favorite]
That doesn't quite capture it. Neil's one cagey, complicated dude. He's either a tightly coiled hippie or else the most laidback headcase ever or some impenetrable and constantly shifting mix of it all.
Jimmy McDonough's Shakey is one of the most fascinating messes of a biography I've ever read. If you can get past McDonough's repeated attempts to demonstrate that he too is the kind of hard-livin' hombre Neil is and how only he could stare down the misanthropes in Crazy Horse and live to tell the tale and all that, it's an exhaustive biography that never manages to actually crack the innermost nut of its subject. You get the sense that maybe no one ever has. In some sense it's a book about failing to fully grasp its subject, which winds up revealing quite a lot about that subject somehow.
posted by gompa at 3:24 PM on February 7, 2012 [1 favorite]
Rarely has such a widely popular hit song been so vastly misunderstood by so many for so long.
See also: Springsteen's "Born In the USA," R.E.M.'s "The One I Love," and practically every song by The Police.
posted by Golfhaus at 3:31 PM on February 7, 2012 [1 favorite]
See also: Springsteen's "Born In the USA," R.E.M.'s "The One I Love," and practically every song by The Police.
posted by Golfhaus at 3:31 PM on February 7, 2012 [1 favorite]
Thank you for voting!
Friends - "Sweet Home Alabama" has been mis-understood 55.97% (3,025 votes)
Foes - "Sweet Home Alabama" was intended to put down Neil Young 8.84% (478 votes)
Who knows? Probably a little bit of both friend and foe. 35.19% (1,902 votes)
Total Votes: 5,405
I voted "friends", mostly based on my reading of the 'Shakey' book, which led to my modest contribution to the PAC that helped to elect Neil as The New Musical Director of MeFi.
posted by ovvl at 4:13 PM on February 7, 2012
Friends - "Sweet Home Alabama" has been mis-understood 55.97% (3,025 votes)
Foes - "Sweet Home Alabama" was intended to put down Neil Young 8.84% (478 votes)
Who knows? Probably a little bit of both friend and foe. 35.19% (1,902 votes)
Total Votes: 5,405
I voted "friends", mostly based on my reading of the 'Shakey' book, which led to my modest contribution to the PAC that helped to elect Neil as The New Musical Director of MeFi.
posted by ovvl at 4:13 PM on February 7, 2012
GODDAMMIT Neil Young vs. Lynyrd Skynyrd was going to my first FPP. SHIT, now i have to wait another 3 years for a good idea. But i will say this about (OG) Skynyrd:
Poison Whiskey: The dangers of the abuse of alcohol
Saturday Night Special: an anti-gun song
Things Goin' On: a call to Americans to recognize how bad stuff is for some people "have you ever been down in the ghetto/have you ever felt that cold wind blow"
The ballad of Curtis Loew: The hero is a black guitar player that the singer was punished for interacting with.
Skynyrd was a great band and they weren't fools. Their defensiveness is perfectly understandable.
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 4:35 PM on February 7, 2012 [4 favorites]
Poison Whiskey: The dangers of the abuse of alcohol
Saturday Night Special: an anti-gun song
Things Goin' On: a call to Americans to recognize how bad stuff is for some people "have you ever been down in the ghetto/have you ever felt that cold wind blow"
The ballad of Curtis Loew: The hero is a black guitar player that the singer was punished for interacting with.
Skynyrd was a great band and they weren't fools. Their defensiveness is perfectly understandable.
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 4:35 PM on February 7, 2012 [4 favorites]
I just finished reading that stupid website, I regret giving a shit.
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 4:44 PM on February 7, 2012
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 4:44 PM on February 7, 2012
As a Southerner and a vexillology nerd, I would point out that the quoted bit about people at Skynyrd concerts flying the "Stars and Bars" is almost certainly mixing up the Stars and Bars with the Confederation Battle Flag. The battle flag is the one everyone knows, with the X of stars. The Stars and Bars was the official flag at the beginning of the war, but was abandoned because it looked so much like the Union flag that it was leading to friendly fire incidents.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 4:48 PM on February 7, 2012
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 4:48 PM on February 7, 2012
Confederate not Confederation, stupid auto correct.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 4:48 PM on February 7, 2012
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 4:48 PM on February 7, 2012
Stonestock Relentless , you forgot That Smell: Dangers of getting wasted all the time. " There's too much smoke and too much coke, look what's goin on inside you..... Hell yeah! ( Hell Yeah part is sung by the female backup singers) .
Skynyrd wasn't nearly as dumb as most people think.
posted by Liquidwolf at 5:21 PM on February 7, 2012
Skynyrd wasn't nearly as dumb as most people think.
posted by Liquidwolf at 5:21 PM on February 7, 2012
As a skynyrd fan, a Neil Young fan, and a DBT fan, I love this topic. But good god that's an awful website. The writing matches the design. It also reads like someone learned about the feud from DBT songs and got so excited they made a website.
