The message of the song is, like the South, complicated.
Initially I heard it as the Alabama answer to California Dreamin'. No biggie.
Then I noticed the lyrics about the people loving Governor Wallace. Not so cool to rally around a well-known segregationist.
Missing from the above lyrics is the line "Boo, boo, boo!"
Those boos could be interpreted as Skynyrd booing Wallace. Or it could be them mocking Wallace's detractors, like Neil Young. I don't know.
But the next line "we all did what we could do" suggests Wallace left them wanting.
In the line about Watergate, they're comparing Wallace to former President Nixon. By the time of this song, Nixon was a discredited liar & an embarrassment to all Americans. The lesson is that politicians are jerks, whether it's the Californian Nixon or the Alabaman Wallace. This is not a ringing endorsement of Wallace. Skynyrd's stand for Wallace is more fatalist than enthusiastic. At this point, the controversy was dead in my mind.
Then I noticed that line "And the governor's true".
This surprised me. After distancing themselves from Wallace, they embrace him again. Why?
By 1974 (year this song was released) Wallace had moderated his views about segregation. In 1972, he ran on a platform that included a renouncement of formal segregation. There was certainly some revisionism going on, there. But the reality is that Wallace was changing with the times. He was elected democratically, reflecting the values of his constituents. Doesn't that say something about the citizens of Alabama?
This analysis about Wallace vs Nixon misses a critical historical fact - in the 1968 election (the one that made Nixon president), Wallace himself ran as a third party candidate and Alabama was one of the few states that voted their electoral college votes for Wallace. So that whole bit about Watergate is not a complex argument about northern versus southern guilt for bad politicians, but a much simpler claim that Alabama didn't vote Nixon into office so can't be held responsible for the crimes/scandals he committed. I think the "we all did what we could do" is also a...
This analysis about Wallace vs Nixon misses a critical historical fact - in the 1968 election (the one that made Nixon president), Wallace himself ran as a third party candidate and Alabama was one of the few states that voted their electoral college votes for Wallace. So that whole bit about Watergate is not a complex argument about northern versus southern guilt for bad politicians, but a much simpler claim that Alabama didn't vote Nixon into office so can't be held responsible for the crimes/scandals he committed. I think the "we all did what we could do" is also a reference to that - Alabama did all it could to prevent Nixon from getting into office.
See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_...election,_1968 for the map of the electoral college results.
The message of the song is, like the South, complicated.
Initially I heard it as the Alabama answer to California Dreamin'. No biggie.
Then I noticed the lyrics about the people loving Governor Wallace. Not so cool to rally around a well-known segregationist.
Missing from the above lyrics is the line "Boo, boo, boo!"
Those boos could be interpreted as Skynyrd booing Wallace. Or it could be them mocking Wallace's detractors, like Neil Young. I don't know.
But the next line "we all did what we could do" suggests Wallace left them wanting.
In the line about Watergate, they're comparing Wallace to former President Nixon. By the time of this song, Nixon was a discredited liar & an embarrassment to all Americans. The lesson is that politicians are jerks, whether it's the Californian Nixon or the Alabaman Wallace. This is not a ringing endorsement of Wallace. Skynyrd's stand for Wallace is more fatalist than enthusiastic. At this point, the controversy was dead in my mind.
Then I noticed that line "And the governor's true".
This surprised me. After distancing themselves from Wallace, they embrace him again. Why?
By 1974 (year this song was released) Wallace had moderated his views about segregation. In 1972, he ran on a platform that included a renouncement of formal segregation. There was certainly some revisionism going on, there. But the reality is that Wallace was changing with the times. He was elected democratically, reflecting the values of his constituents. Doesn't that say something about the citizens of Alabama?
Isn't that what Skynyrd is celebrating?
This analysis about Wallace vs Nixon misses a critical historical fact - in the 1968 election (the one that made Nixon president), Wallace himself ran as a third party candidate and Alabama was one of the few states that voted their electoral college votes for Wallace. So that whole bit about Watergate is not a complex argument about northern versus southern guilt for bad politicians, but a much simpler claim that Alabama didn't vote Nixon into office so can't be held responsible for the crimes/scandals he committed. I think the "we all did what we could do" is also a...
This analysis about Wallace vs Nixon misses a critical historical fact - in the 1968 election (the one that made Nixon president), Wallace himself ran as a third party candidate and Alabama was one of the few states that voted their electoral college votes for Wallace. So that whole bit about Watergate is not a complex argument about northern versus southern guilt for bad politicians, but a much simpler claim that Alabama didn't vote Nixon into office so can't be held responsible for the crimes/scandals he committed. I think the "we all did what we could do" is also a reference to that - Alabama did all it could to prevent Nixon from getting into office. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_...election,_1968 for the map of the electoral college results.