Cairo, Illinois - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

Film/video

• In True Grit (1969), the character Rooster Cogburn tells Mattie that after the Civil War, he got married and moved to Cairo where he opened a bar.
• Huckleberry Finn (1974) contains a song, "Cairo, Illinois".
• Country music singer Josh Thompson filmed the music video in downtown Cairo for his hit song "Way Out Here" (2010).
• Christian music singer Chris Tomlin's music video for his new song "I Lift My Hands" had portions of the video shot in Cairo (2011).
• Film-makers Jacob Cartwright and Nick Jordan's feature-length documentary "Between Two Rivers" (2012) is about Cairo.

Literature

• Cairo was the original destination for Huck and Jim in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, as they planned to paddle up the Ohio River to obtain freedom for Jim. They sailed past Cairo by mistake and ended up in the slave state of Arkansas instead. Twain also noted Cairo in his non-fiction Life on the Mississippi.
• In the nationally produced play Mother Hicks, Jake moves his family from Ware to Cairo during the Great Depression in search of work.
• Bill Bryson notes his visit to the small town in his book The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America.
• In the 20th c. fantasy American Gods by Neil Gaiman, Cairo was the home to Egyptian Gods: Thoth, Anubis and Bast.
• Charles Dickens visited Cairo in 1842 and was unimpressed with what he saw as a disease-ridden backwater. It became the model for the town of Eden in his 1843–44 novel, Martin Chuzzlewit

Music

• "Way Down in Cairo" by Stephen Foster, the great American songwriter of the 19th century.
• In 1916 Billy Murray had a #10 hit record with "When You Drop Off at Cairo, Illinois".
• "Cairo Blues" written by Henry Spaulding in 1929. Performed by Henry Townsend and later by Geoff Muldaur and the Texas Sheiks.
• "Road To Cairo" by cult American singer-songwriter David Ackles, was later covered by Julie Driscoll Brian Auger (Trinity).
• Josh Ritter's "Monster Ballads" also refers to Cairo.
• The town of Cairo mentioned in the song "Saint Louis Blues" is most likely Cairo, Illinois.
• The musician Stace England produced a concept music CD called Greetings From Cairo, Illinois (2005), inspired by the city's turbulent history.
• "Cairo, Illinois" by Pokey Lafarge, from his solo album, Beat, Move, and Shake (2008).

Sports

• Cairo had its own minor-league baseball team (variously known as the Egyptians, Champions and Giants) in the Kentucky-Illinois-Tennessee League from 1903–06, 1911–14 and 1922–24.
• The Saint Louis Cardinals of baseball's National League held their spring training camp in Cairo from 1943–1945.