Racist? 
This is precisely why I think the song is racist. Skynyrd’s answer to claims of racism is: “Well, screw you-- we love our governor and Montgomery’s a great city what with the hosings and getting in the back of the bus!”
Birmingham, not Montgomery.
And “In Birmingham they love the governor / Now we all did what we could do.”
It’s open to interpretation. Given other lyrical and anecdotal evidence that Ronnie Van Zant had no problem with black people, it seems reasonable to suppose that it wasn’t meant as a racist statement. (If it was, it certainly failed, since so many people don’t see it that way.)
Actually, if you want to be complete, it’s “In Birmingham, they love the governor (boo, boo, boo)/ Now we all did what we could do.”
I’m talking about the line Yeah, yeah. Montgomery’s got the answer.
I still say Kid Rock’s bigger sin is that ghastly “Picture” song in which he and Sheryl Crow lament that the other has been gone for three whole days and they can’t stand to look at the other’s picture while… sleeping with someone else.
Truly a love song for the ages.
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Cite? Skynyrd is from Florida, so they’re not even singing about their state and their governor.
Also, after “In Birmingham they love the governor,” there is that line after that that goes, “Boo, boo, boo.”
Skynyrd band members revealed in a radio interview several years ago that that line, which was an ad-lib at the end of the song, refers to the march from Selma to Montgomery led by Martin Luther King.
“Sweet Home Alabama” was not written as an endorsement of Southern racist policies, but as a counterpoint to Neil Young’s “Southern Man”. Skynyrd wanted to get the point across that the majority of Southern people are not a bunch of ignorant rednecks. According to Ronnie Van Zant, “We’re southern rebels, but more than that, we know the difference between right and wrong.” In fact, Skynyrd was publicly outspoken about their opposition to George Wallace.
Lynyrd Skynyrd and Neil Young songfacts.
Sorry, I don’t think that is a racist song. I think it’s Skynryd distancing themselves from the stereotype of Southerners as ignorant racists.
That’s right, thank you.
Oh, sorry. I was thrown off by your mention of Wallace, and thought of the lines most people point to. Most people don’t even hear that last bit, really. (Thanks to cochrane for the note on that.)
Anyway, Ronnie said outright he didn’t support Wallace, and he was friends with and praised black folks, so I have to see the persistent interest in labeling him racist as evidence of the labelers’ ideology, not his.
That’s quite a stretch, Biggirl. I think you’re lookin’ for racism in all the wrong places.
As cochrane pointed out, the song is a response to Southern Man.
More on topic, I think Kid Rock is trying to be Eminem, ‘bending’ the rhymes, and falling far, far short of the mark.
mmm
I called no one a racist since a song is not a band. However, I cannot see how a song that answers a charge of racism with ‘yeah and we like it that way’ can be anything but racist.
And here I thought my more controversial statement was that I like Bawitdabaw.
This song really pissed me off.
I really like Warren Zevon - every time it got played I though “Yeah, Werewolves of London” and turned the volumn up. Only to be followed by crushing dissapointment. Kid Rock is hugely inferior.
Except that it doesn’t answer the charge with “Yeah, we like it that way.” Apparently you didn’t read my post with the band’s explanation of the line about Montgomery.
Ronnie Van Zandt? Racist? The guy who wrote the Ballad of Curtis Lowe and Things Goin’ On? That Ronnie Van Zandt? You must be kidding.
Oh, and this Kid Rock song is wretched. He’s a talented guy, one hungover morning I watched some show about him and Jesse James (the motorcycle one) riding ugly motorcycles in Mexico or something and Kid Rock sang a song at some rest stop, just him and an acoustic guitar, and it wasn’t bad at all.
Telling me that Sweet Home Alabama isn’t racist because Van Zandt isn’t racist is like telling me Spirit In The Sky isn’t about Jesus because Norman Greenbaum is Jewish.
You know, I had a thread about this a long time ago. Why don’t we get back to Kid Rock? I hear he can’t rhyme.
Too bad that it isn’t really a racist song. It’s just that there are some people who think it is without actually listening to the lyrics or understanding the context. It’s sort of like when the Reagan campaign used Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” without listening to the lyrics.
To be fair, the lyrics are much more ambiguous in “Sweet Home Alabama” in the way Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” isn’t. That said, I don’t think “Sweet Home Alabama” is racist in any way.
My problem with “Sweet Home Alabama” isn’t that it is a racist song - in fact I’m perfectly willing to accept the band’s explanation of it being an anti-segregation song.
However, the lyrics are certainly ambiguous (I’ve always heard it as “In Birmingham they love the governor, ooh ooh ooh”) and it’s status as an anthem of sorts for modern-day segregationists makes it impossible for me to listen to it unburdened.
It doesn’t help the cause at all that the new version of Lynyrd Skynyrd seem to basically present themselves as the musical branch of the Tea Party.
Vanilla Ice did the same thing. Whenever you hear the opening riff of “Under Pressure”, you think,“OH AWESOME, I love this song,” Then Ice intones,“Ice Ice Baby.” Makes you wanna scream!