Neil Young Songs - Southern Man Lyrics

Neil Young - Southern Man

Neil Young - Southern Man Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos
Album: After The Goldrush
Released: 1970

Southern Man Lyrics

Southern Man Song Chart

This song is about racism in the American South. It makes references to slavery and the Ku Klux Klan.

Lynyrd Skynyrd wrote "Sweet Home Alabama" as a response to this song. Young is mentioned in the line "I hope Neil Young will remember, a Southern man don't need him around anyhow." Lynyrd Skynyrd were big fans of Young. "Sweet Home Alabama" was meant as a good-natured answer to this, explaining the good things about Alabama. Skynyrd lead singer Ronnie Van Zandt often wore Neil Young T-shirts while performing.
Young was quite happy with "Sweet Home Alabama." He said, "They play like they mean it, I'm proud to have my name in a song like theirs."

After the release of "Sweet Home Alabama," Neil Young wrote several songs for Lynyrd Skynyrd as means of reconciliation, including his eventual standby "Powderfinger." However, the band had their infamous plane crash before they could use the songs, and Young ended up keeping them for himself.

Director Jonathan Demme first cut the opening sequence of his movie Philadelphia to this song in an effort to get Young to write a song like it for the film. Young gave him "Philadelphia," which he used over the end. Bruce Springsteen's contribution, "Streets Of Philadelphia," was used over the open.

In the liner notes for his greatest hits album Decade, Young wrote: "This song could have been written on a civil rights march after stopping off to watch Gone With The Wind at a local theater."

Young summed up the alleged "feud" instigated between him and Lynyrd Skynyrd in a 1995 interview with Mojo Magazine: "Oh, they didn't really put me down! But then again, maybe they did! (laughs) But not in a way that matters. S--t, I think 'Sweet Home Alabama' is a great song. I've actually performed it live a couple of times myself."

In his 2012 biography Waging Heavy Peace, Neil Young apologized for "Southern Man": "I don’t like my words when I listen to it. They are accusatory and condescending, not fully thought out, and too easy to misconstrue." (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)