ARTIST: Lynyrd Skynyrd
OVERPLAYED SONG: “Sweet Home Alabama”
ORIGINAL SOURCE: Second Helping LP, MCA, 1975
OTHER SOURCES: Any of the many compilations of Skynyrd material released by MCA/Geffen since 1980.
Let’s be honest. As half-decent a band they were, Lynyrd Skynyrd were basically a mid-sized cult act at best, with at least 95% of their following based below the Mason-Dixon line, until a private plane they were riding in went down, killing lead singer Ronnie Van Zant and guitarist Steve Gaines. (According to Aerosmith’s collective autobiography Walk This Way, the plane Skynyrd went down in almost ended up being Aerosmith’s, until one of their staff saw the pilots passing a joint and a bottle of whiskey back and forth between each other in the cockpit, and threatened to quit on the spot if Aerosmith’s management insisted on hiring the plane.) Ironically, three days prior to their plane crash, they had released their Street Survivors album.
Their only actual hit single, “Sweet Home Alabama” (most of their other better known songs are primarily album tracks anthologized time and time again by MCA [now Geffen] Records), was conceived as a response to the Neil Young song “Southern Man”. Unfortunately for Lynyrd Skynyrd, their big-upping of Alabama – in spite of the fact that they did some early recordings at the state’s legendary Muscle Shoals Recording Studio – makes little sense when you consider the fact that the band was formed in Jacksonville, Florida. Perhaps they were too busy wanting to attack Neil Young to consider this lapse in geography? In reality, no – the band had met some people in the area that had a strong dislike of racism and segregation, and were a shade miffed at Neil’s comments. Ironically, the members of Skynyrd happened to be Neil Young fans, and Ronnie Van Zant was known to wear Neil Young shirts onstage. Does that make them a neutral party? Probably. For what it’s worth [no pun intended] – and providing yet another irony in Skynyrd history – Young went on record first by admitting to liking the band’s song, and then offered his songs “Sedan Delivery” and “Powderfinger” to the group for a future album. The group either turned them down or never got around to incorporating them into their set list (the latter is more likely), and Young proceeded to play them the way they are meant to be played, with Crazy Horse, on the Rust Never Sleeps album [Reprise, 1978])
Since their plane crash, the once semi-obscure group immediately became overrated by death, and for the next 30 years plus, many a working cover band or struggling/new rock group – especially on the Northern side of the Mason-Dixon Line – is tormented by some fat fuck with a rebel flag T-shirt and a longneck in his paw, hollering “Hey! Play some fuckin’ Skynyrd!” every time the band launches into a song that sounds nothing like this tune, “Free Bird”, “Call Me The Breeze”, or “Gimmie Three Steps” (three other equally overplayed Skynryd songs).
WORTHY SUBSTITUTES:
If you must play a Skynyrd song – and quite honestly, it’s not that mandatory – scan one of the many compilations that MCA/Geffen/Universal has released since the band’s initial disbanding and subsequent reunion for a more appropriate number other than “Sweet Home” or the other aforementioned songs. We’d recommend their pro-gun-control (!) anthem “Saturday Night Special” or the horn-driven tour-spiel “What’s Your Name?”. The only problem is, you’re going to open a bigger can of worms and still get requests for their more overplayed material. Is it really worth that risk?
If you want to avoid Skynyrd tunes entirely – and I don’t blame you, because that may be the better bet in this day and age – Neil Young’s “Southern Man”, the song that “inspired” “Sweet Home” in the first place, would be a nice comeback to the fat drunken heckler who keeps calling for the Ronnie Van Zandt imitation that you never did in the first place.
