“Mystery Train” by Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley took "Mystery Train", a Memphis blues, and threw it onto the fast track. Junior Parker and Sam Phillips share the writing credit, and Parker cut the original for Phillips, the man who ran Sun Records, at the Memphis Recording Service in 1953, playing it as straight rhythm and blues. Elvis was the first to cover it, and his rockabilly reading is the one that set off a long line of other versions.

The song keeps its own secrets. The title never turns up anywhere in the words, and nobody has been able to say for sure where it came from, while the lyric leans on the Carter Family's "Worried Man Blues", which in turn grew out of an old Celtic ballad. Elvis doesn't stop to ask questions: he just rides it.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.