purchase [Sweet Home Alabama]
If you are talking about coming home, you cannot dismiss this. Granted, I already have a name for posting the obvious, but this one belongs here.
The song was mired in the polemic Neil Young raised about what does the "South" mean - both to Southerners and to those outside, What does it mean to fly the Confederate flag? And then ... in response, Lynard Skynard was trying to send Neil Young (and the world) a message. 40 years down the road, so much has changed (not just in rock), but I do wonder what these guys were thinking when they penned these lines:
Watergate does not bother me
Does your conscience bother you
You could not survive that line these days, but we <forgive> it as a classic,
The linked video is relatively amazing for its time ('74): it is pretty close to synced on time as it cuts from scene to scene (No small feat for 1974), and it includes modern features such as focus on the lead guitar during the solo (all recent innovations back in the '70s)
As to the theme ...
There are few things more hurtful than an attack on your home. And I don't know if that is what prompted the song, but it sure seems so, The lyrics say as much: F*&ck you Neil Young, we have our own narrative of our history. Because, after all the "truth" of history left to later generations is in the words that the present generation chooses to write - fake or not...
And what to make of the very discernible female backing vocals that are equally not visible anywhere in the clip. A classic piece, that, like most of its associates, falls far short of today's standards.
