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ISBN 978-0-316-50341-9

E3-20231017-JV-NF-ORI

This book is dedicated to the grandchildren of John R. Cash and June Carter Cash.

Tiffany Anastasia Lowe • Thomas Gabriel Coggins • John Jackson Routh • Jessica Brock • Hannah Crowell • Caitlin Crowell • Chelsea Crowell • Dustin Tittle • Kacy Tittle • Carrie Crowell • Aran Thomas Schwoebel • Jakob Leventhal • Joseph John Cash • Alexander Schwoebel • Anna Maybelle “AnnaBelle” Cash • Jack Ezra Cash • Grace June Cash and James Kristoffer Cash

“Bumm, baa-baa bumm, baa bumm, baa-baa-baa-bumm…”

 — GRAMPA JOHNNY,
to his little ones, his forever legacy, holding them on his lap and slipping them candy

Explore book giveaways, sneak peeks, deals, and more.

Tap here to learn more.

FOREWORD

AND THE BAND PLAYED ON

JOHN CARTER CASH

Gospel music and the Bible first inspired my father’s creativity. He heard the church spirituals and could carry a tune as soon as he could walk. And in the world he grew up in, they didn’t sing them only in the church but in the fields, picking cotton. Life was hard. From then on, music was a source of finding the strength to carry on, making life more meaningful. He would read the Psalms of David and lie in bed at night when everyone else was asleep and make up melodies to accompany the words (he never felt he did them justice). This was the genesis of his creativity and his music.

He told me that behind every lyric or music ever written was heart. He said that, without the heart to back it up, the prettiest string of poetry ever put together was just a pile of words. Dad never forgot a line of a song if he sang it just once.

When I was a boy, my parents and I traveled together for hours on end. There were no cell phones back then, and I couldn’t read on the bus, as it made me nauseous. So I either stared out the window and watched the endless miles pass or made conversation. Sometimes Dad would break into song.

I remember one day he sang a melody I had never heard before.

Casey would waltz with a strawberry blonde

And the band played on

He’d glide ’cross the floor with the girl he adored

And the band played on

“What’s that song, Dad?” I asked.

“It’s ‘The Band Played On,’” he said. “We had the Victrola 78 when I was a boy. But we listened to music on the radio, not a Victrola. My father wouldn’t spend the money on both a radio and a record player.” He kept the album on the mantel, in any case. It was one his mother had when he was young; he said the song itself was written before he was born, before the turn of the twentieth century. “I haven’t thought of that song since I heard it when I was young — younger than you.”

I looked up. “How old were you?” I asked.

“Oh, six, I think. I heard it in downtown Dyess, in the drugstore. I listened to music there occasionally. They had a Victrola and would play albums when people asked.”

“How many times did you hear it?” I asked.

“Oh, just once.”

“Once? Only once?” I questioned.

“Yes,” he answered. “And I think I remember the rest of it.”

He then went on to sing every word of that song, in perfect pitch. A song he hadn’t heard since 1938.

And so, music carried him on, as did his perfect recall for melody and word. But it was the heart that made it true, made it last.

In 1955, when Dad auditioned for Sam Phillips at Sun Records, he and the Tennessee Two performed an original. The traditional-themed “Belshazzar” told the story of a prideful Babylonian king who got what he had coming to him. Sam wasn’t interested in releasing gospel, though he did hear unique brilliance in my father’s voice and took note of his style, charm, and charisma. Beyond that, Dad did something many others at Sun didn’t: he wrote his own music and lyrics.

From the very beginning, Dad stood out among his peers. He was also at the cutting edge of new music, a rockabilly and a rebel, but he held on to tradition and roots. The combination made him hard to forget.

Dad went on to follow his heart in his writing and, likewise, in the songs he chose to sing. The songs gave hard messages, roused us to awareness, and reminded us of what it meant to be a patriot. He bravely questioned, What is truth? We find the answers not on the outside but within. He wasn’t so much antiwar as he was pro-peace. He did not hate the enemy or the fighter, he offered love to all he encountered. When he looked out across an audience, no matter who they were — prisoners, the marginalized, or anyone else — he saw brothers, fellows who had fallen short, and/or those who suffered because of their given lot in life or place of birth. He didn’t point a finger in judgment but made us aware of injustices hidden in plain sight.

Through the decades of my dad’s life, his handwriting may have changed — I have gotten to the point where I can roughly tell my father’s age by the markings of his pen — but his focus and intention for writing never did. He wrote music that made a difference. Whether it’s words of love, anger, celebration, faith, remorse, hope, failure, or joy, the lives of those who hear them are forever altered.

And now, when I read his words, I see they have not changed. What has changed is me. My heart and my innocence are lost. Now I read his words differently, and I perceive a different message. As my father never forgot the words of a song he heard, neither shall the world forget the songs he wrote and sang. And though he may no longer walk this earth as flesh and blood, we find that what we need is more alive than ever in his music.

