neil young/skynyrd bash

DiRtyFranK38
DiRtyFranK38 Posts: 3,131
edited August 2007 in Other Music
i think neil young is a great musician.
never liked skynyrd at all.

just out of curiosity though, how come in the dreadful 'sweet home alabama' that is on the radio 24/7, there is the line "well i heard ol' neil put her down. well i hope neil young will remember, a southern man don't need him around, anyhow" or something like that. what happened between the two? or what did uncle neil do to piss of skynyrd?
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Comments

  • norm
    norm Posts: 31,146
    "Sweet Home Alabama" was an answer to two controversial songs, "Southern Man" and "Alabama" by Neil Young, which were critical of social conditions in the South. "We thought Neil was shooting all the ducks in order to kill one or two," said Ronnie Van Zant at the time (Dupree 1974).
    Van Zant's musical response, however, was equally controversial, with references to Alabama Governor George Wallace and the Watergate scandal. Despite (or perhaps because of) the debate, the song has become one of the most popular examples of Southern rock. It reached the top ten of the US charts in 1974 and was the band's second hit single

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Home_Alabama_%28song%29
  • DiRtyFranK38
    DiRtyFranK38 Posts: 3,131
    cutback wrote:
    "Sweet Home Alabama" was an answer to two controversial songs, "Southern Man" and "Alabama" by Neil Young, which were critical of social conditions in the South. "We thought Neil was shooting all the ducks in order to kill one or two," said Ronnie Van Zant at the time (Dupree 1974).
    Van Zant's musical response, however, was equally controversial, with references to Alabama Governor George Wallace and the Watergate scandal. Despite (or perhaps because of) the debate, the song has become one of the most popular examples of Southern rock. It reached the top ten of the US charts in 1974 and was the band's second hit single

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Home_Alabama_%28song%29

    thanks for letting me know.

    neil is miles better of a writer. he truly is a poet. and he's a beast at the guitar. never liked skynyrd and that song just iritates me.
    2006: Hartford
    2008: MSG 1, Hartford, Mansfield 2, Ed Solo NYC 1
    2009: London (O2), Philly 1, 2, 3, & 4
    2010: Hartford, Boston, MSG 1 & 2
    2011: Ed Solo Hartford
    2012: Philly (MIA Fest)
    2013: Worcester 2, Brooklyn 1 & 2, Hartford
  • PissBottleMan
    PissBottleMan Union City, TN Posts: 4,155
    Comments from Patterson Hood (of DBT): "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."

    Ronnie & Neil:

    "Church blew up in Birmingham
    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"


    PBM
    "We paced ourselves and we didn't rush through it and we tried to be as creative as our collective minds would let us be over some course of time instead of just trying to rush through a record"

    Wishlist Foundation: http://wishlistfoundation.org
  • scot88
    scot88 Posts: 217
    thanks for letting me know.

    neil is miles better of a writer. he truly is a poet. and he's a beast at the guitar. never liked skynyrd and that song just iritates me.
    hahaha, dude, the guitar solos and riffs in most skynyrd songs shit all over neil's playing. just listen to the freebird solo, and the lead guitar in that smell. neil simply cannot compare.

    i enjoy both, but i have to say, i like skynyrd a hell of a lot more than neil.
  • tybird
    tybird Posts: 17,388
    Comments from Patterson Hood (of DBT): "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."

    Ronnie & Neil:

    "Church blew up in Birmingham
    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"


    PBM
    Beat me to it. :D
    All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a thousand enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.
  • DiRtyFranK38
    DiRtyFranK38 Posts: 3,131
    Comments from Patterson Hood (of DBT): "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."

    Ronnie & Neil:

    "Church blew up in Birmingham
    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"


    PBM

    interesting. then why would they say something dissing neil though.
    2006: Hartford
    2008: MSG 1, Hartford, Mansfield 2, Ed Solo NYC 1
    2009: London (O2), Philly 1, 2, 3, & 4
    2010: Hartford, Boston, MSG 1 & 2
    2011: Ed Solo Hartford
    2012: Philly (MIA Fest)
    2013: Worcester 2, Brooklyn 1 & 2, Hartford
  • tybird
    tybird Posts: 17,388
    interesting. then why would they say something dissing neil though.
    Have you never dissed a friend in jest? You know....yanked their chain??

