![]() Of course, most of us associate the category “protest song” with the Woody Guthrie/Pete Seeger/Bob Dylan hippie-with-an-acoustic-guitar genre. It is, quite simply, the most effective protest song ever recorded. In a field with more than its share of hamfisted, unsubtle preaching to the choir, “Sweet Home Alabama” stands alone. Whatever our opinion of its implicit politics, I think we have to agree that it is an absolute master class in the art of political music. But what I’ve lost in innocence, I’ve more than gained in respect for the song and its craftsmanship. I can’t say that I’ll ever be back to the point of enjoying “Sweet Home Alabama” with an entirely easy conscience. (N.B.: I should mention here that members of the band responsible, Lynryd Skynyrd, have insisted that the song is not an endorsement of Wallace at all. That night, before I passed out, it took me three minutes on Wikipedia to discover that the Governor was George Wallace-George “Segregation Forever” Wallace-and that what I’d always imagined to be a harmlessly infectious rock song was something much darker, and more interesting. I did not know that there anything ethically objectionable to dancing to “Sweet Home Alabama” at a party, but I trusted my friend’s opinion and stopped then and there. ‘In Birmingham they love the Governor’? Do you know who the Governor was when that song came out?” Gawky white boy that I am, I can’t dance to anything, though that’s never stopped me.
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