Walk In Memphis With Me

Second grade, Mrs Cobb's class. 

One day, for some reason, she played Michael Jackson’s song, “Thriller.”

With no warning, my classmates bolted out of their seats and started singing the words and moving their bodies to the music.

I felt like an alien. What was happening here? How did they know the words? Was this what humans call dancing?

By second grade, I could have named every player on the Brewers and the top prospects for good measure.

Michael Jackson, though? Completely stumped.

Freshman year of high school, a feeling of pure terror. During an English class, the teacher asked us to name our favorite song.

I knew a few songs by then, but not many.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to go first and used the time to think. Could I say, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game? What about “Roll out the Barrel”? Or, “I’m A Believer,” the song they played right after Brewers’ victories. I only later learned it was not sung by Bernie Brewer but The Monkees – (kidding, mostly).

All of those choices seemed a stretch. Then, for some reason a song I heard recently popped in my head. In one listen, the song grabbed me, the evocative lyrics spoke to me, made me want to visit a city in Tennessee.

So I answered “Walking in Memphis” by Marc Cohn; no one in my class had heard of it.

I drew blank looks while my race reddened. Fortunately, no one paid too much attention to my choice. Soon, we were onto the next kid.

Sophomore year of college at Indiana University, off to see Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, my first real concert. I drove back to Bloomington later that night inspired. While I never became particularly knowledgeable about music, I started buying CDs and attending shows. Over the years, I saw Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers U2, Billy Joel, and Dave Matthews Band multiple times.

First job out of college, I discovered Bruce Springsteen and was never the same. Saw Bruce and the E Street Band more than ten times and wore out his CDs.

While I never figured out dancing, I found my musical voice. Not singing myself, thank heavens, but knowing what I liked and enjoying and appreciating the power of music.

Today, if you asked me to pick out a favorite song, the hard part would be narrowing it down instead of searching for a real song that I could name.

You know what, though. While it’s not my all-time favorite anymore, my selection of “Walking in Memphis” actually holds up pretty well.

Through some online research, I recently learned a bit of the song’s fascinating backstory.

At age 28, Cohn, was still looking for his first recording contract. He felt time slipping away. Then, he read an interview where James Taylor recommended traveling to spark songwriting ideas.

Cohn had always wanted to visit Memphis and off he went.

In Memphis, he met many of the people and places he introduced in his “100 percent biographical” song – Reverend Al Green, Muriel Wilkins, the Hollywood Café. He saw Green preach and described it this way. “The service was so deeply moving that I found myself with sweat running down my face and tears in my eyes, totally enveloped by everything I was seeing.”

From there, he went to the Hollywood Cafe where he befriended Muriel, who was singing gospel songs. They started talking, and Cohn opened about the passing of his parents, who had both died when he was a child. She invited him on stage to sing with her and they closed the night with “Amazing Grace.” She then whispered in his ear, ‘child, you can let go now.’ “It was an incredibly maternal thing for her to say to me. … It was almost as if my mother was whispering in my ear,” Cohn said.

Cohn returned to New York City, knowing he had a song in his head. That trip and those experiences gave us “Walking in Memphis.”

Some musicians resent playing their biggest hit or grow to hate the song. This is anything but the case with Cohn.

In a funny, touching and inspirational preamble to “Walking in Memphis” at the Cornbury Music Festival in 2018, Cohn said, “over the years people ask me if I’m tired of playing that song – not even close. It’s a song essentially, even though it was about a personal journey, about the transformational power of music, and that’s something I could sing about until I drop dead in my boots. That’s why you’re here, and why I’m here, to be transformed by the power of music. It’s a mighty thing.”

For more of Cohn’s eloquence, let’s go to Tennessee and let him walk us off with "Walking in Memphis."