Alabama is like...I just put the name of a state in the South on it 'cus it fit the image...fit the image of what I was trying to say. And actually the song is more about a personal thing that it is about a state. And I'm just using that name and that state to hide whatever it is that I have to hide. I don't know what that means. Neil Young Harvest Time film September 1971

If you're lucky and very quiet, you're going to hear a brand new Neil Young song. It just so happens that we finished doing it this afternoon. They have to work out the changes - it's really loose. If we get it, it'll be lucky. But it's worth trying. David Crosby Carnegie Hall, New York City, New York, USA October 4, 1971

CC: How did you cope with your first real blast of superstardom after that? NY: The first thing I did was a long tour of small halls. Just me and a guitar. I loved it. It was real personal. Very much a one-on-one thing with the crowd. It was later, after Harvest, that I hid myself away. I tried to stay away from it all. I thought the record [Harvest] was good, but I also knew that something else was dying. I became very reclusive. I didn't want to come out much. CC: Why? Were you depressed? Scared? NY: I think I was pretty happy. In spite of everything, I had my old lady and moved to the ranch. A lot of it was my back. I was in and out of hospitals for the two years between After the Gold Rush and Harvest. I have one weak side and all the muscles slipped on me. My discs slipped. I couldn't hold my guitar up. That's why I sat down on my whole solo tour. I couldn't move around too well, so I laid low for a long time on the ranch and just didn't have any contact, you know. I wore a brace. Crosby would come up to see how I was, we'd go for a walk and it took me 45 minutes to get to the studio, which is only 400 yards from the house. I could only stand up four hours a day. I recorded most of Harvest in the brace. That's a lot of the reason it's such a mellow album. I couldn't physically play an electric guitar. "Are You Ready for the Country," "Alabama" and "Words" were all done after I had the operation. The doctors were starting to talk about wheelchairs and shit, so I had some discs removed. But for the most part, I spent two years flat on my back. I had a lot of time to think about what had happened to me. Neil Young Rolling Stone interview with Cameron Crowe August 14, 1975

Soon after I was so high on that orchestra [the Gone With The Wind Orchestra from Comes A Time in 1978] that I did a free concert in Miami and took the whole group down there and played. But we didn’t record it—I can’t believe it. It must be the only thing I’ve ever done that I didn’t record. I did “Sweet Home Alabama” at that show, and the folks loved it. (My own song “Alabama” richly deserved the shot Lynyrd Skynyrd gave me with their great record. I don’t like my words when I listen to it today. They are accusatory and condescending, not fully thought out, and too easy to misconstrue.) Neil Young Waging Heavy Peace Sept 2012