Walking In Memphis
By Marc Cohn
Put on my blue suede shoes
And I boarded the plane
Touched down in the land of the Delta Blues
In the middle of the pouring rain
W.C. Handy --
Won't you look down over me
Yeah, I've got a first class ticket
But I'm as blue as a boy can be
Then I'm walking in Memphis
Walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale
Walking in Memphis
But do I really feel the way I feel
Saw the ghost of Elvis
On Union Avenue
Followed him up to the gates of Graceland
And I watched him walk right through
Now security they did not see him
They just hovered 'round his tomb
But there's a pretty little thing waiting for the King
Down in the Jungle Room
When I was walking in Memphis
Walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale
Walking in Memphis
But do I really feel the way I feel
They've got catfish on the table
They've got gospel in the air
And Reverend Green be glad to see you
When you haven't got a prayer
But boy you got a prayer in Memphis
Now Muriel plays piano
Every Friday at the Hollywood
And they brought me down to see her
And they asked me if I would
Do a little number
And I sang with all my might
She said, "Tell me, are you a Christian child?"
And I said, "Ma'am, I am tonight"
Walking in Memphis
I was walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale
Walking in Memphis
But do I really feel the way I feel
Put on my blue suede shoes
And I boarded the plane
Touched down in the land of the Delta Blues
In the middle of the pouring rain
Touched down in the land of the Delta Blues
In the middle of the pouring rain
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Okay, apparently y'all are going to have to content yourselves with song lyrics until we get out of Nashville. And ironically enough it isn't even Elvis or Johnny Cash or BB King who are stuck in my head -- one can hear them around here easily -- but things that remind me of things that I can't listen to because I don't have the CDs with me! We'll be in Nashville in the morning and I'd post the Indigo Girls' lyrics of the same name if I could figure out the punctuation and breaks from the printed music, which Amy Ray has not deigned to post on the web site.
We were in three states on Wednesday, including one I'd never been in before -- Mississippi, where we had lunch specifically so we could say that we had had lunch in Mississippi (I have now been in most of the 48 contiguous states, though I'd have to sit down and look at a map to figure out which I've missed...definitely Alabama and Louisiana). But before that we went to Graceland, on the deluxe tour that includes the car museum, airplanes and all those fun sideshows as well as the mansion. I like Elvis and know a reasonable amount about him, but given that there were people in full Elvis regalia and sniffling at his tomb, I cannot compete.
The house itself was smaller than I was expecting, and unpretentious in a way -- kitchen in the same harvest gold-type colors we had in my house in the '70s, Jungle Room more high tackiness than any reflection of wealth, and he had red shag carpet and a faux fur bed with mirrors and all sorts of other cheesy wonderful stuff! I mean, there are also rooms and rooms of gold records and the like, but given how much he must have been worth, it seems like he could have lived much more like a king...collecting cars notwithstanding, there wasn't a lot of serious affectation of wealth in evidence except on his plane, the Lisa Marie. Sure the guy can have a pool and a pool room among his multiple music rooms! I'd love to know what's in the closed-off upstairs bedrooms. I wonder whether George Bush and the Japanese Ambassador will get to see when they're here in a couple of days.
In the afternoon we went to the Memphis Zoo, which is beautifully put together: their pandas, for instance, are housed in a Chinese pavilion with architecture and art from China, and a lot of other animals live in enclosures designed with artificial artifacts from the part of the world they're from. Of course our first mission was to see the penguins, which we did -- African penguins here in an outdoor exhibit along with cormorants and cranky pelicans who tried to bite the other birds to get their fish because the pelicans don't move as quickly. There's also an excellent tropical bird house, herpetorium and a seasonal exhibit on arachnids with some really impressive spiders! We didn't spend a huge amount of time at the zoo, as we wanted to see Beale Street before the evening dinner crowd started to arrive (we figured the kids would never last through a meal and a set of the blues at that point).
We had been warned that the neighborhood right off Beale was very questionable, which proved to be the case -- there were some decidedly scary people in the parking lot and a number of others begging for food and money between the lot and the corner where B.B. King's blues club and company store stand. There was live blues in W.C. Handy Park and another trio playing on the street between two restaurants, several of which also had acts warming up inside. We didn't stay long as we were all very hot and tired, and had promised to let the kids swim for awhile if they agreed to be schlepped around, but we did stop to take photos at Sun Studio, where Elvis got started!
The front parlor and music room. Flash photography was not allowed indoors in any of the buildings.
It is difficult to come up with adjectives for some of the decor. The Jungle Room, for instance...which I somehow expected to be bigger, and did not expect Lisa Marie's teddy bear in such a prominent position.
One of Elvis' innumerable fabulous outfits. It is really difficult to pick a favorite.
Pilgrims at the graves of Elvis, his parents and grandmother.
The penguin photo for the day: as these African penguins eat, a pelican prepares to bite a cormorant in vain hope of getting fish.
Looking down Beale Street at the blues clubs.
And to come full circle back to Elvis, here on Union Avenue is Sun Studio where it all began.
Sounds like things are very scary on the east coast. We caught a bit of Larry King Live about the flooding around DC, MD and VA and older son freaked out a bit. Hope everyone is all right and keeping dry! We've had lots of heat but other than that one storm in Ohio, blue skies. We drove over the Mississippi flood plain in Arkansas earlier, but it was mostly dry.
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