Hell, though...I read it.
posted by broadway bill at 5:42 PM on February 7, 2012
Hell, though...I read it.
posted by broadway bill at 5:42 PM on February 7, 2012
I can't help but feel partially responsible for this thread. I'm just glad that the page mentions Warren Zevon's "Play It All Night Long," which contains a reference to "Sweet Home Alabama," making a rare three-song chain.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:04 PM on February 7, 2012
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:04 PM on February 7, 2012
neil young vs. skynyrd aint shit compared to the j.r.r. tolkein vs. led zeppelin feud over all that stolen material
posted by facetious at 6:11 PM on February 7, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by facetious at 6:11 PM on February 7, 2012 [1 favorite]
Liquidwolf: "Stonestock Relentless , you forgot That Smell: Dangers of getting wasted all the time. " There's too much smoke and too much coke, look what's goin on inside you...."
An old junkie friend of mine said that when you run the shit into your vein it's like you smell something, like a phantom smell, part of the experience of shooting up; he told me that was the reference in the song. I don't know that but it's cute, right? Also the line in the song "oak tree in my way'" was about a member (Rossington?) who smacked up another car, wrapped it around a tree; remember, these were kids, and they had fistfuls of money, the seventies everybody was doing drugs, it was just part of the show then; peace love and understanding hadn't worked out, drugs were what was left. Or fucking disco -- which would you choose?
I've never shot heroin but I may go and shoot some right now to scour the idea of 70s disco from my mind.
Racism, Southern and Northern, what I saw: I moved from the Chicago area to Florida in the early 70s, then back to Chi, then to Texas in 77, my experience was that there were absolutely no more racists in the south than in the north. Esp when moving to Houston, in 77, I'm thinking "Oh shit, here we go, a big southern city, it's gonna be a horror show" but it wasn't, at all, blacks and whites got along one hell of a lot better than in the Chicago area, and I still see that, though less now than before, but not because Texas has moved backwards, rather that Chicago has moved forward.
I loved Skynyrd. Did you know that they named themselves after a piece of shit gym teacher in their high school named Leonard Skinner? He gave them shit about long hair and how they dressed, he hated what they stood for, they made him immortal (well, immortal as a 70s rock band is gonna be, come on now) for what he hated, changed the vowels to keep him from being able to sue them.
Free Bird was dedicated to Duane Allman -- that's pretty damn cool.
One band member (Ed King?) dropped out after the first record was in the can, and then it hit, and they'd already replaced him in the line-up. So, did they tell him to buzz off, or toss the guy they brought in? Nope. Welcomed the guy back in, kept the other, too. Cool guys.
They were just a cool band. My understanding is that it was not a democracy, that Van Zandt ran it like Stalin, my way or the highway. I don't know that but it's what I heard somewheres or other.
They rocked. I loved them. I think they'd have grown nicely, given us lots.
posted by dancestoblue at 7:16 PM on February 7, 2012 [1 favorite]
An old junkie friend of mine said that when you run the shit into your vein it's like you smell something, like a phantom smell, part of the experience of shooting up; he told me that was the reference in the song. I don't know that but it's cute, right? Also the line in the song "oak tree in my way'" was about a member (Rossington?) who smacked up another car, wrapped it around a tree; remember, these were kids, and they had fistfuls of money, the seventies everybody was doing drugs, it was just part of the show then; peace love and understanding hadn't worked out, drugs were what was left. Or fucking disco -- which would you choose?
I've never shot heroin but I may go and shoot some right now to scour the idea of 70s disco from my mind.
Racism, Southern and Northern, what I saw: I moved from the Chicago area to Florida in the early 70s, then back to Chi, then to Texas in 77, my experience was that there were absolutely no more racists in the south than in the north. Esp when moving to Houston, in 77, I'm thinking "Oh shit, here we go, a big southern city, it's gonna be a horror show" but it wasn't, at all, blacks and whites got along one hell of a lot better than in the Chicago area, and I still see that, though less now than before, but not because Texas has moved backwards, rather that Chicago has moved forward.
I loved Skynyrd. Did you know that they named themselves after a piece of shit gym teacher in their high school named Leonard Skinner? He gave them shit about long hair and how they dressed, he hated what they stood for, they made him immortal (well, immortal as a 70s rock band is gonna be, come on now) for what he hated, changed the vowels to keep him from being able to sue them.
Free Bird was dedicated to Duane Allman -- that's pretty damn cool.
One band member (Ed King?) dropped out after the first record was in the can, and then it hit, and they'd already replaced him in the line-up. So, did they tell him to buzz off, or toss the guy they brought in? Nope. Welcomed the guy back in, kept the other, too. Cool guys.
They were just a cool band. My understanding is that it was not a democracy, that Van Zandt ran it like Stalin, my way or the highway. I don't know that but it's what I heard somewheres or other.
They rocked. I loved them. I think they'd have grown nicely, given us lots.
posted by dancestoblue at 7:16 PM on February 7, 2012 [1 favorite]
Some other nice things on that site lead me to Young's "Rockin' in the Free World" on SNL years ago. Blows some doors off that old studio, even if In Living Colour asked for their wardrobe back afterwards.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 8:24 PM on February 7, 2012
posted by Ogre Lawless at 8:24 PM on February 7, 2012
Golfhaus: "Rarely has such a widely popular hit song been so vastly misunderstood by so many for so long.