    BTW, this fine state, Alabama, is not full of racist pieces of shit or KKK members or church bombers or stupid rednecks. A few apples made the whole barrel look bad.
    All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a thousand enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.
  • PissBottleMan
    PissBottleMan Union City, TN Posts: 4,155
    It's that duality of the Southern Thing. ;)

    PBM
    "We paced ourselves and we didn't rush through it and we tried to be as creative as our collective minds would let us be over some course of time instead of just trying to rush through a record"

    Wishlist Foundation: http://wishlistfoundation.org
  • Like it was said before Ronnie thought Neil was putting down everyone in the south, as opposed to just the evil ones. They eventually become good friends and Neil says that Sweet Home Alabama is one of his all-time favorite songs. Like PBM was saying DBT especially on the Southern Rock Opera album go into their relationship a lot. I am a huge Neil Young fan as well as a huge Lynyrd Skynyrd fan. You should look into Ronnie's lyrics more on other songs not just Sweet Home Alabama. He is truly a poet as is Neil. This new Tribute band they call Lynryd Skynyrd that plays now is terrible in my opinion and it makes the original Skynyrd from the past look bad. They should not use the Skynyrd name with I believe it has one surviving member from the original band. The original Skynyrd from the 70's was magical. Anyways I digress...
  • JOEJOEJOE
    JOEJOEJOE Posts: 10,839
    This was a precursor to the east coast / west coast rap feud!
  • merkinball
    merkinball Posts: 2,262
    It's covered in this podcast too:

    http://www.lyricsundercover.com/

    Episode 65 (the top one) looks at Southern Man & Sweet Home Alabama

    And Neil did tag the chorus to Sweet Home Alabama onto the end of Southern Man on his show on 11/12/77 too, as a nod to Ronnie's passing.
    "You're no help," he told the lime. This was unfair. It was only a lime; there was nothing special about it at all. It was doing the best it could.

    http://www.last.fm/user/merkinball/
    spotify:user:merkinball
  • tybird
    tybird Posts: 17,388
    ....and other parts of the song are also tongue in cheek......Birmingham and its county (Jefferson) were never carried by Wallace in any of his gubernatorial races...except maybe 1982 when he had 90%+ of the black vote statewide. Birmingham would have been a majority black city by then, but not the entire county.
    All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a thousand enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.
  • merkinball
    merkinball Posts: 2,262
    And there's also this from the great analysis on this subject over at Thrashers Wheat:

    So were Neil and Skynyrd were really friends or foes? If you look closely at the cover photo of the last Lynyrd Skynyrd album "Street Survivors", you can see Ronnie Van Zant wearing a Neil Young "Tonight's the Night" album cover t-shirt.

    Or, as Fred Mills puts it in his book review of Lynyrd Skynyrd: Remembering The Free Birds Of Southern Rock by Gene Odom, "[Ronnie Van Zant would] just as soon go onstage wearing one of several Neil Young T-shirts that he owned in order to fuck with any yahoos in the crowd who missed the humor and irony of the “Sweet Home Alabama” lyrics."

    And Kenny C. posted on the comments another interesting t-shirt observation: In the concert film "Rust Never Sleeps", Billy Talbot, the Crazy Horse bass player, is wearing a Lynyrd Skynyrd t-shirt! It's the Skynyrd shirt that looks like a Jack Daniels whiskey label. Just something else to ponder...


    It seems that whatever grudges Lynyrd Skynyrd had for Neil's music may have been resolved - if there ever was any feud to begin with. From an interview with Ronnie Van Zant:

    "We wrote Alabama as a joke. We didn't even think about it - the words just came out that way. We just laughed like hell, and said 'Ain't that funny'... We love Neil Young, we love his music..."

    http://www.thrasherswheat.org/jammin/lynyrd.htm
    "You're no help," he told the lime. This was unfair. It was only a lime; there was nothing special about it at all. It was doing the best it could.

    http://www.last.fm/user/merkinball/
    spotify:user:merkinball
  • merkinball wrote:
    If you look closely at the cover photo of the last Lynyrd Skynyrd album "Street Survivors", you can see Ronnie Van Zant wearing a Neil Young "Tonight's the Night" album cover t-shirt.
    That's right.. it's rumoured that van Zant was buried in it.
  • brain of c
    brain of c Posts: 5,213
    scot88 wrote:
    hahaha, dude, the guitar solos and riffs in most skynyrd songs shit all over neil's playing. just listen to the freebird solo, and the lead guitar in that smell. neil simply cannot compare.

    i enjoy both, but i have to say, i like skynyrd a hell of a lot more than neil.


    redneck.
  • tybird
    tybird Posts: 17,388
    brain of c wrote:
    redneck.
    Hater
    All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a thousand enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.
  • intodeep
    intodeep Posts: 7,249
    merkinball wrote:
    And there's also this from the great analysis on this subject over at Thrashers Wheat:

    So were Neil and Skynyrd were really friends or foes? If you look closely at the cover photo of the last Lynyrd Skynyrd album "Street Survivors", you can see Ronnie Van Zant wearing a Neil Young "Tonight's the Night" album cover t-shirt.

