Ronnie Van Zant Slept with Neil Young’s Wife Causing Feud

A long lost interview with Lynyrd Skynyrd singer Ronnie Van Zant, alleges that the feud between himself and Neil Young was over a woman. Van Zant made the claim in an interview with Madhouse Magazine conducted in October 1977. 

Ronnie tells interviewer Claude Balzac that he made Whoopie with Neil Young’s wife in 1969. When asked about the ongoing feud between himself and Neil Young, Ronnie explained, “What you don’t know is that Neil Young is a weenie from Canada and I banged his wife. I didn’t know it was his wife at the time, but I met her at Woodstock in 1969 and we balled in the woods. She left him a few months later and he wrote, ‘Southern Man’. I can’t blame him, and it is a great song. He owes me.”

Southern Man

Neil Young wrote Southern Man in 1970 as a diss track against Van Zant. Ronnie took it in stride as he did sleep with the man’s wife. Then in 1972 Young wrote the song “Alabama” which Van Zant felt was an attack on Ronnie, Ronnie’s mom, the South, the flag, America and Apple pie.   

“Enough is enough” said Van Zant. Ronnie then wrote the iconic song “Sweet Home Alabama” as a revenge track against Young. The lyrics were, “Well I heard Mister Young sing about her. Well, I heard ol’ Neil put her down. Well I hope Neil Young will remember, A southern man don’t need him around anyhow.”

Sweet Home Alabama

“That was nothing” said Van Zant. “You should have heard the original lyrics. I really let him have it. I made fun of his terrible voice, his body odor, his small Canadian wiener and his inability to satisfy a woman. The record company made me change the lyrics. But I did send a copy of the original lyrics to Neil.”

Rumors and innuendo still rage on today. Some say Neil Young enjoyed Sweet Home Alabama and others say he was infuriated every time he heard it on the radio. Some say they made up and others say they took the grudge to their graves. However, Ronnie Van Zant’s cousin’s plumber Cletus told a source that he saw Neil Young monkeying around with the engine of the plane shortly before the fatal crash. We may never know the true story.

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