See also: Springsteen's "Born In the USA," R.E.M.'s "The One I Love," and practically every song by The Police."
And "American Woman" by the Guess Who, obviously.
posted by klanawa at 8:49 PM on February 7, 2012
See also: Springsteen's "Born In the USA," R.E.M.'s "The One I Love," and practically every song by The Police."
And "American Woman" by the Guess Who, obviously.
posted by klanawa at 8:49 PM on February 7, 2012
...although you have to be a bit of a moron to miss the point of "American Woman."
posted by klanawa at 8:50 PM on February 7, 2012
posted by klanawa at 8:50 PM on February 7, 2012
Like Lenny Kravitz.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:32 PM on February 7, 2012
posted by shakespeherian at 9:32 PM on February 7, 2012
I literally hear this song every time I listen to the radio nowadays, which is practically never of my own doing. Along with "Rockin' me baby" by Steve Miller I'd be perfectly happy not hearing this song again for at least another twenty years.
And "Free Bird" isn't even that good of a song either, but at least Clear Channel hasn't made me wish it never existed.
posted by MattMangels at 11:21 PM on February 7, 2012
And "Free Bird" isn't even that good of a song either, but at least Clear Channel hasn't made me wish it never existed.
posted by MattMangels at 11:21 PM on February 7, 2012
In some sense it's a book about failing to fully grasp its subject, which winds up revealing quite a lot about that subject somehow.
yup, that's about what I took out of it. The man makes about as much sense as his lyrics in For The Turnstiles.
posted by mannequito at 2:03 AM on February 8, 2012
yup, that's about what I took out of it. The man makes about as much sense as his lyrics in For The Turnstiles.
posted by mannequito at 2:03 AM on February 8, 2012
Lynyrd Skynyrd's "The Needle and the Spoon" warns against heroin.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:28 AM on February 8, 2012
posted by kirkaracha at 7:28 AM on February 8, 2012
...how only he could stare down the misanthropes in Crazy Horse and live to tell the tale and all that,...
Oh, oh, that reminds me of a personal anecdote. I was driving cab in Sioux Falls, SD, in the early '70s, putting myself through the last year of college. Crazy Horse was booked at SDSU in Brookings, so they flew into Joe Foss Field in SF, and I picked them up at the airport, just like any other fare. The first thing they wanted to do was get some pizza and some weed. I called a friend who regularly dealt and asked him to meet us at the local pizza place. We had some pizza, talked music, and completed the transaction. When I dropped them off at the hotel, Danny Whitten said he would leave both our names at the gate and to come back stage before the concert. We both went, feeling pretty certain they would forget. When we got there and gave our names, we were led to the dressing room and hung out, smoked week, and drank beer with them. I was just learning to play the blues harp (I have a well-worn copy of Tony "Little Sun" Glover's book) and tootled on a C harp I had brought a bit to show my ineptitude. We went out to watch the concert a few minutes before they went on stage. During the performance, Danny asked me to bring my harmonica up to the stage and played during the tune. Given when this was, how much I had drunk and smoked that day, and how long it has been, my memory is pretty hazy and don't remember which song it was. Pathetic, I know, but it was my one brush with Rock 'n' Roll stars.
The thing that still amazes me is that they just acted like regular dudes. The thing that I regret most is that I could have asked just about any babe in school to come with me and would have scored major points, but I was too dubious that it was real until it actually happened.
posted by Mental Wimp at 2:52 PM on February 8, 2012 [3 favorites]
Oh, oh, that reminds me of a personal anecdote. I was driving cab in Sioux Falls, SD, in the early '70s, putting myself through the last year of college. Crazy Horse was booked at SDSU in Brookings, so they flew into Joe Foss Field in SF, and I picked them up at the airport, just like any other fare. The first thing they wanted to do was get some pizza and some weed. I called a friend who regularly dealt and asked him to meet us at the local pizza place. We had some pizza, talked music, and completed the transaction. When I dropped them off at the hotel, Danny Whitten said he would leave both our names at the gate and to come back stage before the concert. We both went, feeling pretty certain they would forget. When we got there and gave our names, we were led to the dressing room and hung out, smoked week, and drank beer with them. I was just learning to play the blues harp (I have a well-worn copy of Tony "Little Sun" Glover's book) and tootled on a C harp I had brought a bit to show my ineptitude. We went out to watch the concert a few minutes before they went on stage. During the performance, Danny asked me to bring my harmonica up to the stage and played during the tune. Given when this was, how much I had drunk and smoked that day, and how long it has been, my memory is pretty hazy and don't remember which song it was. Pathetic, I know, but it was my one brush with Rock 'n' Roll stars.
The thing that still amazes me is that they just acted like regular dudes. The thing that I regret most is that I could have asked just about any babe in school to come with me and would have scored major points, but I was too dubious that it was real until it actually happened.
posted by Mental Wimp at 2:52 PM on February 8, 2012 [3 favorites]
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posted by evilmidnightbomberwhatbombsatmidnight at 1:25 PM on February 7, 2012 [4 favorites]