    Or, as Fred Mills puts it in his book review of Lynyrd Skynyrd: Remembering The Free Birds Of Southern Rock by Gene Odom, "[Ronnie Van Zant would] just as soon go onstage wearing one of several Neil Young T-shirts that he owned in order to fuck with any yahoos in the crowd who missed the humor and irony of the “Sweet Home Alabama” lyrics."

    And Kenny C. posted on the comments another interesting t-shirt observation: In the concert film "Rust Never Sleeps", Billy Talbot, the Crazy Horse bass player, is wearing a Lynyrd Skynyrd t-shirt! It's the Skynyrd shirt that looks like a Jack Daniels whiskey label. Just something else to ponder...


    It seems that whatever grudges Lynyrd Skynyrd had for Neil's music may have been resolved - if there ever was any feud to begin with. From an interview with Ronnie Van Zant:

    "We wrote Alabama as a joke. We didn't even think about it - the words just came out that way. We just laughed like hell, and said 'Ain't that funny'... We love Neil Young, we love his music..."

    http://www.thrasherswheat.org/jammin/lynyrd.htm

    you beat me to it i was about to pull up this page and put the same shit on here.

    I mean neil wrote powderfinger for them to do but it just did not work out that way so neil recorded it.
    Charlotte 00 | Charlotte 03 | Asheville 04 | Atlanta 12 | Greenville 16 | Columbia 16 |Seattle 18  | Nashville 22 | Ohana Festival 24 x2 | Atlanta 25 x2
  • intodeep
    intodeep Posts: 7,249
    scot88 wrote:
    hahaha, dude, the guitar solos and riffs in most skynyrd songs shit all over neil's playing. just listen to the freebird solo, and the lead guitar in that smell. neil simply cannot compare.

    i enjoy both, but i have to say, i like skynyrd a hell of a lot more than neil.

    Well hard to argue with a personal opinion, but my opinion differs greatly :)

    As for guitar playing their are many folks out there that have better chops then neil on guitar. That said those who love his playing generally love it for the feeling neil evokes with that playing. Neil really is good at setting a tone for his songs and his solo's can be simple one note solo's (cinnamon girl) but still sound awesome.

    I mean the feeling he evokes on songs like Cortez the Killer and Like a Hurricane are awesome to me.

    So yeah maybe the guys in Skynard can play "better" but neil plays with a purpose to me and that is what i love about him.

    As for lyrics... man it is not even close neil can pump out some lines that will just hit me right in the heart.

    Skynard.... not so much a couple songs maybe but i could name off the top of my head if i had to 20 neil songs that just are special to me.


    But i'm not downing your opinion i just disagree... A LOT :D
    Charlotte 00 | Charlotte 03 | Asheville 04 | Atlanta 12 | Greenville 16 | Columbia 16 |Seattle 18  | Nashville 22 | Ohana Festival 24 x2 | Atlanta 25 x2
  • scot88
    scot88 Posts: 217
    intodeep wrote:
    Well hard to argue with a personal opinion, but my opinion differs greatly :)

    As for guitar playing their are many folks out there that have better chops then neil on guitar. That said those who love his playing generally love it for the feeling neil evokes with that playing. Neil really is good at setting a tone for his songs and his solo's can be simple one note solo's (cinnamon girl) but still sound awesome.

    I mean the feeling he evokes on songs like Cortez the Killer and Like a Hurricane are awesome to me.

    So yeah maybe the guys in Skynard can play "better" but neil plays with a purpose to me and that is what i love about him.

    As for lyrics... man it is not even close neil can pump out some lines that will just hit me right in the heart.

    Skynard.... not so much a couple songs maybe but i could name off the top of my head if i had to 20 neil songs that just are special to me.


    But i'm not downing your opinion i just disagree... A LOT :D

    my post was in response to someone who said neil was a "beast at the guitar." sorry, but when i think of a "beast at the guitar", one note solos don't really cut it.

    different strokes i guess.
  • Oh, Jimmy
    Oh, Jimmy Posts: 957
    scot88 wrote:
    my post was in response to someone who said neil was a "beast at the guitar." sorry, but when i think of a "beast at the guitar", one note solos don't really cut it.

    different strokes i guess.

    He was a beast on the guitar. He would just bash the hell outta the thing, pouring his heart and soul into it. But no way could he stand with Skynyrd in that field. The way their parts interweave is just magical.

    Skynyrd and Neil rank about the same in my list of faves.