“Many cities make music, but no city breathes music quite like Memphis.”
- Shawn Amos
On my new album All of It's True…None of It Happened, there is a song called Dead Elvis Day. I think I touched on some of it in an earlier post, but I thought it might be fun to break it down a little bit.
I wrote it based on my 30-plus years in Memphis during the annual August commemoration/celebration of Elvis' death, known as Elvis Week. It is seven days of various Elvis-centric events that culminates on August 16th, the anniversary of his death. It's as weird as you might imagine with thousands of Elvis freaks from all over the country and the world descending on the city. I took some of my own memories and knowledge of the jubilee week and threaded them together. Largely, they're from the 1990s, when I was more inclined to be, as my dad would say, “out there among 'em.”
Here goes:
First Verse:
Man, we were drippin' sweat, they said it was the hottest August yet: If you've ever spent an August in Memphis, you understand. Oppressive doesn't quite capture it. I once joked in an early song I wrote that it wasn't the drugs that killed Elvis, it was the humidity.
But down on the bluff, we were feelin' alright: The Bluff is the part of downtown Memphis that overlooks the Mississippi River. Below the Bluff, among other things, is Tom Lee Park. It's named for Tom Lee, a black man and river worker who saved the lives of 32 passengers of a sinking steamship in 1925. Lots goes on in the park. For many years both The World Champion Barbecue Competition and The Beale Street Music Festival were held there. Many other events go on too and if you're so inclined, chances are you might end up “feelin' alright.”
The river rolled by to New Orleans and the city was full of Japanese: The river of course, the Mississippi, is a defining feature of the city as it is for every town and city along it's course. Jump on a barge or river boat and you'll be in New Orleans in no time. As for the Japanese, their mention represent all the various foreign visitors to the city.
At the gates, everybody was jammed in tight: It references the famous gates to Graceland where people congregate in mass and where many write graffiti on the stone wall to the east of it.
On Airways some guy was shot, body was found in a vacant lot, ninety-first one that year so far: In any major city, there are areas and streets when they're mentioned, conjure negative reactions. Airways Boulevard in Memphis is one of those. The residence of the city are so desensitized to crime that the discovery of a dead guy in a vacant lot would hardly make the news. I'm probably a little low on my number of homicides that far into the year, but that's rock and roll.
It was almost to the centuries end, the council was on the take again, and the cars were chokin' the Blvd:
The reflections come from the 90s, almost the end of the century. I wanted to use “millennium's end” but it was too hard to say. Historically, the Memphis City Council has been corrupt, populated by scoundrels and knaves. I know first hand of one member that was “on the take.” Elvis Presley Boulevard takes you to Graceland and at certain times, it's heavy with traffic.
Chorus:
Man, they came from far and near, same place, same time each year: August 10-16, every year.
Single file past the grave…Dead Elvis Day. Elvis is buried at Graceland in what's called “Meditation Gardens.” There along with him are his parents, Gladys and Vernon Presley, his grandmother Minnie Mae Presley, his daughter Lisa Marie Presley and his grandson, Benjamin Keough. I have images of TV footage that have stayed in my mind, of mourners filing past Elvis' grave, solemn and single file.
Second Verse:
At Huey's down on Madison, some drunk chick was wavin' a gun, up from Natchez to mourn the King: Huey's is a Memphis institution. It's a bar/restaurant specializing in great burgers and steak fries. It was founded by Memphian Thomas Boggs, who in his early twenties was the drummer for the popular band The Box Tops. There are ten Huey's now in the area but the original one is down in Midtown on Madison. It's a cool place. As for the drunk chick wavin' the gun, well it's just an average night in Memphis. She's from Natchez because I know a girl from there, so why not?
The night was glowin' with the candlelights, and blue lights flashin' at the drive-bys: There is an annual Candlelight Vigil every August 15, the eve before Elvis' passing. It starts at the gates and participants are allowed to file up the driveway with their candle and pay respects at the grave site. It's a whole thing since 1978. Lotta blue lights flashin' in Memphis, and drive-by shootings too.
In the park (Tom Lee) it was B.B. and Little Feat: My friend Bill was in town for a visit (Danny too, but he had to leave early) in 1994 during the Elvis weekend. We ran the Elvis Presley 5K and Bill and I went down on the Bluff one night and saw Little Feat and B.B.King on an outdoor stage. Man, it was hot!
You gotta be careful at the traffic lights, it's a roll of the dice you bet your life, best you just keep lookin' straight ahead: If you've lived in a big dangerous city, you know what I'm talking about.
They were havin' a ball at the P&H, waitin' for the band to take the stage, gonna try and resurrect the dead: The P&H is a scroungy dive bar on Madison in Midtown that has an annual Dead Elvis Ball. Bill and I attended. I have the t-shirt.
Chorus and filthy guitar solo by Jeff Smith.
Third Verse:
There was a preacher on the corner with a 40 ounce on Union almost downtown: Flannery O'Connor termed the South “Christ-Haunted.” That's true and because of it, preachers show up in many forms.
Somebody sprayed graffiti on the General's tomb: A statue of General Nathan Bedford Forrest on his steed stood in Forrest Park from 1901 until 2017 when it was relocated along with his and his wife's remains. Forrest was a brilliant Confederate calvary general and after the war was the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. As you might imagine, the statue was controversial.
The air was stinkin', thick as sin, the Pyramid was fallin' in: If you've been to the city in August you know the air is jungle thick and smells like a cross between sulfur and a truck driver's t-shirt. The Pyramid, ah, the Pyramid…Memphis' sister city is Memphis, Egypt, so you see what they were trying to do there. It seemed like a boondoggle from it's very inception in 1991. Sitting downtown on the Mississippi River by the I-40 bridge, it was designed as an all purpose facility for sports, concerts and the like. It functioned in that capacity for fifteen years before it was deemed structurally deficient. The Egyptian pyramids have lasted since 2780 BC - One score for the Memphis Pyramid which shuttered in 2007. It sat derelict for eight years. My buddy Tim and his wife lived downtown on the Bluff. He and I ran five marathons together. We used to run down in his area a lot training for those. We'd run from his house down along the river and eventually run past and around the Pyramid. Those years that it was fallow, it was kind of creepy down there at night, grass was grown up and a general feeling of blight pervaded the area. One night we were running by there and I said to Tim, “You know, this just feels like a place where somebody would dump a body.” Sure enough, the very next week, I heard on the local news that a body was discovered in front of the Pyramid by the Ramses statue. Okay, then. Finally, BassPro entered into some agreement with the city, retooled the place and put in a big store there. Memphis, saved by a Springfield, MO boy.
And on Beale you could hear a boogie-woogie tune: Beale is a legendary street downtown with a long and colorful history. I don't know many locals who go down there much unless they have something very specific to do. Perhaps go to something at the Orpheum which is at the far west end, or to the New Daisy Theatre for a concert at the other end. It's about as likely for natives to go to Beale Street just to go as it would be for some resident of New Orleans to go to Bourbon Street. But, because it's a tourist area, and Memphis is famous for music, you'll hear a bit of everything coming out of clubs, blues, country, and yes, boogie-woogie.
Chorus and Out.