Between 1970 and 1972, Neil Young wrote two narrative, anti-racism songs - Southern Man and Alabama - describing the story of a white man (which symbolically represented the entire white Southern population) and his mistreatment of black slaves. In this version, the backup singers' chorus ("Boo! The southern men who comprised Lynyrd Skynyrd were huge fans of Neil Young and his music, but they felt that Young had gone too far in launching his broadside attack against the entire South and all its (white) people. Like any work of art, "Sweet Home Alabama" means what its listeners think it means. They wrote this song about their impressions of Alabama and as a tribute to the studio musicians at Neil Young performed this once: He played it at a memorial to the three members of Lynyrd Skynyrd who died in a plane crash in 1977.The guitar solo in the song is actually played in the wrong key. So there's not much question that "Sweet Home Alabama" was a success, as a song.

Sweet home Alabama Oh sweet home baby Where the skies are so blue And the guv’nor’s true Sweet Home Alabama Lordy Lord, I’m coming home to you Yea, yea Montgomery’s got the answer.

In the 1950s and '60s, Alabama was ground zero for the Civil Rights Movement. It wasn't until five years after getting together that they finally settled on the name Lynyrd Skynyrd though, after their former P.E. Sweet Home Alabama Meaning. ITS CALLED "ALABAMA THE BEAUTIFUL" for a dam reason; John from Charlotte, Nc The last line in the song is an ad-lib by Van Zant that is rarely understood. Interestingly, it is this alternative interpretation that seems to have been favored by Lynyrd Skynyrd and, perhaps surprisingly, also by Neil Young. The story of "Sweet Home Alabama" begins not in Alabama but in Jacksonville, Florida. His songs include Amy Winehouse's "You Sent Me Flying" and James Blunt's "1973. It was in Alabama that Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus. But there's another way to hear the song, in which "Sweet Home Alabama" sends a much more complex and nuanced message than most people usually think. We know that that key verse ends with Skynyrd frontman Ronnie Van Zant sneering that all that stuff "does not bother me / does your conscience bother you?" He was telling an engineer to turn up the volume in his headset before recording his track. “It’s one the finest feelgood tunes of all time,” says its co-writer and former Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Ed King. 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.At the beginning, when Ronnie Van Zant says, "Turn it up," it was not planned. They have never been a "singles" band, as their fans tend to buy the albums.This was the first Skynyrd song to use female backup singers. It wasn't until five years after getting together that they finally settled on the name Lynyrd Skynyrd though, after their former P.E. The song, written in response to songs by Neil Young critical of the American south and Alabama specifically, became one of their biggest hits and an anthem for both the state of Alabama and the American south. Producer Al Kooper noticed that Ed King played the solo in the key of G instead of D, the first chord in the progression. To many outsiders—especially to liberal-minded people from the North—white Alabamians' militant defense of the color line seemed, simply, indefensible.
"Sweet home Alabama/ Where the skies are so blue/ Sweet home Alabama/ Lord, I'm coming home to you"The story of "Sweet Home Alabama" begins not in Alabama but in Jacksonville, Florida. We know that that key verse ends with Skynyrd frontman Ronnie Van Zant sneering that all that stuff "does not bother me / does your conscience bother you?" But did it succeed as the South's answer to northern criticisms of southern culture? The result was the biggest hit of their career (and a much bigger hit than either of the Neil Young tunes that inspired it), a hard-rocking anthem of southern pride that remains a staple of frat party DJs and classic-rock radio stations to this day. Boo!")