steve wrote:

Brett Eugene Ralph wrote:For me, it's "Southern Man"...or "U.S. history as seen through the lens of a Canadian textbook and mucho marijuana."

Did you really see "cotton," Neil, and "blacks," or was that just the first thing that came to mind after you wrote the words Southern Man at the top of a legal pad?

Well, that's a pretty good place to start, isn't it? At the top? Where the writing begins? At the top, rather than the bottom? With the first thing? For writing? Start at the top? And slavery, good place to start discussing what makes the South the South, isn't it? From there, you'd go to Jim Crow, wouldn't you? And from there to contemporary redneck racism, wouldn't you? From the top? Where the writing starts? You'd get there?

You'd prefer he started with "Mint Julep?"

Ronnie Van Zant, it turns out, was right. As usual.

Yep. Neil Young was a great songwriter. Mr. Van Zant was dead on the money with that assessment. The whole Southern Chivalry thing? No, fuck him. The whole "Yankees are responsible for Nixon, not us; we voted for Wallace," thing? No, fuck him. The whole "I'm from the South, don't you dare notice anything bad about it or I'll turn into every stereotype rebel chauvinist you've ever imagined," thing? No, fuck him.

Which is worse, making a comment on an ugly part of Southern culture (genuinely ugly), or coming to its defense, for the sole reason that one is from the South, and all things Southern get defended?

Starting from the top, the defense of the Southern man is worse.

evolu wrote:I cannot believe 'piece of crap' hasn't been mentioned.

Brett Eugene Ralph wrote:Methinks Montana has its share of rednecks/racists, no? What about Chicago? A black dude ever caught any shit up there? I don't wanna get testy, though, because this post made me laugh out loud more than once--and I was laughing with it not at it.

But let's have a little respect for the dead, all right? For starters, "Sweet Home Alabama" is a much more complex, a much less stereotypical response than the song it's reacting against (Neil has admitted as much in interviews), which boils Southern history down to a few incendiary images. How is telling Mr. Young that "we don't need him around" becoming a rebel chauvinist? Or do you read that as a thinly veiled death threat? Probably so--obviously Southern utterance is incapable of being anything more than redneck machismo we're too stupid to even acknowledge. No, "Sweet Home Alabama" is an answer song, a grand (but lost) pop music tradition, and it's the preferred way that civilized people agree to disagree.

Bradley R. Weissenberger wrote:I look forward to your defense of the Ohio National Guard.

evolu wrote:I cannot believe 'piece of crap' hasn't been mentioned.