"Sweet Home Alabama" is a song by American rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, released on the band's second album Second Helping (1974). It was written in response to Neil Young's songs "Southern Man" and "Alabama", which the band felt blamed the entire Southern United States for slavery; Young is name-checked and dissed in the lyrics. It reached number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1974, becoming the band's highest-charting single.