Neil Young - Alabama Lyrics

Neil Young Lyrics

"Alabama"
(from "Journey Through The Past" soundtrack)

Oh Alabama
The devil fools
With the best laid plan
Swing low Alabama
You got the spare change
You got to feel strange
And now the moment
Is all that it meant

Alabama, you got
The weight on your shoulders
That's breaking your back
Your Cadillac
Has got a wheel in the ditch
And a wheel on the track

Oh Alabama
Banjos playing
Through the broken glass
Windows down in Alabama
See the old folks
Tied in white robes
Hear the banjo
Don't it take you down home?

Alabama, you got
The weight on your shoulders
That's breaking your back
Your Cadillac
Has got a wheel in the ditch
And a wheel on the track

Oh Alabama
Can I see you
And shake your hand?
Make friends down in Alabama
I'm from a new land
I come to you
And see all this ruin
What are you doing, Alabama?
You got the rest of the union
To help you along
What's going wrong?

Submit Corrections

Thanks to Liz Durham for correcting these lyrics.

Writer(s): Neil Young

Neil Young once said about this track, "Actually, the song is more about a personal thing than it is about a state. And I'm just using that name and that state to hide whatever it is I have to hide... I don't know what that means."

Lynyrd Skynyrd wrote their "Sweet Home Alabama" in response to Neil Young's songs "Southern Man" and "Alabama". Young later wrote of "Alabama" in his 2012 autobiography "Waging Heavy Peace", "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."

album: "Harvest" (1972)

Are You Ready For The Country

Old Man

There's A World

Alabama

Needle And The Damage Done

Words (Between The Lines Of Age)

soundtrack: "Journey Through The Past" (1972)

Neil Young - Journey Through The Past soundtrack cover

For What It's Worth / Mr. Soul

Find The Cost Of Freedom

Ohio

Southern Man

Are You Ready For The Country

Alabama

Words (Between The Lines Of Age)

Relativity Invitation

Handel's Messiah

Soldier

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"Alabama" lyrics

Neil Young Lyrics