Walking In Memphis by Marc Cohn

Matt, what are you listening to?!?

Last Tuesday, I put my car into the shop for a scheduled maintenance so my father-in-law let me borrow one of his cars for the day. The only drawback to my father-in-laws car is the fact that it doesn’t have an ipod hookup in its stereo system (though it does have an audio cassette player, which I doubt has ever been used). In my car, I have an ipod hook up so I’m usually listening to mixes that I make or podcast on the way to work.

As I’m driving to work with a friend I carpool with, we are listening to what happened to be in the CD player which was Taylor Swift's first album. My brother-in-law Matt used this car all summer to get to work, so I knew it was his CD. He was the one who introduced me to Taylor Swift. I swooned over how great “Love Story” is in a previous post but I’m not as big a fan of the first album (though I find “Picture To Burn” hilarious) and anyways my friend in the car isn’t that into her.



The only other CD we could find in this car was a burned mix that was labeled illegibly, the best I could make out was “Scoone 2 + Mix.” Matt introduced me to Taylor, loved that stuff, so I figured I’d check out this other CD he left in the car. We put it in and we find it’s rave music. I’ve never been to a rave, I don’t know anything about rave culture of rave music except for the fact that sometimes glow stick are involved.

My friend and I are giving each song about 30 seconds and finding one dance song after another, sometimes we can decipher what song is being remixed other times we have no idea. I'm not a big fan of this style of music, don’t hate it, just not that into it, especially during an early morning commute. Then we got to a track that had the piano track to “Let It Be.” We both exhaled and relaxed ready to enjoy one the greatest rock songs of all time, and then instead of hearing Paul McCartney's voice enter, we hear Shaggy.



“It Wasn’t Me” mashed up with “Let It Be.” What in God’s name are you listening to Matt?!? My head can’t even begin to explain what is so wrong about this mix. The juxtapositions of these two songs while inventive is just plain wrong. I need a whole post dedicated to this mix to wrap my brain around it.

We can only stand listening to this mix for about 40 seconds and then we move on. What I hear a couple tracks later is the opening piano line to “Walking In Memphis.” Last week, I downloaded “Walking In Memphis” by Marc Cohn off of itunes. I planned to do an analysis of this song that I've found that many people love and connect with. Even though it’s a little adult contemporary, it paints a beautiful picture with cultural references that echo back to songs like “American Pie” capturing a time and place in a unique and unforgettable way.



Instead of Marc Cohn there's a European guy singing about getting prepared to go raving. Instead of singing “walking in Memphis” he sang, “I’m raving, I’m raving.”



As my friend sat in disbelief, I actually started enjoying this song. It was kind of making fun of raving and utilizing the nostalgia of “Walking In Memphis” to comment on the fun of going to a rave in a mocking almost Saturday Night Live kind of way.

Then after the first chorus, to my utter shock and disbelief, “Scotland The Brave” enters.



Probably the most famous Scottish bagpipe song beside “Amazing Grace,” “Scottish the Brave” in a patriotic song and rousing melody that exemplifies the spirit of Scottish music.

Okay, let me try to wrap my brain around this one. Here’s a song based on “Walking In Memphis” a song about an American city, used to sing about raving, a dance almost trance-like experience paired with a Scottish pipe tune. Maybe, Scooter the German band that did this remix, um, didn’t want to seem too American, so they threw in a little dash of Scottish to balance out the Elvis references.

Arrgh, my brain can’t handle this. Too many cultural implications, crashing together.

Matt, what's going on? How are you listening to this stuff? It's not so much that this is "bad" music, but rather it's baffling. You're my brother-in-law and the longer I know you the more I simply think of you as a brother, but really Matt? "Put on my raving shoes?" Are you kidding?

sigh

Honestly, this Mix CD made me laugh out loud which I really needed heading back to work after a long weekend. Thanks for leaving that CD in the car. It totally made my day.