Sweet Home Alabama
"Sweet Home Alabama" was written as an answer to two songs, "Southern Man" and "Alabama" by Neil Young, which dealt with themes of racism and slavery in the American South. "We thought Neil was shooting all the ducks in order to kill one or two," said Ronnie Van Zant at the time. The following excerpt shows the Neil Young mention in the song:
In his 2012 autobiography "Waging Heavy Peace", Young commented on his role in the song's creation, writing "My own song 'Alabama' richly deserved the shot Lynyrd Skynyrd gave me with their great record. 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".
List of songs recorded by Alabama
Alabama's main members — Randy Owen, Teddy Gentry, and Jeff Cook — wrote or co-wrote a significant amount of material in their catalogue, which was considered unusual for country musicians at that time. Contributing songwriter Greg Fowler is credited on 72 Alabama songs, followed by Ronnie Rogers at 68. The group has recorded 260 songs (65 of which are singles), which include original compositions, cover songs, collaborations with artists such as Lionel Richie and Brad Paisley.