Neil Young.

[nietzsche]

Ooh almost forgot this one:

Cowgirl in the Sand


-TG

I came.

[nietzsche]

"The Boss" isn't so bossy here - Neil Young definitely taking the lead!

How Neil Young makes a guitar sound so godawful bad, and yet so very right, is an eternal mystery.

[nietzsche]

This guy is awesome.

Better than awesome. Very close to Dylan.

Better than Bob Dylan.

[Juan_Bottom]

I was just having a discussion about Neil Young's Southern Man & Alabama and Lynard Skynard's response to those two songs with Sweet Home Alabama this night past.

Skynard's song is a very poor defense of Alabama's Jim Crow laws. Now, granted, the meaning behind Ronnie Van Zant's lyrics of "now we all did what we could do" is supposedly unknown. But that's exactly why his line is supporting Jim Crow. If he was against segregation, he could have said so in the song, and owned up to the fact that some Southerners supported segregation, but not all do. But by leaving the line neutral, he's silently consenting to the practice. And he's allowing everyone to listen to it and interpret their own meaning... making the song just as friendly to racists as to civil right's activists. Van Zant later said that he didn't like what governor Wallace said about blacks, but the lyrics remain far too ambiguous for anyone listening to them to say that Van Zant himself wasn't consenting to segregation. I don't know if this was lost in the Southern Revival of the 70's or what, but this seems like a very obvious conclusion for me.
Neil Young might be generalizing with Southern Man and Alabama, but his songs hit the mark because they accuse all Southerners/Alabamans of the time of at least silently consenting to segregation. Skynard's ambiguous statements about Jim Crow and saying "well we don't need Neil young anyhow" is no response to Neil's scathing accusations.

That's my Yankee take.

[john9blue]

neil young is one of the reasons i will allow canada

[KoolBak]

Interesting...never heard that particular piece of the debate.

You know that Van Zandt (with a "D") and Neil were very close friends right? The supposed feud was an artistic one and one that didn't exist in reality, although it propelled Skynrd to fame....lol.

Those 2 songs spurred all kinds of southern tunes....off the top of my head, Gator Country by Hatchet (slams Skynrd directly), Southern Boy by Charlie Daniels, the Outlaws, 38 Special, Marshall Tucker, The Allman Bros ad nauseum.....I love the old southern rock and find it entertaining how these dudes all banter it back and forth.

I like Gator Country the best....