INTRODUCTION

FIRST WORDS

For half a century, the voice of Johnny Cash dominated, resonated, haunted. It was immediately identifiable, commanding, compelling. He spoke of and to our noblest ideals and the spacious skies. He called on our better angels. He spoke for “the poor and the beaten down,” the forgotten and the marginalized. He walked with the damned, and when he stumbled and fell, he called upon God’s grace and stood back up.

He was the embodiment of what it is to be human, with all the suffering and blessing that mortal condition entails.

Cash told his story, and the stories of countless others, in song, verse, and prose. Through the music, he entertained and taught, laughed and cried, shouted and whispered, prayed and cursed. Whether the inspirations came from real-life experiences or were the creations of his fertile imagination, Johnny “became” those he sang about, “visited” all the places, suffered with the wretched, exalted beside the faithful. He took his listeners on flights of fancy and sobering reality, never letting us forget either the nobility of mankind or the often-harsh lessons of history. He keenly observed the strength and frailty of life in this world and the promise and glory of the next.

He spoke with the authority of someone who had been there, and in his songs we were there, right beside him. No one really believed that he shot a man in Reno just to watch him die (or did they?). But all of us have heard that lonesome whistle. Who hasn’t aspired to walk the line, yearned for a love that consumes every bit of their flesh and blood, or wanted to have someone to tell, “I still love you tonight”? Who hasn’t completely, utterly missed someone? How many could hear Johnny plead to “meet me in Heaven” and fail to ache into the very depths of their being, knowing those very words are carved into his brother Jack Cash’s gravestone?

He visited Vietnam, felt the terror of the exploding shells shaking the earth and soul, watched in horror as we lost our best and brightest, and cried for peace. He stood at Wounded Knee, a blight on the national character, and told its story. He pronounced his faith as he visited the site of the first miracle at Cana, in Galilee. There were wry musings from a dying man in his last days, refusing to break, even as mortality grasped ever tighter. He raised the flag in the morning, raised his hands to praise the Lord, shook his fist at injustice. And he breathed that Southern air. Love, loss, laughter, pride, purpose.

Actually, he had been there. He’d been everywhere.

His music entertained and entranced us. His life awed and astonished us. But it was his Words that spoke to our hearts. John R. Cash, child of Kingsland, Dyess, Heaven, and the World, above all else, was a songwriter. His enduring authority lay in the accounts, messages, emotions, cautions, imperfections, and aspirations that make up the human experience.

Living a life filled beyond measure with incredible triumph and devastating catastrophe, Cash was an incisive chronicler of (and participant in, of course) this experience in all its many layers. Over this epic life, he amassed an amazing canon of art and insight that revered and affirmed faith, celebrated love, extolled compassion, and honored the past without being blind to it or blinded by it.

Of Johnny Cash’s many legacies, it is the Songwriting that is the most enduring. This book celebrates his Words. They tell his Life.

— Mark Stielper

JOHNNY CASH WROTE more than six hundred songs in his lifetime. This book contains the lyrics to 125 of them. How can one choose? Rather than simply list his number one hits or the songs that won awards, this book’s ambition is to explore Cash’s range as a poet and a storyteller. These pages use his words as a lens through which to view and understand his life, as well as the nation he spoke to. The songs are sequenced in a mixture of theme and chronology, taking us from Cash’s early life and first successes through periods of personal challenge, activism, and faith, and through the end of his own story. Play the albums as you read this book. John’s voice will mesmerize you, even now, all these years later, and these images of his life will hypnotize you. Neither will let you go.

“Desolation” by Joseph Cash, Dyess, Arkansas, present day

Ray Cash and grandchildren, Dyess, c. 1956

THE BOY WHO grew up to be Johnny Cash was born in 1932, the worst year of America’s Great Depression, in the still untamed, isolated wilderness of south-central Arkansas. His parents were sharecroppers, barely scratching out what passed for an existence in someone else’s cotton fields, with little prospect of deliverance in this life. But also, he was the grandson of circuit-riding Missionary Baptist preachers whose own mandate was to offer hope that an unclouded day awaited the faithful beyond the sky. This duality would be one of many that informed Cash’s heart, mind, soul, and pen.

Cotton Belt railroad train car

Johnny’s early years were marked by impermanence and obligation. His father, Ray, was a hard-luck nonstarter who often disappeared from the family, hopping boxcars on the nearby Cotton Belt railroad trains, never finding his way anywhere but back to the desperation he thought he could outride and outrun but did not. Mother Carrie sustained the household, which eventually counted seven children, through all kinds of calamities, from drought and flood to chronic disappointment and sudden death.

Millions of families were decimated by the economic catastrophe that was the Depression. Fortunes were wiped out — something the Cashes were spared, since their lives were built by misfortune. By 1930, two-thirds of the farmers in Arkansas had given up trying and surrendered their existences to farm tenancy, an evil that guaranteed they would never escape misery or regain dignity or a sense of self-worth. Truly, there was no way out.

