Honestly, I don’t even know if I consider southern rock to be a genre in-and-of-itself; but there is one song that throws significant weight behind approving its application for validation: Sweet Home Alabama.  

Personally, I think Freebird has more emotional power behind it, but there is no doubting that, when it comes to formulae that are familiar to  the masses, Lynyrd Skynyrd = Sweet Home Alabama = Southern Rock is universally known and accepted.  I hear mathematicians are now considering the equation a working theorem.

It may not be shocking then (or perhaps quite shocking if you’ve got prejudices about the kind of technology that people from certain regions of the U.S. have available) that Sweet Home Alabama is an extremely popular ringtone.  As or writing, The Sweet Home Alabama Ringtone is sitting at number 16 for the most popular.  That’s a 30+ year old song at number 16, not bad.

One thing I really love about this song is that it’s misunderstood.  Most people I know that love it cite only a single line about how the “southern man don’t need him around”.  They ignore the context of the rest of the song, the song-writer, and the politics that surround it.  Yes, go ahead and be racist because Van Zant was not happy about the generalization that all southerners are racist.  That’s a sound, logical understanding of what you should take away from this song…