The applause started even before the ceremony.

It started before the speech or the swearing-in.

It started before the Overton High School choir sang “Amazing Grace.”

It started before the Tennessee Mass Choir sang “Oh Happy Day.”

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It started when Memphis Mayor Paul Young simply walked onto the stage.

That’s all that was required to spark the crowd at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts to break into spontaneous applause.

“Can’t you feel the energy?” said WREG-TV’s Kontji Anthony, who was emceeing the event.

That sparked even more applause.

“Today, we are have gathered to celebrate the hope of a new direction for our city,” Anthony continued.

If only hope was enough.

But it’s a start, isn’t it?

It beats the unrelenting hopelessness that has settled over this city as of late.

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That’s what Monday’s swearing-in ceremony represented. That’s the spirit that Young sought to invoke.

“This is a beautiful sight, y’all,” he said, after taking the oath of office. “We are committed to creating a brighter future for our city. And it will happen. It will happen.”

Does saying it twice make it so?

Young gave a buoyant 10-minute speech that contained nothing in the way of specifics but set forth some audacious goals.

Young said he was “on a mission to save our city.”

He promised to build a “a stronger, more connected” community.

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Then Young said this about Memphis: “We can make it America’s safest city; we can make it America’s cleanest city; we can make it America’s city with the fastest-growing economy.”

And if reading that last sentence caused you to roll your eyes, well, that’s understandable. This was an inauguration speech, not tomorrow’s mayoral to-do list.

Indeed, before the event even started, I asked Rev. Earle Fisher — who was standing in the lobby of the Cannon Center— how he viewed the new administration.

“With pragmatic ambivalence,” he said. “I have been doing this work for too long to put too much stock in any one man.”

There is plenty to like about Young, certainly. He seems smart, charismatic and genuine. He has a background in urban planning that should serve him well in his new role.

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He understands the importance of reducing crime in Memphis — but he also understands that the vision for a city’s future has to be bigger and more aspirational than simply “less crime.”

So all that is promising, certainly. But hard days surely lie ahead. Mayor Jim Strickland was going to be brilliant at the basics before he got hit with a worldwide pandemic, remember?

As the great philosopher and boxer Mike Tyson once put it, “Everyone has a plan until they get hit in the mouth.”

How does Young plan to address the interrelated problems of crime and poverty? How is he going to find another $100-$200 million to keep the Memphis Grizzlies in town?

“The hard things are hard,” said Rev. Keith Norman, as he awaited Monday’s event. “Nobody is going to fix everything in four years. But that doesn’t mean celebrations like today aren’t important. You do have to give people a sense of hope.”

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Maybe that explained the palpable energy at the Cannon Center Monday. Suddenly, progress seemed possible again. This hasn’t just been a challenging time for Memphians. It has been a time when the challenges seem insurmountable.

We can’t make it through a storm without the power going out again. Our education and criminal justice systems are in perpetual crisis. And all the politicians seem to do is point fingers at other politicians to explain why nothing can be done. It creates a feeling of futility — and that feeling is itself debilitating.

Words alone can’t change any of that, of course. And a swearing-in ceremony is nothing but words. But there was a section of Young’s speech that was particularly striking. It addressed the source of the mayor’s optimism.

“The hope that I have for our city comes from knowing that Memphis is a city filled with innovators and change-makers,” he said. “A city whose faith communities represent the majority of our residents; we’re a city where every musical innovation was sparked; a city that taught the world about overnight delivery and self-servicing cars; a city that demonstrated the miracles that could happen when medical breakthroughs and research are freely shared.”

None of those things are exaggerations, by the way. Young didn’t have to make any of that up. He seemed to be reminding us that, yes, the community has real problems. But it has real strengths that are too often overlooked.

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From Young’s vantage, choosing to be optimistic isn’t naive or foolish. Rather, it’s the only way out. You can’t fix anything that you believe is unfixable. Civic hopelessness is both counter-productive and misplaced.

That’s why the new mayor struck the tone he did Monday. That’s why his message was met with such rousing applause.

Optimism will never be the solution to this city’s problems, naturally. But it is the only place to start.