In 1934, the federal government attempted to stem some of the carnage. The Dyess Colony — an emergency agricultural resettlement community — was one such effort. Five hundred destitute farming families with less than nothing to their names were moved into a newly built, self-supporting town designed to give them a chance to own their land and control their own destinies.

Entrance to Dyess Colony, mid-1930s

Freshman year, Dyess High School, 1947

Constructed out of boggy, buggy, malaria-ridden Arkansas swampland, in the shadow of the Mississippi River, Dyess was a great social experiment in collectivism. The “colonists” were required to contribute to the colony’s operation and maintenance (and financing) on a communal basis. What this meant, practically speaking, was a burden not much different from that which these untrained, largely uneducated laborers thought they had escaped from. For the Cashes and others, picking cotton from daybreak to sundown was a bleak struggle. Only at night, in the quiet of the dark, did young J.R. Cash allow himself to drift off to faraway places that poor Arkansas farm boys had no business dreaming of.

High school poem, “The School Bus,” 1949

Air Force, early 1950s

On leave, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria, Germany, 1954

With siblings Joanne and Tom, Dyess, 1950

With Vivian, second and third from left in the rear, at a reunion of his mother’s side of the family, Kingsland, Arkansas, 1956

Private Cash, training barracks, 1951

After graduating high school in 1950, Johnny joined the United States Air Force just as the Korean War began. He spent most of the next four years stationed in Germany, ground zero in the growing Cold War with the Soviet Union, where he excelled in Morse code interception. On his discharge, he quickly married Vivian Liberto, a Texas girl he had met while undergoing training in San Antonio. The two settled in Memphis, where Johnny got work selling appliances door-to-door (he wasn’t very good at it) while taking classes at radio broadcasting school (he didn’t do so well there either, mostly because he spoke with an accent as thick as Dyess gumbo). Still, it was a fortuitous place at an auspicious time. The city was the epicenter of a musical earthquake called rock and roll. It wasn’t long before Johnny Cash began the improbable ascent that made his name memorable, his music iconic, and, ultimately, his voice eternal.

BELSHAZZAR

1954

Well, the Bible tells us about a man

Who ruled Babylon and all its land

Around the city he built a wall

And declared that Babylon would never fall

He had concubines and wives

He called his Babylon “Paradise”

Upon his throne he drank and ate

But for Belshazzar, it was getting late

For he was weighed in the balance and found wanting

His kingdom was divided, couldn’t stand

He was weighed in the balance and found wanting

His houses were built upon the sand

Well, the people feasted and drank their wine

And praised the false gods of his time

All holy things were scorned and mocked

But suddenly all their mocking stopped

For on the wall there appeared a hand

Nothing else, there was no man

In blood, the hand began to write

And Belshazzar couldn’t hide his fright

For he was weighed in the balance and found wanting

His kingdom was divided, couldn’t stand

He was weighed in the balance and found wanting

His houses were built upon the sand

Well, no one around could understand

What was written by the mystic hand

Belshazzar tried but couldn’t find

A man who could give him peace of mind

But Daniel the prophet, a man of God

He saw the writing on the wall in blood

Belshazzar asked him what it said

And Daniel turned to the wall and read:

“My friend, you’re weighed in the balance and found wanting

Your kingdom is divided, it can’t stand

You’re weighed in the balance and found wanting

Your houses are built upon the sand.”

BELSHAZZAR was the first song twenty-two-year-old John Cash, fresh off the farm and just out of the military, sang for the man at Sun Records. Coming amid all the shaking and rattling that was roiling the music world and preparing to upend American society, the performance must certainly have been disorienting for Sam Phillips, known as the man who invented rock and roll and discovered Elvis Presley and defined an entire genre of music. The man who was deluged by would-be teen kings on the steps outside his studio every single day was being presented with this account of the doomed, last king of ancient Babylon, who died in 539 B.C. But the young troubadour saw nothing unusual about it, aiming as he was to be a gospel music singer. Mr. Phillips was surely confused and promptly passed on the opportunity to sign Cash, but he also knew to listen to his own ears, which were telling him he was hearing something no one had ever heard before. Come back with something else, he said. The rest is history.

Sam Phillips and his new star, Memphis, 1955

Sun Studio, Memphis, present day

JOHN CARTER CASH

MY FATHER SANG “Belshazzar” to me often when I was young. He was intrigued by the story itself from the Old Testament’s Book of Daniel. It was a magical tale, telling of the very hand of God writing a cryptic message on the wall. Through this type of story song, he passed on a sense of wonder. That has never left me. I do all I can to instill that curiosity in my children. Dad was a biblical scholar and an ordained minister, and he brought his knowledge and wisdom to his life and his art. Story songs brought some who may otherwise not have been introduced to the Christian faith, without banging it over their heads, ultimately leading many to the path to salvation. His music had purpose. Undoubtedly, Sam Phillips was surprised that day when a young man walked into the studio and started singing this song. Though it wasn’t necessarily “commercial,” it showed who Johnny Cash genuinely was. And Sam respected Dad for that.

