Sweet Home Alabama Questions

[Scylla]

I learned guitar in three easy lessons:

Smoke on the Water
Sweet Home Alabama
Stairway to Heaven.

As the least talented musician in the group I was relegated to lead singer status. Nobody else could play an instrument and sing.

Neither could I, so they just didn’t plug me in.

But I’m having trouble understanding the lyrics to this classic
"Now Russell Shultz has got the Swamp Bus"ean?
Why doesn’t a Southern Man need Neil Young round, anyhow? What was he supposed to be remembering.

Why is it a sad thing that they love the Governor in Birmingham?

Just having seen this video while shampooing the rug, I am struck by the ubiquitousness of the confederate flag wherever Lynyrd Skynyrd is. It’s all over them.

Are they racists or something?

And while we’re at it:

What is that smell?

[VampyChick]

I believe it’s actually 'Now Muscle Shoals has got the…" something, I don’t know. Muscle Shoals being a town in northern Alabama.

Neil Young wrote “A Southern Man” and “Alabama”, two songs that pissed Lynyrd Skynyrd off and led to the writing of “Sweet Home Alabama”. There’s a thread on it around here somewhere.

The governor in question was Mr. Wallace. Enough said.

sighs dons Alabama Citizen Hat The freakin’ Confederate flag does not necessarily mean one is racist, though it often has that connotation (I’m assuming you’re from north of the Mason-Dixon?). It can also mean that whoever’s using it is a stubborn ass who refuses to believe the damYankees won. Or it can mean, as I believe it does in the case of Lynyrd Skynyrd, that they have pride in their state’s history. removes ACH

[Skeezix]

I opened this thread specifically to see if it was the Neil Young question.

Depending on who you talk to, there was or was not a feud between Neil Young and the lads in Skynyrd over Neil’s songs Southern Man and Alabama.

Me, I’m willing to buy the idea that it was more in the lines of “bustin’ chops” with a guy they admired, since it says here that:

Like the Beatles, Neil Young was another guy who helped us get started writing real songs. It was because of his unique style, his chord changes and what his songs expressed - all the shit he did back then. As much as we loved his songs, when he wrote about ‘Alabama and bullwhips crackin’ ’ we had to answer with Sweet Home Alabama.

[sub]Gary Rossington quoted in Guitar World magazine, April 2000.[/sub]

As to the rest of the lyrics, have a looksee here.

Specifically, Muscle Shoals and the Swampers is covered pretty well by the horse’s mouth, so to speak. Quick and dirty, the Swampers were the in house band at the Muscle Shoals recording studio.

That line boggled me for years, as well.

And that’d be “the smell of death {that} surrounds you.” You’re on your own from there, mate.