New York’s Radio City, 1994. It’s the annual MTV shindig, and The Leningrad Cowboys, a bunch of outrageously bequiffed Finnish rockers, are playing before a worldwide TV audience of some 250 million. They’re backed by the 70-strong Red Army Choir, a military ensemble originally formed as a Bolshevik propaganda tool in pre-war Russia. The song they’re playing is Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Sweet Home Alabama. They say great songs travel. And sometimes they veer way off the map.
The irony of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s monumental 70s anthem to southern pride being sung by the Soviet state choir is obvious. More remarkable is the song’s sheer ubiquity. Kentucky Fried Chicken, Chevrolets, Xbox, World Wrestling Entertainment, Guitar Hero – you name it, Sweet Home Alabama has been an ad man’s dream for 35 years now.