With Luther Perkins onstage, late 1950s

Newspaper article announcing appearances on The Jackie Gleason Show, January 7, 1957

WIDE OPEN ROAD

1954

Well, you said you had enough, you said that you were leaving

I said, “Shove off, honey baby, I ain’t grieving

Pack your bags and pull out this evening

There’s a wide open road.”

On Saturday morning you were nowhere about

And so I searched the town but you had done pulled out

I looked north, east, and west and then a-leading south

I saw a wide open road

There’s a wide open road

It’s leading south from my abode

If you stick around and turn your damper down

There’s a wide open road

Well, the reason I was looking for you all over town

Was to tell you that your kitty cat was still around

And you left your wedding ring when you went down

That wide open road

If you’re going to stay away then honey let me know

How to cook hot biscuits, how to roll a dough

Everything’s gone crazy since I told you to go

Down the wide open road

There’s a wide open road

And honey, I want you to know

You can look down south or you can turn back home

There’s a wide open road

With eldest brother, Roy, Dyess, 1954

WIDE OPEN ROAD is the first known professional Johnny Cash composition, and the first song Sam Phillips actually turned on the tape recorder for. Johnny had been performing it in small locales around northeast Arkansas before stepping foot in Sun. Although the young appliance salesman had not yet quite found his path, the idea of a vast, limitless future represented the worldview of a newlywed optimist who saw only blue sky on the horizon. Johnny returned to “the road” time and time again in his songs. Just as real life offers its curves, warnings, and detours, the music would reflect the lessons learned when the yield and stop signs are not heeded, as well as when the sign says Go! and the pedal is pressed to the floor.

HEY, PORTER!

1955

Hey, Porter!

Hey, Porter!

Would you tell me the time?

How much longer will it be

’Til we cross that Mason-Dixon Line?

At daylight would you tell that engineer to slow it down?

Or better still, just stop the train

’Cause I want to look around

Hey, Porter!

Hey, Porter!

What time did you say?

How much longer will it be

’Til I can see the light of day?

When we hit Dixie will you tell that engineer to ring his bell?

And ask everybody that ain’t asleep

To stand right up and yell

Hey, Porter!

Hey, Porter!

It’s getting light outside

This old train is puffin’ smoke

And I have to strain my eyes

But ask that engineer if he will blow his whistle, please

’Cause I smell frost on cotton leaves

And I feel that Southern breeze

Hey, Porter!

Hey, Porter!

Please get my bags for me

I need nobody to tell me now

That we’re in Tennessee

Go tell that engineer to make that lonesome whistle scream

We’re not so far from home

So take it easy on the steam

Hey, Porter!

Hey, Porter!

Please open up the door

When they stop this train I’m gonna get off first

’Cause I can’t wait no more

Tell that engineer

I said, Thanks a lot and I didn’t mind the fare

I’m gonna set my feet on Southern soil

And breathe that southern air

Another first. When Sam Phillips called for “something unique, something you, something I can sell,” Johnny delivered, presenting HEY, PORTER!, an exhilarating account of a euphoric, impatient Southern boy’s train ride home after an extended absence. The parallel to Johnny’s recent return from duty in Germany made this a somewhat autobiographical account (although he actually took a Greyhound bus on his return to Arkansas, where his teen crush met him, having waited three years). This gave the song such immediacy and genuineness that the producer knew he had just heard greatness in a two-minute song.

Sun and Sam gave the world the likes of Elvis, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, and Cowboy Jack Clement, along with rockabillies Billy Lee Riley and Charlie Rich and R & B stars B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, Ike Turner, and Little Junior Parker. But Phillips would say that of everyone who crossed his threshold and lit up his soundboard, Johnny Cash’s voice was the most authentic.

“Hey, Porter!” would be the B side of the debut record by Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two, introducing the world to Johnny’s voice, his songwriting… and his love affair with trains. The railroad had dominated his early life, providing lifeblood to his tiny hometown of Kingsland, in rural, remote Cleveland County, Arkansas. Young Johnny’s first memories were of standing by the tracks, waiting anxiously for his father to come home from one of his frequent rambles to parts unknown and mysterious. The steam locomotive’s whistle or the steady drive of its wheels speeding by might herald Ray Cash’s return or foretell another day of his absence. To the little boy, the train was romantic and hopeful, yet lonesome and harsh. These emotions stuck with him and expressed essential human nature. Johnny’s depictions of life often used train imagery to tell a story, as in TRAIN OF LOVE and RIDIN’ ON THE COTTON BELT, which was dedicated to his father.

