Tunesday : Walking in Memphis

Dave in Memphis

Walking in Memphis

Written and Performed 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 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
Then 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

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

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've 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
And she said
"Tell me are you a Christian child?"
And I said "Ma'am I am tonight"

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

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 

Last week I wrote about my wedding day, so this week is on to the Honeymoon. As with the details of our actual wedding (which we refused to obsess over since we were planning everything long distance), we also decided to play everything by ear in its aftermath. When we started thinking about where we should go, Dave said he'd like to see Memphis,  I suggested New Orleans, and when my mother offered us the use of her Jeep in case we wanted to drive somewhere, we decided to take her up on it and motor to both of our proposed destinations. The song this week was a no-brainer: As we set off on our adventure, the newly released Walking in Memphis was in constant play on the radio, and it felt like the approving hand of Fate guiding us to where we'd learn the meaning behind the words we were singing along with, but didn't really understand  (What is a 'Beale'?).

We opened our gifts the morning after the wedding, so Dave and I didn't hit the road until after lunch. It's funny to think about now, but we left with no agenda, no hotel reservations, and not even a credit card; we had a stack of cash and a couple of maps. With his mangled foot, and the fact that Mum's Cherokee was a standard transmission, I needed to do most of the driving; which was fine by me. 

We soon crossed over into Detroit, and making our first mistake, we somehow left the freeway and ended up needing to snake through an inner-city neighbourhood to find our way back to it. It was crazy hot that day, and as we slowly made our way along the unfamiliar streets, the tenement stoops were crowded with adults watching their young kids splash through opened fire hydrants; warily watching us drive by like the interlopers we were. Now, we were from Edmonton - a large city and, at the time, the murder capital of Canada - but I had never before in my life felt that my white skin (and foreign plates) had marked me so clearly as an outsider; and although neither of us actually felt unsafe or threatened, we knew that we didn't belong there, watching and smiling at other people's children. Of course, we made it back to the freeway without incident.

That first day we drove across Michigan and Ohio, and just to say that we made it right through those two states, after getting dinner in Cincinnati (because of WKRP; we love the old sitcoms), we crossed over into Covington, Kentucky for the night. Dave and I went to a liquor store and I got kicked out because I didn't bring my I.D. (with a drinking age of 18 in Alberta, I wasn't used to getting carded any more at 23), and the clerk nearly refused service to Dave because he had never heard of Alberta and wasn't certain he could accept Dave's driver's license as I.D. (We had been told beforehand that if anyone didn't recognise the name "Alberta", we should explain that it was a new state formed on the border of Alabama and Georgia; I thought that was a joke; it might have worked on this guy.) In the end, Dave got served. On a related note: Mum gave me her Esso card to use as needed and the one time we tried to pay with it at an Exxon gas station, the attendant refused it, despite it clearly saying on the back that it could be used at Exxons, except in a few states out west. When I pointed out that writing, the attendant said he couldn't put through the card because the state we were in wasn't listed on the back. I tried, again, to explain why that was a good thing, but the young man was very confused, we had the cash, and I never tried to pull out the Esso card again.

It's a seven hour drive from Covington to Memphis, and as we weren't interested in much in between, we bee-lined it to our first major stop. Like I said, we had no reservations, but Dave plotted us a route that would take us past the gates of Graceland, and having been born lucky, we got a room directly across the street at the Memory Lane Inn. That hotel/motel isn't there any more, but it was kitschily perfect for us: a guitar-shaped swimming pool, pictures of Elvis over the bed, a dedicated channel on the TV for Elvis movies. We got settled in, got the lay of the land around us to plot the next day's sightseeing (we found ourselves in Elvis Central for the touristy stuff), and decided to have an early night. As the sun went down we stepped out onto the common balcony that ran past our door - overlooking the swimming pool, facing those Graceland gates - and the woman from next door was also out leaning against the railing and she started to chat. She was from Houston, didn't think she had ever met Canadians before, and we were having a nice conversation until she sighed and said, "It's just too bad there's so many darkies in this city that decent folk can't be out at night." Dave must have been pretty tired to have not exploded at that comment, but the woman could certainly see the frost that came over us as we nodded a good night and retreated to our room. Yes, I have always been naive about racism, and yes, I admit to having felt uncomfortable in inner-city Detroit just a day earlier, but this was the ugliest thing I had ever heard anyone say and I felt terrible that this woman thought we were all in the same boat. Enough about her.

