Stories and Dreams: The Promised Land

Stories and Dreams: The Promised Land

The dogs on main street howl,

'cause they understand,

If I could take one moment into my hands

Mister, I ain't a boy, no, I'm a man,

And I believe in a promised land.

                                                              --Bruce Springsteen

Today I wind up the Stories and Dreams trilogy with reflections on "The Promised Land."  The words above are from a song with that title, and Elvis Presley had an album of the same title.  This idea of a Promised Land is certainly part of the mythology of American music -- a place where all is perfect, where what is important rules, where we are all One.  For some Memphis is the Promised Land.  For others, Nashville or Chicago or New York or LA.  Anyone who dreams lives to find the Promised Land in some way, shape, or form.

We visited the Rock and Soul Museum in Memphis that gave a detailed history of what we had already experienced in Mississippi -- how the hard work of the cotton fields and difficult employment led to the blues, and the blues were carried up Highway 61 to Memphis and came alive on Beale Street.  This museum made a clear connection between blues, country, and gospel, and how they built into the forms of rock and roll and soul music.

Near the end of the tour, there were plaques which made note of special events in the world or rock and roll and popular music in general. These included items such as Elton John singing at Princess Diana's funeral, and the Kanye West/Taylor Swift debacle.  However, there was one event I don't believe I knew about, and it involved Bruce Springsteen in 1975.

Elvis statue, Beale Street

This was the year of Bruce, and he made the cover of Time and Newsweek magazines the same week.  While touring in Memphis, he decided he wanted to meet Elvis Presley.  So he scaled the wall at Graceland and went right up to the door and knocked.  Presley was not home, and Springsteen was escorted off the grounds.  From what I understand, Springsteen never did meet Elvis.

For Bruce, the Promised Land had not come with the hit album or the magazine covers. There was still more to seek, and more to find.  Reading about this, I found this quote from Springsteen, a reflection on the event he spoke from the stage at a concert years later:

The passing of the King of Rock

"Later on, I used to wonder what I would have said if I had knocked on the door and if Elvis had come to the door. Because it really wasn't Elvis I was goin' to see, but it was like he came along and whispered some dream in everybody's ear and somehow we all dreamed it. And maybe that's why we're here tonight, I don't know. I remember later when a friend of mine called to tell me that he'd died. It was so hard to understand how somebody whose music came in and took away so many people's loneliness and gave so many people a reason and a sense of all the possibilities of living could have in the end died so tragically. And I guess when you're alone, you ain't nothin' but alone."




What Bruce seems to be saying is that we have a dream together, but each of us has to get there alone.  I am struck by the headline above: "Lonely Life Ends."  How is it that dreams we share, stories we live, the promised land we aspire to, makes us end up feeling so lonely and alone?  

I don't know that I have the answer.  Because there is something even more intense in Memphis that reflects this very same concept. And that is the Lorraine Motel, and what happened there.

Now the site of a Civil Rights Museum

You might say this is where the dream ended.  Visiting the various museums, studios, and Graceland, I couldn't help but notice it was primarily white people visiting these sites.  But when I got to the Lorraine Motel, it was primarily black people.  It helps me to realize that we still have a long way to go before we reach that Promised Land together.  That as intertwined as our stories and dreams are, they can still be miles apart.

This brings me to the story of music related to the night Martin Luther King was assassinated.  I first heard this story at the Rock and Soul Museum, as they had an excellent exhibit regarding that tumultuous time in Memphis.

As the story goes, Ben Branch was playing his saxophone on Mulberry Street, near the Lorraine Motel.  Dr. King came out on the balcony and asked Branch to play "Precious Lord."  It was shortly after that, King was assassinated.

Ben Branch's saxophone

According to the sign at the actual site of the shooting, King's request of the gospel standard were the last words he spoke.

Where Martin Luther King died

On the wall near the doorway to the museum across the street were the words from King's speech the day before he died (see below).  It seems to point to a man who knew he didn't have long.  A man who had a dream and had inspired thousands, if not millions, to follow that dream to the Promised Land.  Yet, he knew it wasn't for him.  He, too, was alone in this regard.  For even as King dreamed his dream for all humankind, he knew that the truth of "take this moment into my hand" is a personal thing.  The Promised Land is fleeting.  It is only here in a moment -- a moment of music, a moment of connection, a moment of knowing. It is a place deep within us all. A place that ideally we will get to together, yet our aloneness often makes it difficult. A place we have to keep believing in or perish. A place where our dreams and stories reside, carrying us forward, ever seeking The Promised Land.