RIDIN’ ON THE COTTON BELT

1976

Ridin’ on the Cotton Belt

Cleveland County’s where I long to be

I got on at Brinkley and every mile

I make is a memory

This boxcar’s cold and windy

And the dust goes around in circles in the air

But my hard times are behind me

And I’m returning home, so I don’t care

And I’m ridin’ on the Cotton Belt railroad line

In the pitchin’, rolling rhythm and the noise

Railroad men are friends of mine

And I’m ridin’ on the Cotton Belt, boys

Ridin’ on the Cotton Belt

Across that little river called Saline

That’s where I went fishin’

And I hunted in her bottoms as a teen

Now just ahead’s a farmhouse

And in the kitchen window there’s a light

And I’ve just got fourteen dollars

But I’m taking it myself home tonight

And I’m ridin’ on the Cotton Belt railroad line

In the pitchin’, rolling rhythm and the noise

Railroad men are friends of mine

And I’m ridin’ on the Cotton Belt, boys

Jumpin’ off the Cotton Belt ain’t easy

When she’s going forty per

But I see my wife standin’ there

Hoping that I’m coming home to her

I got a few new cuts and bruises

But this old working hobo’s made a home

So long to you, Cotton Belt

Thank you for the ride, keep rolling on

I’m ridin’ on the Cotton Belt railroad line

In the pitchin’, rolling rhythm and the noise

Railroad men are friends of mine

And I’m ridin’ on the Cotton Belt, boys

TRAIN OF LOVE

1956

Train of love’s a-comin’

Big black wheels a-hummin’

People waitin’ at the station

Happy hearts are drummin’

Trainman tell me maybe

Ain’t you got my baby

Every so often everybody’s baby gets the urge to roam

But everybody’s baby but mine’s comin’ home

Now stop your whistle blowin’

’Cause I got ways of knowin’

You’re bringin’ other people’s lovers

But my own keeps goin’

Train of love’s deceivin’

When she’s not gone she’s leavin’

Every so often everybody’s baby gets the urge to roam

But everybody’s baby but mine’s comin’ home

Train of love’s now hastin’

Sweethearts standin’, waitin’

Here and there and everywhere

There’s going to be embracin’

Trainman tell me maybe

Ain’t you got my baby

Every so often everybody’s baby gets the urge to roam

But everybody’s baby but mine’s comin’ home

Train of love’s a-leavin’

Leavin’ my heart grievin’

But early or late, I sit and wait

Because I’m still believin’

We’ll walk away together

Though I may wait forever

Every so often everybody’s baby gets the urge to roam

But everybody’s baby but mine’s comin’ home

Cotton Belt line boxcar, 1953

Early publicity shots, 1955–1956

CRY! CRY! CRY!

1955

Everybody knows where you go when the sun goes down

I think you only live to see the lights of town

I wasted my time when I would try, try, try

When the lights have lost their glow you’re gonna cry, cry, cry

I lie awake at night to wait ’til you come in

You stay a little while and then you’re gone again

Every question that I ask I get a lie, lie, lie

For every lie you tell you’re gonna cry, cry, cry

You’re gonna cry, cry, cry and you’ll cry alone

When everyone’s forgotten

And you’re left on your own

You’re gonna cry, cry, cry

Soon your sugar daddies will all be gone

You’ll wake up some cold day and find you’re alone

You’ll call for me but I’m gonna tell you bye, bye, bye

When I turn around and walk away you’ll cry, cry, cry

When your fickle love gets old, no one will care for you

And you’ll come back to me for a little love that’s true

I’ll tell you no and then you’ll ask me why, why, why

When I remind you of all of this you’ll cry, cry, cry

You’re gonna cry, cry, cry

And you’ll want me then

It’ll hurt when you think of

The fool you’ve been

You’re gonna cry, cry, cry

Johnny’s head was spinning when Phillips gave “Hey, Porter!” his blessing. Life was coming at him fast. He had been married for less than a year, had been back in the United States for only nine months, and had a baby on the way. Fast!

When Sam said he wanted a “weeper” to pair with the jaunty train song for Johnny’s first record, the pressure was on to produce an original worthy of the moment. Driving back home from the studio, he tuned into a Nashville radio show hosted by his favorite DJ, a former Memphian named Smilin’ Eddie Hill, whose tagline was, “Stay tuned, folks, today we’re gonna bawl, squall, and climb the wall.”

Mr. Phillips wanted a weeper? What could be weepier than “Bawl, Bawl, Bawl”? Fortunately, the boy could do better than that.

CRY! CRY! CRY! was released to an unsuspecting world in June 1955. But the only bawling and crawling in the Cash household was from baby Rosanne, who had made her appearance less than a month earlier, as Johnny’s debut quickly rose to number one on the Memphis record charts and even jumped onto Billboard’s national rankings. It was a lightning bolt; Sam Phillips had done it again. Before the second Johnny Cash record was even released, Sam sold Elvis’s contract to another label, and the Sun stable had a new lead stallion.

