5 Songs For Martin Luther King Jr. Day

2. Motel In Memphis - Old Crow Medicine Show

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOQzFhsoZ0w Old Crow Medicine Show's somber tune Motel In Memphis revisits the crime scene forcing you to imagine the events that transpired on that day in 1968. It's a poignant and ghostly portrait of a scene from American History. From the album Tennessee Pusher The Old Crow Medicine show combine bluegrass, string band and rock and roll to paint a vivid an eerie picture of the events of King's death and some of the aftermath. The Americana band sang "Did you tremble when you thought about the future, and cry out for a modern man". The song is all the more haunting as it asks questions of the listener instead of lamenting to them. The songs asks you to confront what happened and it wants you to tremble for a future without such an incredible human being. Old Crow Medicine Show then turn the song into a mythical folk status by saying "Run and tell somebody, there's blood on the riverside, old muddy water, rollin' through Memphis, if you were there you'd swear it was more than a man who died" turning MLK into a folk hero. Martin Luther King Jr is certainly more than a man, and now his ideals and philosophies are celebrated, but this song takes you back to one of the darkest days in American history and asks "Where you there?", not in a literal sense, but instead asking you if you were with him in belief.