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This story is part of American Anthem, a yearlong series on songs that rouse, unite, celebrate and call to action. In May 2006, National Review ranked the song #4 on its list of the 50 greatest conservative rock songs. In 2002, the song inspired the title and plot of the film Sweet Home Alabama.
It reached number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1974, becoming the band's highest-charting single. The story of "Sweet Home Alabama" begins not in Alabama but in Jacksonville, Florida. That's where, in 1964, five teenagers formed what would eventually become the iconic rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. It wasn't until five years after getting together that they finally settled on the name Lynyrd Skynyrd though, after their former P.E. Teacher Leonard Skinner who penalized guitarist Gary Rossington for his long hair because it was against the high school's policy. For people who think every white Southerner's favorite evening wear is a white sheet with burning cross as accessory, they can gloat over the stupid hicks in this film.
Charts
For people who want to fantasize that we can still live in Mayberry, they can groove on how pretty it all is. (Mostly.) People see what they expect to see. In the leadup to the key divisional showdown on December 17, there had been much attention on the sloppy forecast for Orchard Park. The region was hit with a snowstorm that stretched from late Friday to early Saturday, with the snow picking up once again around the fourth quarter. Tagovailoa had downplayed the importance of the weather in the days before the game, noting that he saw snow while playing for the University of Alabama and wanted to remain focused on the game itself, not the snow.
The nickname "The Swampers" was coined by producer Denny Cordell during a recording session by singer/songwriter Leon Russell, in reference to the band's "swampy" sound. At the time, it had the highest September opening weekend, surpassing Rush Hour. For a decade, the film would hold this record until 2012 when Hotel Transylvania took it. By the end of its run in the United States, Sweet Home Alabama grossed over US$130 million, and another US$53,399,006 internationally.
-Sweet Homes Alabama Construction-
Melanie Carmichael, an up and rising fashion designer in New York, has gotten almost everything she wished for since she was little. But when he proposes to her, she doesn't forget about her family back down South. More importantly, her husband back there, who refuses to divorce her ever since she sent divorce papers seven years ago. To set matters straight, she decides to go to the south quick and make him sign the papers.
Tap "Sign me up" below to receive our weekly newsletter with updates on movies, TV shows, Rotten Tomatoes podcast and more. Van Zant grew up listening to Young and regularly rocked a "Tonight's the Night" t-shirt—most notably, on the cover of the band's album Street Survivors. According to Rolling Stone, he was even rumored to have been buried in it. Neil Young, too, owned a Lynyrd Skynyrd Florida Whiskey shirt, and once said, "I'd rather play 'Sweet Home Alabama' than 'Southern Man' anytime." "We wrote 'Sweet Home Alabama' as a joke," Van Zant clarified a few years following the release. "We didn't even think about it. The words just came out that way. We just laughed like hell and said, 'Ain't that funny.' We love Neil Young. We love his music."
Casting
But home starts to tug at her heartstrings, and what she thought she wanted may not be what she wants at all. Melanie goes to the Carmichael plantation and apologizes to Bobby Ray, whose family lives there. She is cornered there by Kate's assistant, sent to gather information on Melanie's background. Bobby Ray backs up her pretense that she is a relative and the family mansion is her childhood home.
Melanie decides to not sign the papers, and that she does not want to marry Andrew, because she still loves Jake, which Andrew understands. She runs away from her wedding to go find Jake, who is on the same beach where, years ago, ten-year-old Jake had told her that he wanted to marry her "so I can kiss you anytime I want." In the present day, Melanie is a successful New York fashion designer who has adopted the surname "Carmichael" to hide her poor Southern roots.
Sweet Home Alabama Videos
With a reported budget of US$30 million, it was a box office hit, despite the mixed reviews. The story follows a headstrong music manager in desperate need of a hit song for his last remaining client, who finds himself falling for a gifted singer-songwriter with abandoned dreams of making it big, as he attempts to secure the rights to a Christmas song she wrote years ago. Sweet Home Alabama , the film soundtrack, includes thirteen songs by different artists.
When things don't turn out the way she planned them, she realizes that what she had before in the south was far more perfect than the life she had in New York City. During Melanie and Andrew's wedding at the Carmichael estate, a lawyer arrives and halts the ceremony. She and Andrew wish each other well, though Kate berates Andrew and insults Melanie, her family, and the entire town, for which Melanie punches her in the face. Melanie finds Jake at the beach planting lightning rods in the sand during a rainstorm to create more glass sculptures.
Wynn's Pond in Sharpsburg, Georgia, is the location where Jake lands his plane. The historic homes shown at Melanie's return to Pigeon Creek were shot in Eufaula, Alabama. Although centered in a fictional version of the town of Pigeon Creek, near a fictional version of Greenville, Alabama, the film was mostly shot in Georgia. The Carmichael Plantation, which Melanie tells the reporter is her childhood home, is the Oak Hill Berry Museum, a historic landmark in Georgia which is near the campus of Berry College in Rome, Georgia. Katharine Towne was cast as Witherspoon's character's assistant who ultimately ends up marrying the Patrick Dempsey character, but all other scenes were dropped in the final cut. A mid-credits sequence shows that they have a baby daughter, Melanie continues to thrive as a designer, and Jake opens a "Deep South Glass" franchise in New York.
Melanie tells him that she did not marry Andrew because she wanted to be with him so that she could kiss him whenever she wanted too. As Jake and Melanie kiss, Wade, the town sheriff, interrupts them by taking them back Jake's mother's bar, where all of their friends and family are waiting. The story is a love triangle involving two childhood Alabama sweethearts who married but became estranged, Jake Perry and Melanie Smooter , and Melanie's boyfriend of 8 months, Andrew Hennings . After learning to fend for himself, the boy has to protect his house against two bumbling burglars who are planning to rob it. But others interpreted the lyrics as a reminder to Young that not all Southerners are the same.
Melanie follows and gets drunk, insults her old school friends, and outs her longtime friend, Bobby Ray. Jake scolds her and takes her home, preventing her from driving drunk, and Melanie wakes to find the signed divorce papers on her bed. These musicians, who crafted the "Muscle Shoals Sound", were inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 1995 for a Lifework Award for Non-Performing Achievement and into the Musicians' Hall of Fame in 2008.
Melanie reconciles with her friends and learns that after she split with Jake, he had followed her to New York to win her back. Intimidated by the city and her success, he returned home to make something of himself first. She and Jake have a heart-to-heart, and Melanie realises why he never signed their divorce papers.
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