The Three Great Alabama Icons

I grew up in north Alabama, back in the nineteen-seventies

When dinosaurs still roamed the earth

I'm speaking, of course, of the three great Alabama icons

George Wallace, Bear Bryant and Ronnie Van Zant

Now, Ronnie Van Zant wasn't from Alabama, he was from Florida

He was a huge Neil Young fan, but in the tradition of Merle Haggard

Writing Okie From Muskogee to tell his dad's point of view

About the hippies in Vietnam

Ronnie felt that the other side of the story should be told

Now Neil Young always claimed that

Sweet Home Alabama was one of his favorite songs

And legend has it, he was an honorary pallbearer in Ronnie's funeral

Such is the duality of the southern thang

And Bear Bryant wore a cool looking red checkered hat

And won football games, and there's few things more loved in Alabama

Than football and the men who know how to win at it

So when the Bear would come to town, there would be a parade

Now, me, I was one of them pussy boys, 'cause I hated football

So I got a guitar, but a guitar is a poor substitute for a football

With the girls in my high school, so my band hit the road

And we didn't play no Skynyrd, either

I came of age rebelling against the music in my high school parking lot

It wasn't until years later, after leaving the South for a while

That I came to appreciate and understand the whole Skynyrd thing

In it's misunderstood glory

I left the South and learned how different people's perceptions

Of the Southern Thing was

From what I'd seen in my life

Which leads us to George Wallace

Now Wallace was, for all practical purposes the governor of Alabama

From nineteen-sixty-two until nineteen-eighty-six

Once when a law prevented him from succeeding himself

He ran his wife Lurleen in his place and she won by a landslide

He's most famous as the belligerent racist voice

Of the segregationist South, standing in the doorways of schools

And waging a political war against the federal government

That he decried as hypocritical

Now Wallace had started out as a lawyer and a judge

With a very progressive and humanitarian track record

For a man of his time, but he lost his first bid for governor

In nineteen-fifty-eight, by hedging on the race issue

Against a man who spoke out against integration

Wallace ran again in sixty-two as a staunch segregationist and won big

And for the next decade, spoke out loudly

He accused Kennedy and King of being communist

And he was constantly on national news

Representing the good people of Alabama

And you know, race was only an issue on TV

In the house that I grew up in

Wallace was viewed as a man from another time and place

But when I first ventured out of the South

I was shocked at how strongly Wallace was associated

With Alabama and its people

You know, racism is a worldwide problem

And it's been since the beginning of recorded history

And it ain't just white and black, but thanks to George Wallace

It's always a little more convenient to play it with a southern accent

And bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd

Attempted to show another side of the South

One that certainly exists, but few saw beyond the rebel flag

And this applies not only to their critics and detractors

But also from their fans and followers

So for a while, when Neil Young would come to town

He'd get death threats down in Alabama

Ironically, in nineteen-seventy one

After a particularly racially-charged campaign

Wallace began back peddling

And he opened up Alabama politics to

Minorities at a rate faster than most northern states

Or the federal government

Wallace spent the rest of his life trying to explain away his racist past

And in nineteen-eighty-two, he won his last term in office

With over ninety percent of the black vote

Such is the duality of the souther thang

And George Wallace died back in ninety-eight, and he's in Hell now

Not because he's a racist, his track record as a judge

In his late life quest for redemption make a good argument

For his being, at worst, no worse than most white men

Of his generation, North or South

But, because of his blind ambition and his hunger for votes

He turned a blind eye to the suffering of black America

And he became a pawn in the fight against the Civil Rights cause

Fortunately for him, the Devil is also a southerner

So, this song's gonna take place in Hell

Told from the Devil's point of view

As he does what any good southerner would do

When company's coming

He brewed up some good sweet tea

And he whoops up some southern hospitality

For the arrival

Of the new guest