Talk:Memphis, Tennessee (song)

One forgetten cover version
The shadows -"Shades of Rock " LP.

Released 	19 October 1970 Recorded 	11 to 31 March 1970 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.250.108.102 (talk) 18:58, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Lonnie Mack's infobox single
Lonnie Mack's version of Memphis is very important in rock history. So i created new infobox single. LSM1204 (talk) 08:02, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

"took Marie"???
Why does the description suggest it was Marie's mother who left the narrator? The lyrics say that she "did not agree, and tore apart our happy home in Memphis, TN." That suggests that it was the narrator who left Memphis & Marie (presumably at the mother's insistence) - not that the mother or Marie went anywhere. The fact that he knows exactly where they live supports the idea that only the narrator left. I'd like to see that description re-worded, but I haven't come up with a replacement yet. Any objections? Steve8394 (talk) 23:55, 1 September 2019 (UTC)


 * I agree that it is an error for the article to indicate that it was Marie's mother who "left their home and took Marie with her." Their home was in Memphis, so she clearly did not leave the city.  He doesn't have the phone number, so the possibilities here are that she moved to a different place in the city, or simply had their number changed.


 * Here is Chuck Berry on Feb 6, 1965, giving a very short backstory behind the song:
 * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2qUP9ox6vI&t=18m10s


 * He seems clear that it is a true story. But gives little info beyond saying that "their family split up".  So while arguments could be made either way, it seems to me that the proper approach would be to leave this issue unanswered, as we were not given sufficient info in the lyrics, nor from this brief explanation he offered.  So the edit I made just now says this:


 * "The narrator offers little information to the operator at first, only that he misses Marie and that they were separated by Marie's mother. The final verse reveals that Marie is, in fact, the narrator's six-year-old daughter; her mother, presumably the narrator's ex-wife, "tore apart our happy home" because she "did not agree", as it turned out, with their marriage, not his relationship with Marie, as the listener was misdirected to assume."


 * Now if a more complete explanation comes to light, then this would need to be looked at again. But from what is known right now, this seems good to me.  Others might want to question whether the relationship between the narrator and Marie's mother was a marriage.  And for that matter, one could also question the exact relationship he had with Marie, as the song, nor Barry's explanation, specify that it was the man's daughter.  Further still, it was not specified that the narrator was even a man.  And all of this is not an exhaustive set of possibilities of this narrator having a relationship with a six year old named Marie --Concord19 (talk) 11:29, 1 August 2020 (UTC)