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Johnny Rivers - Memphis

Johnny Rivers - Memphis Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Johnny Rivers At The Whisky a Go Go
Released: 1964

Memphis Lyrics

Long distance information, give me Memphis Tennessee
Help me find the party trying to get in touch with me
She could not leave her number, but I know who placed the call
Cause my uncle took the message and he wrote it on the wall

Help me, information, get in touch with my Marie
She's the only one who'd phone me here from Memphis Tennessee
Her home is on the south side, high up on a ridge
Just a half a mile from the Mississippi Bridge

Help me, information, more than that I cannot add
Only that I miss her and all the fun we had
But we were pulled apart because her mom did not agree
And tore apart our happy home in Memphis Tennessee

Last time I saw Marie she's waving me good-bye
With hurry home drops on her cheek that trickled from her eye
Marie is only six years old, information please
Try to put me through to her in Memphis Tennessee

Writer/s: C. BERRY
Publisher: BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Memphis Song Chart

Chuck Berry wrote this and recorded it in 1959 as "Memphis, Tennessee." It languished as the B-side of his Back In The U.S.A. single, but was revived when the white blues guitarist Lonnie Mack covered it in 1963. With the title shortened to "Memphis," his version went to #5 in the US.

Johnny Rivers, who had some success as a songwriter (Rick Nelson's "I'll Make Believe"), but had yet to score a hit as an artist, landed a regular gig in 1963 at the Whisky a Go Go, a popular club on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles (The Doors would later make their mark playing shows at The Whiskey). In 1964 he released a live album recorded at the club called Johnny Rivers At The Whisky a Go Go, with "Memphis" issued as a single. It became a huge hit for Rivers, going to #2 in America and launching a career that included nine Top 10 singles. He also had tremendous influence on the business side; he started a record label called Soul City which signed the Fifth Dimension and Jimmy Webb .

This song tells quite a story and has an interesting twist ending. We hear about the singer getting a phone call from a girl who wouldn't leave a number, but he knows it came from Memphis, Tennessee. He calls the operator, trying to locate his girl Marie (which conveniently rhymes with "Tennessee"), who he thinks is the one trying to reach him. At the end of the song, we find out that Marie is his six-year-old daughter, and that he is a divorced father trying desperately to get in touch with her.

Chuck Berry drew on accounts he heard from friends and acquaintances to craft his lyric. "I had known couples who had divorced and the tragedies of the children," he said.

Rivers followed up this song with another Chuck Berry cover: "Maybellene," which went to #12 in the US.

In February 1972, John Lennon and Yoko Ono spent a week hosting The Mike Douglas Show. During this stint, Lennon performed this song and "Johnny B. Goode" with Chuck Berry, who Lennon referred to as "my hero." (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)

This song made a return to the charts in 1981 when Fred Knoblock's cover made #10 on the Country charts and bubbled under at #102 on the Hot 100.