Melissa (song)
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"Melissa" is a song released on the Eat a Peach album in 1972 by the American rock music group The Allman Brothers Band. It has enjoyed renewed popularity in the 2000s due to its feature in a commercial for Cingular/AT&T Wireless cell phone company and the use of it in a scene in Brokeback Mountain.
The lines,
"Crossroads -- will you ever let him go,
or will you hide the dead man's ghost?
Lord, will he lie beneath the clay,
or will his spirit float away?"
are a reference to blues legend Robert Johnson (musician). In blues folklore it is supposed that Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil at a county crossroads in the Delta. Coincidentally he died at a county crossroads near Greenwood, Mississippi of debated causes.[citation needed]