#22 - Memphis Lives in Me

Artist: David Bryan
Album: 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can't Be Wrong (Disc 3)
Other Versions: It's from the musical 'Memphis', so it's also sung by whoever's in that. That one guy.
Era: N/A (like with Richie, David's stuff doesn't really have distinctive eras)

Lyrics

100,000,000 was the first Bon Jovi cd I ever bought, back when I only knew the names of Jon and Richie, when I thought that "Just Older" was one of Jon's solo songs, when I kept getting confused as to why in some pictures there were five guys but as their hair got shorter they lost a guy. This was my initiation into Bon Jovi, and this song was my first glimpse of what David Bryan could really do. I've never looked back from either one.

David is extremely underrated as a songwriter, pianist, and singer. For my money, he's at least as good with his keyboard as Richie is with his guitar. It's just rock keyboardists by nature aren't really paid much attention to. To be honest, I probably couldn't name you one other than David . Although I could cheat and look at this Winger cd insert I have right next to me, and you'd never know. But I won't do that (ok, so it's Paul Taylor and he has bad eyebrows).

He has my favorite voice out of anyone in Bon Jovi, hands down. Richie and Jon don't even come close, and Tico's way out there (although his voice does have a charm to it). It took me a while to get used to hearing this smooth, deep, rich Elton John-esque voice when listening to the box set, it's just so odd next to Jon's.

The lyrics to "Memphis" are gorgeous. It's one of David's strong points, moreso even than the band's as a whole, that he can take you on this emotional journey of his choosing. "The blues sing softly in the air / like a Sunday morning prayer /one more drink and you'll see God everywhere" and "like a sad old melody / that tears you up but sets you free" are my favorite lyrics of all time. It's imagery and poetry and it's just beautiful.

I was never huge on listening to the instrumentation before this song, before I realized how good David is. Now I tend to focus on the piano. Try listening to "Bed of Roses", "Sleep When I'm Dead", "Last Cigarette", "It's My Life" paying real attention to the piano/keyboard. And it's not even debatable to me that the soul of "Runaway" comes from the keyboard and synth work. It's this song that got me paying attention to that, mostly because with this song it's just piano, you have to listen to it. It emphasizes everything about his voice, turning a beautiful song into a sublime emotional experience.

"Memphis Lives in Me" is an amazingly beautiful, intense song. And it's not even David's best. You could say I'm biased because of him being my favorite, but honestly, this being the song that made him my favorite, it has to be good.

My Rating: 9/10

Edited 3/25/06: Added lyrics