Writing and Inspiration
Marc Cohn said of the song, "It's 100 percent autobiographical. The moment I wrote it, I had no idea I was writing a hit, but I knew I was writing something that deeply defined so many facets of me — my conflicting feelings about religion, about my own state, my humor about it, my acceptance about everybody in terms of what they believe. … It's not a religious thing for me, it's just deeply moving. And I guess that's all in that line…It's so funny — people often think that I'm Christian or born-again, from not only that song, but others. In a way, I like that. There's nothing clear about what I'm writing, in terms of spirituality. But to me, that line could have only been written by a Jew. It's such a Jewish line, and I love that." Cohn later explained the imagery: "It's a pretty literal transcription of a visit I made there in 1986. I went to Graceland, I heard Al Green preach the gospel, I saw W.C. Handy's statue. But the song is about more than just a place, it's about a kind of spiritual awakening, one of those trips where you're different when you leave. The main part of the trip is the last verse - a lady named Muriel." Cohn said when he was 32, he met Muriel Witkins, a little-known club singer and pianist, at a restaurant an hour outside town. "I talked to her for an hour and then she invited me up to sing. She ended up changing my life. She had an incredible effect on me, not only as a musician, but as a person. She saw things in me and shared things with me that I don't normally talk about, mostly revolving around my parents, who died when I was pretty young." Cohn credited as the inspiration to write "Walking in Memphis" and the other songs that appear on Marc Cohn, his debut album. Cohn addressed the mention of Elvis Presley and expressed that he almost regrets mentioning Presley in the song. "To me, the song is so minimally about him, but I worry that it gets cast off as another Elvis tribute. It's a testament to the power of his name, even if you just mention it in one verse, the song becomes about him because people focus on it."
Read more about this topic: Walking In Memphis
Famous quotes containing the words writing and/or inspiration:
“‘Tis hard to say, if greater want of skill
Appear in writing or in judging ill;”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“Shakespeare carries us to such a lofty strain of intelligent activity, as to suggest a wealth which beggars his own; and we then feel that the splendid works which he has created, and which in other hours we extol as a sort of self-existent poetry, take no stronger hold of real nature than the shadow of a passing traveller on the rock. The inspiration which uttered itself in Hamlet and Lear could utter things as good from day to day, for ever.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)