Live performance, 1959

LUTHER PLAYED THE BOOGIE

1955

We were just a plain ole hillbilly band

With a plain ole country style

We never played the kind of songs

That’d drive anybody wild

Played a railroad song

With a stomping beat

We played a blues song

Kinda slow and sweet

But the thing that knocked them off of their feet was, ooh-wee

When Luther played the boogie-woogie, Luther played the boogie-woogie

Luther played the boogie-woogie, Luther played the boogie-woogie

Luther played the boogie-woogie, Luther played the boogie-woogie

Luther played the boogie-woogie, Luther played the boogie

In the strangest kind of way

Well, we did our best to entertain

Everywhere we’d go

We’d nearly wear our fingers off

To give the folks a show

Played jumpin’ jive to make ’em

Get in the groove

We played sad songs

Real slow and smooth

But the only thing that’d make ’em move was, ooh-wee

When Luther played the boogie-woogie, Luther played the boogie-woogie

Luther played the boogie-woogie, Luther played the boogie-woogie

Luther played the boogie-woogie, Luther played the boogie-woogie

Luther played the boogie-woogie, Luther played the boogie

In the strangest kind of way

With the Tennessee Two on the Grand Ole Opry tour, c. 1956

With Luther Perkins and Marshall Grant, the Tennessee Two, c. 1955

Driving in Virginia, 1956

When Sam told Johnny to return with some of his own songs, he also directed the newcomer to bring a band with him. The ragtag crew that accompanied him back to Sun were auto mechanics by day and a garage band after work. That is not a disparagement: that’s what they did, night after night. As the boys assembled in a home garage, all strumming rhythm guitars with varying degrees of nonproficiency, their wives sat and played cards. To achieve some semblance of variety, one of the guys obtained a big upright bass — which he had no idea how to play or even tune — and another borrowed an electric guitar from a music store because he had no money to buy one. If that sounds less than primitive, it’s because it was so. But Marshall Grant, Luther Perkins, and Johnny Cash not only overcame these “limitations”; they thrived under them. Not knowing how it was supposed to be done, they crafted a minimalist sound that was unique and inimitable.

Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two had no manual to explain how this rock and roll thing worked. Marshall once said, “We just made it up as we went along.” The zany high jinks of the road (on New Year’s Eve 1956, the band “celebrated” by exploding cherry bombs in the toilets of a New Jersey performance hall) and the screaming young girls at every stop contrasted with the guys’ general awkwardness and deer-in-the-headlights naivete. Still, every so often, Luther’s rudimentary guitar riffs morphed into something unexpected, which Johnny captured early on, with LUTHER PLAYED THE BOOGIE.

Johnny didn’t figure it to be a hit record, and it wasn’t (though weirder things happened at Sun in those days). Even the wildest imaginings of Sam Phillips couldn’t fathom a way to market this odd bit of bop exuberance. But the same session (only the group’s second) produced a keeper about as far away from the boogie-woogie as it gets.

Arriving at Folsom Prison, January 13, 1968

FOLSOM PRISON BLUES

1955

I hear the train a-comin’

It’s rollin’ round the bend

And I ain’t seen the sunshine

Since I don’t know when

I’m stuck in Folsom Prison

And time keeps draggin’ on

But that train keeps a-rollin’

On down to San Antone

When I was just a baby

My mama told me, “Son,

Always be a good boy

Don’t ever play with guns.”

But I shot a man in Reno

Just to watch him die

When I hear that whistle blowin’

I hang my head and cry

I bet there’s rich folks eatin’

In a fancy dining car

They’re probably drinkin’ coffee

And smokin’ big cigars

Well I know I had it comin’

I know I can’t be free

But those people keep a-movin’

And that’s what tortures me

Well, if they freed me from this prison

If that railroad train was mine

I bet I’d move it on

A little farther down the line

Far from Folsom Prison

That’s where I’d want to stay

And I’d let that lonesome whistle

Blow my blues away

In those frantic, early days — when Sam was exhorting the budding young wordsmith to “bring me something original” as the price of admission to his exclusive Sun Records club — Johnny turned to what he knew well to ink his pen. A few years before, shortly after arriving at the United States Air Force compound in Landsberg, Bavaria, Germany, Airman Cash had joined his mates in the base theater to view a gritty film noir crime movie from director Crane Wilbur called Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison. Set in the notorious maximum security California penal institution, the film’s harsh, dark theme stuck with Johnny. And so came this early offering at Sun, FOLSOM PRISON BLUES, an alternately harsh and bleak firsthand account of a cold-blooded murderer brought to despair when he hears the plaintive sound of a train’s “lonesome whistle” as he sits in his cell.

The depravity of the song’s narrator — who admits to shooting a man “just to watch him die” — did not faze Sam’s usual dance floor sensibilities in the slightest. “It was the worst reason I could think of to kill someone: no reason at all,” explained the twenty-two-year-old who composed it. Sam was mesmerized by the fresh-faced newcomer fidgeting and stuttering in front of him. How could this boy even imagine such savagery? So he held on to the song, planning to pitch it to a different artist who carried sufficient darkness, such as Tennessee Ernie Ford.