Of Memphis I remember: eating fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches for breakfast at the Hound Dog Cafe next door to the hotel; touring Graceland (so tacky, but Dave loved it) and adding on the tours of Elvis' tour bus and his private jet the Lisa Marie (also tacky); going to the Peabody Hotel to watch the daily marching of their famous domesticated ducks; touring Sun Records and eating lunch at the diner next door (on Union Avenue, as in this week's song); taking a horse and carriage historical tour; having amazing Bar-B-Q at B. B. King's restaurant and being disappointed by the food (but delighted with the music) at the Rum Boogie Cafe (both on Beale Street); seeing where Elvis bought his shirts, where he went to high school. The best part was how excited Dave was to see all of this; I was happy because he was happy.

Me and Dave in New Orleans

After a couple of days, we were heading south again;  5 1/2 hours from Memphis to New Orleans. We motored across Mississippi, the corner of Alabama, and the better part of Louisiana; crossing the long Pontchartrain Causeway into the Big Easy - talk about a dramatic entrance. I wrote here about the Haunts of New Orleans tour we took, and I remember eating great food, buying Hurricanes from takeout windows along Bourbon Street and walking along, sampling amazing live music from here and there. Sour note: Walking back to our hotel one evening, looking up at the old timey facades and ironwork balconies and considering ourselves lucky to be there, we were following behind a slightly older-than-us white couple, who were following behind a trio of young black teenagers, and the man in front of us said to his partner, too loudly, "If they give us any trouble, I'll just give them some of this", and then he waved his umbrella like a sword at the backs of the kids (one of whom turned around, noted the waving umbrella, raised an eyebrow at the man, and kept walking). Yes, I'm naive, and maybe I just don't see this around me here, but being in the South was a different world to us Canadians. Happy highlight: We got dressed up one evening and went on a Dixieland Riverboat Cruise - aboard a sternwheeler (the Riverboat Natchez) on the Mississippi; how Mark Twain - and I loved that evening (and note the irony of having a great time on the very river that gave the horrifying expression "being sold down the river" its name). Back on the road, and as we had no real plans, Dave wanted to backtrack to Tupelo and Elvis' birthplace.

There's quite an Elvis industry in Tupelo - but only one really shabby motel at the time, yuck - and we took a tour of the Presley family home and nosed about in the hardware store where Gladys Presley bought Elvis' first guitar; saw whatever else was important to Dave. Maybe we drove once more through Memphis as we passed through Tennessee - or did we just talk about it? - but after crossing Missouri, our next stop was St. Louis, and I remember being impressed by the sight of the sun setting across the Mississippi behind the Gateway Arch as we entered along a long interstate bridge. I do regret not touristing at the Arch before we hit the road the next day - I didn't realise you could go up to the top inside of it until years later - but I was tiring of life on the road, we were getting low on cash (and had no way to get more; how strange that sounds in a world of credit cards and ATM machines), and I was happy to be heading north again.

The next day we crossed through Illinois, headed for Indianapolis (just to say we had been to the birthplace of David Letterman) and stopped for the night in Fort Wayne (because that's where Taylor is from in Planet of the Apes; it's all about the pop culture). We stopped early enough that Dave went to the store and got us some white T-shirts and neon paints and we made ourselves "Dave and Krista's Honeymoon Tour 1991" souvenirs; complete with city names and dates, which we were wearing when we got home the next day.

We had made it back - in a planned/unplanned kind of a way - in time to go with Dave and Heather up to their family cottage in the Huntsville area, and after all the driving and bustle of the previous ten or so days, it felt good to lay in the sun and listen to the birdsong and watch the sunlight spark off the dark lake water. And doing it all with my favourite guy.

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