My Home's in Alabama (song)

"My Home's in Alabama"
Single by Alabama
from the album My Home's in Alabama
B-side	"Why Lady Why" (MDJ release) "I Wanna Come Over" (RCA release)
Released	January 1980 (U.S.)
Format	7"
Recorded	1979
Genre	Country
Length	4:02 (single edit) 6:27 (album version)
Label	MDJ Records 1002 (originally) RCA Records 12008 (later)
Writer(s)	Randy Owen, Teddy Gentry
Alabama singles chronology
"I Wanna Come Over" (1979) "My Home's in Alabama" (1980) "Tennessee River" (1980)

"My Home's in Alabama" is a song made famous by the country music band Alabama. Written by Randy Owen and Teddy Gentry, the song was released in 1980 and served as the title track to Alabama's first album for RCA Records.

In the years since its release, "My Home's in Alabama" became widely considered as the song that sparked the band's rise to eventual superstardom.

Song history

The song, a biographical look at Alabama's early career, hopes and dreams, also pays homage to the roots of band members Randy Owen, Teddy Gentry and Jeff Cook. The lyrics state that, while bigger and better things lay ahead, their home would always be in Alabama, "no matter where I lay my head" and that they were "southern-born and southern-bred."

Allmusic called the song "the closest thing to country rock" among the album's ten tracks.^[1]

"My Home's in Alabama" was released in January 1980 by MDJ Records, a small independent label that had also released Alabama's first Billboard magazine Hot Country Singles Top 40 single, "I Wanna Come Over" in the fall of 1979. The success of "My Home's in Alabama" (and the prior song) earned the group an invitation to the "New Faces" show at the annual Country Radio Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee. The resulting performance earned them a contract with RCA Records, to which they signed in April 1980.

Both "I Wanna Come Over" and "My Home's in Alabama" were subsequently issued on the band's first album.

Official State Ballad

A State Senate bill (SR-458) was passed 32-1 in 2000 to make the song the official State Ballad, with "Stars Fell On Alabama", an 1833 song (whose most popular release was by Jimmy Buffett) becoming the new official State Song, and the current State Song, "Alabama", written in 1931 by Julia Tutwiler would be moved to State Anthem status, but the bill failed in the State House.^[2]

Single and album edits

Both radio edit and full-length album versions of "My Home's in Alabama" were released. The single version is 4:02, and fades out just as the album-version's extended guitar bridge begins. This version is available on The Essential Alabama, released as part of RCA's Essential Series (not to be confused with the repackaged For the Record).

The full-length version — which includes the guitar bridge (that lasts about a minute and a half), a repeat of the refrain and the song-ending bridge reprisal — is 6:27, and is available, among other albums, on My Home's in Alabama.

In addition to the studio-recorded version, an eight-minute live version was released on Alabama's first greatest hits album.

B-side

The B-side to the MDJ Records release of "My Home's in Alabama" was "Why Lady Why," a song that later became a single from the My Home's in Alabama album — and the band's second No. 1 hit. Later pressings issued by RCA had "I Wanna Come Over" as the B-side.^[3]

Chart performance

Chart (1980)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles	17

References

1. ^ "Alabama: My Home's In Alabama". Allmusic. 2007-06-18. http://www.allmusic.com/album/r91584. 
2. ^ 2000 State Senate bill SR 458 to change State Song
3. ^ Morris, Edward, "Alabama," Contemporary Books Inc., Chicago, 1985 (ISBN 0809253062)

Sources

• Himes, Geoffery, Alabama entry in "The Encyclopedia of Country Music: The Ultimate Guide to the Music." Country Music Foundation, Oxford Press, New York, 1998. ISBN 0-19-511671-2
• Millard, Bob, "Country Music: 70 Years of America's Favorite Music," HarperCollins, New York, 1993 (ISBN 0-06-273244-7)
• Whitburn, Joel, "Top Country Songs: 1944-2005," 2006.