But John Cash had not pushed his way into Sam Phillips’s inner sanctum only to be denied. He didn’t have clout or even a contract, but no matter. He insisted on recording his own work, and “Folsom Prison Blues” became his second release, hitting the top ten of the national charts in February 1956 and staying there into June. Many listeners believed the song was autobiographical, that the voice behind the chilling lyrics belonged to a hardened criminal. In truth, Johnny was more apt to take his family to the park or zoo than he was to play with guns, but a certain growing segment swore oaths that they had bunked with him behind bars.

Folsom prisoners react, 1968

In front of Folsom Prison, 1968

The novelty of a Sun artist singing about a cold-blooded (if ultimately repentant) killer amid all the hip-twitching adolescent froth receded, and “Folsom Prison Blues” settled into a quiet niche in the Cash canon. But the themes he explored in this early work, especially alienation, contrition, and accountability (not to mention the railroad, already a familiar motif), would define his worldview and dominate his “message” throughout his entire life. In addition, Johnny began demonstrating an affinity for the underdog and for those who desperately needed, but lacked, a voice or outstretched helping hand. By the late 1950s, he was performing in prisons. It was not always a popular practice, yet one that he felt could touch hearts by injecting a bit of humanity into the otherwise wretched lives of the fallen souls of society.

Years later, in 1968, following his involvement with a California spiritual outreach program, Johnny released an album of a concert recorded at the same facility that had caught his imagination back in his Air Force days. This time around, “Folsom Prison Blues” was the centerpiece of one of the most important musical moments in history — by many, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison remains the greatest live recording of all time — one that cemented his place in American culture forevermore. Johnny’s interactions with the captive audience were electric, but his empathy for the prisoners was the catalyst for a renewed push for prison reform, one that would stress rehabilitation and compassion. His efforts did not always produce the results he predicted or hoped for, but that he dared to try — even putting his reputation on the line by personally lobbying American presidents and Congress — was an act of courage that had few parallels.

I WALK THE LINE

1956

I keep a close watch on this heart of mine

I keep my eyes wide open all the time

I keep the ends out for the tie that binds

Because you’re mine, I walk the line

I find it very, very easy to be true

I find myself alone when each day is through

Yes, I’ll admit that I’m a fool for you

Because you’re mine, I walk the line

As sure as night is dark and day is light

I keep you on my mind both day and night

And happiness I’ve known proves that it’s right

Because you’re mine, I walk the line

You’ve got a way to keep me on your side

You give me cause for love that I can’t hide

For you I know I’d even try to turn the tide

Because you’re mine, I walk the line

I keep a close watch on this heart of mine

I keep my eyes wide open all the time

I keep the ends out for the tie that binds

Because you’re mine, I walk the line

As much of a dream as it was to hear himself on the radio, the real life of a singing star was defined by the asphalt and dirt of the road. Those records did not sell themselves! At first, Johnny set out for the tiny towns around Dyess, like Lepanto, Osceola, and Etowah — anywhere with a high school auditorium or available barn that would have him — often performing for crowds of a dozen, on lucky days. His task was made all the more difficult because, even at age twenty-three, he was a grown-up playing a kid’s game. Everyone in his little trio had families and responsibilities — Marshall and Luther (both four years older) would hold on to their day jobs for more than a year — and wives who hadn’t counted on late nights, weekends away from home… and lots of screaming teenage girls.

Johnny Cash proved himself through persistence. Soon he was a red-hot ticket, joining tours headlined by heavyweights such as Sonny James, Webb Pierce, and the reddest, hottest of them all, Elvis Presley. Those hysterical, willing girls who packed the auditoriums and dance halls at every stop became an expected perk on the Elvis tours, which became well-known as boiling cauldrons of burning love. In November 1955, backstage before a show at Gladewater High School, in east Texas, the guys in the bands regaled anyone who would listen with randy tales of their unchaste extracurricular exploits. The newcomer in the ranks, Johnny might have wanted to become part of the crowd, but he refused to be drawn into the bragging session. “Not me, boys,” he told the carousers. “I walk the line.”

Recorded in April 1956 — two weeks before the birth of his second daughter, Kathleen — I WALK THE LINE was in the top ten a month later, staying there until the following March.

It remains Johnny’s most enduring composition, a declaration of devotion and faithfulness, written with the earnest certitude of a man utterly consumed with being the model of honor, doing the right thing, fighting off temptation, and staying on the straight and narrow. There is nothing flowery here, no boasting or pretense. It is a simple, profound promise of lifelong dedication.

Rolling Stone called “I Walk the Line” the greatest country song of all time.

