The 1985 Journey That Birthed ‘Walking In Memphis’

A blocked 28-year-old songwriter walked into Memphis in 1985. What he found there became a 1991 single that still lands without a hint of nostalgia.

In late 1985, Marc Cohn was a 28-year-old session singer in New York, buried in self-doubt and writer’s block. He’d spent years trying to land a deal. One night, listening to his demos, he realized the problem wasn’t the industry. It was the songs. “I didn’t have any great songs yet,” he told Keyboard Magazine years later. James Taylor had written Fire And Rain at 18. Jackson Browne wrote These Days at 17. Cohn felt the clock ticking.

Desperation sent him to Memphis. He’d read an interview with Taylor, who said traveling somewhere new sometimes cracked his own blocks. Memphis wasn’t random. Cohn picked it because so much of the music he loved came from there. The trip started with tourist moves—Graceland, the tomb—but a friend pointed him toward two experiences that