The Sins Of Memphisto notes
"I never do my homework until after I'm done writing. And at the time, I thought that Memphisto was the city in ancient Egypt that Memphis, Tennessee, was named after. But the city in Egypt is Memphis. I also got it confused with Mephisto, Mephistopheles, the devil. But I thought, that's okay, it's kind of like the devil going to Memphis, Tennessee. I wrote this one under pressure from my producer, Howie Epstein. We were 12 cuts into The Missing Years, and Howie says, "We need one or two more cuts." And I went, "You're kidding. From where? We've been working for nine months. I don't have anything hiding on the shelf. You could take a autopsy, and you won't find a song inside of me." So I went and locked myself in a hotel room and went, "If he wants a song, he'll get a song." I tried to write one from as far in left field as I could and came up with "Memphisto." I'm convinced I was just working the whole song to get around the punch line "exactly Odo, Quasimodo." It's just hip lingo, kind of like "No shit, Sherlock." I'd had it for about four years, trying to work it into song." ~John Prine