Actually it was 2 Neil Young songs that were responding to (Southern Man& Alabama), the response was to these specific lyrics to "Southern Man":
Better keep your head
Don't forget
what your good book said
Southern change
gonna come at last
Now your crosses
are burning fast
Southern man
I saw cotton
and I saw black
Tall white mansions
and little shacks.
Southern man
when will you
pay them back?
I heard screamin'
and bullwhips cracking
How long? How long?
And "Alabama"'s lyrics:
Oh Alabama
Banjos playing
through the broken glass
Windows down in Alabama.
See the old folks
tied in white ropes
Hear the banjo.
Don't it take you down home?
(got this from
http://www.thrasherswheat.org/jammin/lynyrd.htm but I was aware of this before as I do have the Harvest CD which Alabama is on and I grew up listening to all kinds of music)
As to the "context" Sweet Home Alabama was written (this needs to be distinguished from Young's Alabama) and it's true meaning to its lyrics is basically saying leave us alone. I know you will say, Lynyrd Skynyrd is racist as they use the line "In Birmingham they love the governor"
Wallace being the governor & a segrationist at the time& Birmingham being where the 4 girls died in the church blast. Right after this line "Boo hoo hoo" is said, now the people who want it to be racist say it was a "wink" to the racists when in actuality they were saying they don't like the racist policies of Wallace. The problem is that Lynyrd Skynyrd is not racist, they just have southern pride. Now their pride in the region they come from will be attacked, I'm sure, but it's like being proud of the fraternity or sorority you're a member of, you know the adage "from the outside looking in, people can't understand it, but from the outside looking in you can't explain it."
I'm sure someone will point out "oh, but Mark, Lynyrd Skynyrd plays in front of a large confederate flag, they must be racist" to that I say you have to have an understanding of the South, not just in historical view point but also the culture. The confederate flag's correct nonmenclature is confederate naval jack (the battle flag is a square and the naval jack is rectangular) this is different from the various Official Confederate flags (e.g. Bonnie Blue).
Please go to
http://americancivilwar.com/south/conflag/southflg.html to view the various flags.
If you say that since racist groups have used the confederate naval jack we should totally abandon it, I ask haven't those same groups used the Bible, should we abandon use of that? Just b/c a group misuses a symbol doesn't change the meaning to what the group says it is.
You may also wonder why someone would care about something that happened so long ago. Well why do people display a flag like the flag Betsy Ross made? It is history, why forget about it?
The confederate flag conversation could fill up multiple threads, so I'm not going to go into all the reasons why it is unfair to label someone racist just b/c they display a confederate naval jack or any other confederate flag.
-Mark