Song finds a home, sweet home

Every bar band on the planet knows that, contrary to Mark Twain’s adage, life contains at least three certainties: death, taxes and drunks bellowing, “Play some Skynyrd!”

The last command, of course, translates to one of two songs: “Free Bird” or “Sweet Home Alabama.” And with two new movies featuring three new versions of the 28-year-old tune -- by Cornbread and Jewel in the Reese Witherspoon hit “Sweet Home Alabama” and a rap by Eminem in “8 Mile” -- the inebriated bellowing promises to grow louder for a song that would have been voted one of 1974’s hits least likely to live forever.

Some votes might well have been cast by the band’s own members.

“We knew it was a cool tune, but we didn’t know it would have this kind of longevity,” says Gary Rossington, the Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist who’s been cranking out the signature riff for nearly three decades.

During that time, it’s been recorded by Hank Williams Jr., the Charlie Daniels Band and -- yup -- Alabama. There have been steel-guitar, bluegrass, Elvis-impersonator and even Moog synthesizer versions. And the original has cropped up in movies ranging from “Forrest Gump” to “Joe Dirt.” “I heard a bar band in Japan, and the singer couldn’t say, ‘Alabama,’ ” Rossington says, “but everywhere we go, in every little honky-tonk or bar with a band, they sing it.”

What’s kept “Alabama” on the map? “I can’t figure it out,” Rossington says. “It was pretty simple, and it just caught on.”