First off, I like the band. They're one of my favorites. Obviously the old line-up, first albums until they died, not the post-crash bullcrap masquerading as them.
But something that's always struck me is how, unless I missed ever hearing it be talked about, the song Saturday Night Special wasn't considered a sticking point with their fans.
Modern country bands wouldn't dare write a song that's vaguely anti-second amendment.
Yet this song, which is from a Southern 70s band, literally has the lyric in it
"Hand guns are made for killin' They ain't no good for nothin' else....
So why don't we dump 'em, people To the bottom of the sea"
It's the "no one needs an AR-15" of the 70s.
Yeah a lot of murders happened with "Saturday Night Specials" and other handguns and revolvers, but also many lives were saved in self defense or otherwise with those very same guns.
Just pretty crazy that in the 1970s a band that would have a confederate flag on stage, would sing this to adoring crowds and it wasn't a big fuss. Maybe it was, and we're just not privy to it anymore. Someone who was alive back then' perspective would be greatly appreciated.
They were singing to boomers. Boomers are hippies.
I'm inclined to think the same. This is from the same generation that gave us "War" and "sympathy for the devil" along with about a thousand songs glorifying substance abuse.
Boomers are just fucked up on the whole. You might find a few good ones but for the most part their generation was born into unparalleled safety and prosperity, took it completely for granted, and then sold out the posterity of the nation for nothing more than "good times", self indulgent financial policies, and pretty little lies about equality.
They are absolutely cursed generation.
That's a fair point. And in hindsight, a rather obvious one I'm kind of embarrassed didn't occur to me immediately haha.
To be clear, I agree with your point that Saturday Night Special is pretty lame.
Yes, but the real question is why are all the boomers hippies. Do you really think it was natural? Not a chance.
Embrace your awakening OP. I know the feeling. I have a large paid collection of digital movies that I now view as nothing more than Hollywood propaganda. Subversive trash.
I swear the lead poisoning from leaded gasoline meme has a significant contribution. Kids born in the 40s-60s were exposed to so much more lead poisoning in their formative years than any other time in history. They even had studies at the time that showed behavioral changes, it just got suppresses.
Boomers were not just propagandized, they were chemically retarded too.
Boomers were told they were hippies and that they had all these things happening. Most were the opposite, but they were told they did these things. The most anti war people served in the Korean War and World War 2.
Could just be people not paying attention to the actual lyrics and just grooving to the melody and what they think the song is about. Like Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA.
Back before the internet with its catalogued lyrics and better recording technology it was pretty easy to just not know half the words in a song outside the chorus. You might learn it if you bought the album, but most people are just hearing it on the radio.
I actually balked at the actual words to a few of my favorite childhood songs once I learned them, instead of whatever my brain filled in there. I'd probably hate them if I had and am now in a begrudging "art from artist" state about it.
Musicians don't make it to the top without being a mouthpiece for the establishment. Every day people with any kind of reach are being presented a choice between money and fame or poverty and obscurity and choosing the former.
Arguably, it's even easier for music types, as big names don't even write their own songs. Guess who writes the songs for them...
I found this recent article that cited the surviving member of Skynyrd (well he was alive when this article was written) who said it wasn't a general anti-gun song, just Fudd-core against cheap handguns that are only useful for killing someone within spitting distance. Like if some modern song was about niggers and Hi-Points.
https://www.loudersound.com/features/saturday-night-special-by-lynyrd-skynyrd
Well I know from personal experience that older dudes in the South, the kind that fly the Confederate Flag and would listen to Free Bird all day sitting on their porch with moonshine jugs, considered handguns "homo shit" anytime they saw them at the hunting camp shooting range. And would drunkenly harass/berate the "Yankee" with his fancy pistol for being a city slicker and all sorts of other things you can fill in the blank on.
I'm sure there was a hippy/Leftie notion behind it for the band, but it likely didn't phase these types of old dudes much because they had a clear hierarchy in their mind of what a "real gun" was.
Of course this is just from my specific corner of Louisiana years after the fact, dealing with old guys that lived to harass you for any reason.
I’m a big fan of the band as well. That is a good point. I guess fans didn’t mind since they made good music