Noriko Manabe, “The Palimpsests of a Campaign Song: ‘Sweet Home Alabama,’ ‘Sweet Florida,’ and the Politics of Resentment” “Sweet Home Alabama” epitomizes the characterization of the south: with its meaning left vague by Ronnie Van Zant, listeners have variously interpreted the song to be about home or southern pride, and as both anti-segregationist and racist. Today, it is both a classic rock favorite and a conservative anthem, played at Republican events by the reconstituted Lynyrd Skynyrd. “Sweet Florida”—a campaign song by Van Zant brothers Johnny and Donnie for Gov. Ron DeSantis—resembles the older song in sound and theme, inviting comparisons of politics and southern rock, then and now. This paper considers the persistence of culture wars and grievance politics as reflected in these two songs, as well as their attraction to political campaigns by George Wallace and DeSantis. Applying Robert Penn Warren’s concepts on how the Civil War is rationalized—through the Great Alibi for southerners, the Treasury of Virtue for northerners—it examines how historical patterns impact southern stereotypes and attitudes, and how this psychology of north-south relations is reflected in “Sweet Home Alabama” and the songs to which it responds, Neil Young’s “Southern Man” and “Alabama.” Appraising the cultural context of southern rock and oral histories of the song, it considers the layers of meaning in “Sweet Home Alabama” and its divergent interpretations. Today’s populist grievance politics show continuities with Wallace’s, providing a thematic tie between the older song and “Sweet Florida,” which, unlike the ambiguous 1974 song, is rhetorically indistinguishable from DeSantis’s speeches. Entwined in sonic similarity, the two songs illustrate the fifty-year trajectory of country rock, populist politics, and the ossification of cultural resentment.
