Drive-By Truckers - Ronnie and Neil
[purchase]
Ahhhh. Star Makers. A long time has passed since I last posted here. It wasn't by design mind you. I've been busy with a ninebullets.net redesign and I picked up a side gig contributing to Creative Loafing's local music blog, Tampa Calling and suddenly was a pressed for time and since nothing was immediately for the themes so SMM started to fall through the cracks. I promised myself I would make a greater effort to get at least 2 posts up a week over here....so let's get started.
When asked, the Drive-By Truckers singer, Patterson Hood, explains his reasons for writing this song as such, "I wrote this song to tell of the misunderstood friendship between Ronnie VanZant and Neil Young, who were widely believed to be bitter adversaries, but were in truth very good friends and mutual admirers..."
In lieu of more commentary I thought I'd post the lyrics to this song cause I think they deserve to be read:
Four little black girls killed for no goddamn good reason
All this hate and violence can't come to no good end
A stain on the good name.
A whole lot of good people dragged threw the blood and glass
Blood stains on their good names and all of us take the blame
Meanwhile in North Alabama, Wilson Pickett comes to town
To record that sweet soul music, to get that Muscle Shoals sound
Meanwhile in North Alabama, Aretha Franklin comes to town
To record that sweet soul music, to get that Muscle Shoals sound
And out in California, a rock star from Canada writes a couple of great songs about the
Bad shit that went down
"Southern Man" and "Alabama" certainly told some truth
But there were a lot of good folks down here and Neil Young wasn't around
Meanwhile in North Alabama, Lynyrd Skynyrd came to town
To record with Jimmy Johnson at Muscle Shoals Sound
And they met some real good people, not racist pieces of shit
And they wrote a song about it and that song became a hit
Ronnie and Neil Ronnie and Neil
Rock stars today ain't half as real
Speaking there minds on how they feel
Let them guitars blast for Ronnie and Neil
Now Ronnie and Neil became good friends their feud was just in song
Skynyrd was a bunch of Neil Young fans and Neil he loved that song
So He wrote "Powderfinger" for Skynyrd to record
But Ronnie ended up singing "Sweet Home Alabama" to the lord
And Neil helped carry Ronnie in his casket to the ground
And to my way of thinking, us southern men need both of them around
Ronnie and Neil Ronnie and Neil
Rock stars today ain't half as real
Speaking their minds on how they feel
Let them guitars blast for Ronnie and Neil
