Season 30, Day 3 - "The First State (Alphabetically)"
It's Sweet week, and today's quiz is inspired by "Sweet Home Alabama".
“Sweet Home Alabama”
“Define irony: bunch of idiots dancing on a plane to a song made famous by a band that died in a plane crash.”
“Sweet Home Alabama” is the best known and highest-charting song by the American rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. The song was a response to Canadian-born singer-songwriter Neil Young, who had irked the band with his songs “Alabama” and “Southern Man.” Perhaps feeling that Young had unfairly damned the entirety of the South for its terrible history of slavery and racism, singer Ronnie Van Sant explained: “We thought Neil was shooting all the ducks in order to kill one or two.” The lyrics of “Sweet Home Alabama” directly reference Young: “Well I heard Mister Young sing about her / Well, I heard ol’ Neil put her down / Well, I hope Neil Young will remember / A Southern Man don’t need him around anyhow.” There are differing opinions on the song’s allusion to segregationist governor George Wallace (“In Birmingham, they love the governor, boo boo boo”); for his part, Van Sant said that the lyrics were misunderstood, observing: “The general public didn’t notice the words ‘Boo! Boo! Boo!’ after that particular line.” “Sweet Home Alabama” lent its title to a 2002 romantic comedy starring Reese Witherspoon as a New York fashion designer returning to her Alabama hometown. In 2009, the state of Alabama began using “Sweet Home Alabama” as an official slogan on its license plates. “Sweet Home Alabama” is sampled in the Kid Rock song “All Summer Long” and appears in the movies Forrest Gump, Despicable Me, and Con Air (clipped above), to name just a few. Ironically, none of the song’s co-writers called Alabama home (the band was formed in Jacksonville, Florida).