For the second post in this new series we, once again, have Neil Young as the artist whose music generated a response from another group.  In this particular case, Neil wrote and performed a couple of songs about the south that rubbed the boys from Lynyrd Skynyrd the wrong way.  First us is a song called Southern Man, a song from Neil’s album After the Gold Rush that focuses attention on the south’s history of slavery and racism.  Let’s listen…

Not content with just one song about one negative song about the south, Neil “doubled down” by including the song Alabama on his Harvest album.  Alabama picks on the state of Alabama highlighting it’s poverty and the weigh of it’s burden from the days of slavery.  Let’s listen to it.

Lynyrd Skynyrd, decided to respond to Southern Man and Alabama with their song Sweet Home Alabama which calls out Neil in one of its verses:

Well I heard mister Young sing about her
Well, I heard ole Neil put her down
Well, I hope Neil Young will remember
A Southern man don’t need him around anyhow

Let’s listen to Sweet Home Alabama.  As Ronnie Van Zant says at the beginning of the song….turn it up!   (sorry about the ad!)

In reality, there was a lot of respect, and no real animosity, between Neil and Lynyrd Skynyrd.  Did anyone else notice that Ronnie Van Zant was wearing a Neil Young t-shirt in the Free Bird video I posted yesterday 🙂

This will not be the case in my next Response Song post which is based on real animosity and bitterness.  Stay tuned for that one, you don’t want to miss it.

Bonus….still haven’t had enough Skynyrd?  Check out their second album, Second Helping, below.

As always let me know what you think.