My home, Memphis, is referenced in the lyrics of more recorded songs than any other city on the planet. In fact, several years ago, the Rock n Soul Museum began keeping a list of those songs, which now numbers over a thousand. So, it’s hard to pick just one song that reminds me of “home”– there are entire genres that do!– and different songs remind me of home for widely different reasons. Some “sound” like Memphis, some tell stories that are (to my ear, anyway) distinctly Memphis stories, some have associations with Memphis that only Memphians would associate (e.g., “All I Do Is Win” as the unofficial Grizzlies theme song). It’s an embarrassment of riches, really.
I’m going to make this short and sweet today, since I write so frequently on this blog about Memphis music. I’m picking a song that wasn’t written by a Memphian or recorded by a Memphian. I’m picking the Tom T. Hall song “That’s I Got To Memphis” but specifically the version that Solomon Burke recorded for his 2006 album Nashville. Here it is:
I like the idea that people get to Memphis by loving somebody enough, by going where their hearts want to go, by following a trail of tears, or just by searching for someone who got mad enough to come back home. I know a lot of people who got to Memphis those ways. I know even more who got here by some combination of accident, twist of fate and mislaid plans. It doesn’t much matter how you get here in the end. Memphis takes in all kinds, for all kinds of reasons. Just get here.
Runners-up: Ike and Tina Turner’s “Proud Mary”; DJ Khaled’s “All I Do Is Win”; Willie Mitchell’s “Soul Serenade; Otis Redding “A Change Is Gonna Come”
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