GET RHYTHM

1956

Hey, get rhythm when you get the blues

Come on, get rhythm when you get the blues

Get a rock and roll feeling in your bones

Put taps on your toes and get goin’

Get rhythm when you get the blues

A little shoeshine boy he never gets low-down

But he’s got the dirtiest job in town

Bending low at the people’s feet

On the windy corner of the dirty street

Well, I asked him while he shined my shoes

How’d he keep from getting the blues

He grinned as he raised his little head

He popped a shoeshine rag and then he said

“Get rhythm when you get the blues

Come on, get rhythm when you get the blues

A jumpy rhythm makes you feel so fine

It’ll take all your trouble from your worried mind

Get rhythm when you get the blues.”

Get rhythm when you get the blues

C’mon, get rhythm when you get the blues

Get a rock and roll feeling in your bones

Put taps on your toes and get goin’

Get rhythm when you get the blues

Well, I sat down to listen to the shoeshine boy

And I thought I was gonna jump for joy

Slapped on the shoe polish left and right

He took a shoeshine rag and he held it tight

He stopped once to wipe the sweat away

I said, “You’re a mighty little boy to be a-workin’ that way.”

He said, “I like it” with a big wide grin

Kept on a-poppin’ and he said again

“Get rhythm when you get the blues

C’mon, get rhythm when you get the blues

It only costs a dime, just a nickel a shoe

It does a million dollars’ worth of good for you

Get rhythm when you get the blues.”

SO DOGGONE LONESOME

1956

I do my best to hide this low-down feeling

I try to make believe there’s nothing wrong

But they’re always asking me about you, darling

And it hurts me so to tell ’em that you’re gone

If they ask me I guess I’d be denying

That I’ve been unhappy all alone

But if they heard my heart they’d hear it crying

Where’s my darling, when’s she coming home?

I ask myself a million times what’s right for me to do

To try to lose my blues alone or hang around for you

But I make it pretty good until that moon comes shining through

And then I get so doggone lonesome

Time stands still when you’re a-waiting

Sometimes I think my heart is stopping, too

One lonely hour seems forever

Sixty minutes more to wait for you

But I guess I’ll keep waitin’ ’til you’re with me

’Cause I believe that loving you is right

But I don’t care if the sun don’t rise tomorrow

If I can’t have you with me tonight

Well I know I’ll keep on loving you

’Cause true love can’t be killed

I ought to get you off of my mind

But I guess I never will

I could have a dozen others

But I know I’d love you still

’Cause I get so doggone lonesome

Much like rock and roll, the early songs came hot and heavy. Some were written with other artists in mind, like GET RHYTHM, which was initially for Elvis, and SO DOGGONE LONESOME, which was pitched to one of Johnny’s inspirations, Ernest Tubb, although both of those ended up as Cash releases. And he was prolific: every one of the first twelve sides released by Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two on Sun Records was a Cash creation. Remarkably, of the eighteen sides the label issued during his tenure, his name was on no fewer than fifteen.

Sometimes the songs came too quickly. Johnny always felt that MEAN EYED CAT, one of the first songs he recorded in 1955, had been rushed during those frantic days of coming up with material suitable to Sam, and consequently was not completed to his liking. That frustration stayed with him for decades, until 1996 — over forty years later — when he finally returned to that ferocious-looking feline and finished the song properly and for good.

JOHN CARTER CASH

MY FATHER FOUND not only love in writing; it was his lifeblood. In his final months, having lost his eyesight and lastly my mother, except for his close family, his music and his writing were all he had. Firstly, music was joy to him. And so it was, while working on American II: Unchained, that he “finished” “Mean Eyed Cat,” decades after its original composition, by tying up the story with a final verse. It was this joy which drove his nearly supernatural creative strength. The child in him became reacquainted with the literal child he had been when he began the song so many years before. To my father, writing was a healing, a defining catharsis. The act of writing brought him peace, during and after composition. For him, in some ways it mattered not if the world approved of or even heard his writings. He completed his last song mere days before his death. In that, he was whole.

MEAN EYED CAT

1955/1996

I gave my woman half my money at the general store

I said, “Now, buy a little groceries, and don’t spend no more.”

Then she paid ten dollars for a ten-cent hat

And got some store-bought cat food for her mean eyed cat

When I give her ten more dollars for a one-way ticket

She was mad as could be

Then I bet ten more that if she ever left

She’d come a-crawling back to me

When I woke up this morning and I turned my head

There wasn’t a cotton-picking thing on her side of the bed

I found a little note where her head belonged

It said, “Dear John, honey, baby, I’m long gone.”

When I heard a whistle blowing, and the big wheels a-turning

I was scared as I could be

I put on my overalls and I headed for town

Gonna bring her back with me

I asked the man down at the station if he’d seen her there

I told him all about her pretty eyes and long, blond hair

He spit his tobacco, said, “I’ll be dad-blamed

I believe I did see her leaving on the eastbound train.”

I bought a round-trip ticket on the eastbound train

I was broke as I could be

But when I come back, I gotta buy another ticket

Gonna bring her back with me

Well, I got off the train somewhere in Arkansas

And I worked up the guts to call my mother-in-law

She said, “I’ll tell you where she is, if you act right

She’s working four to twelve at Trucker’s World tonight.”

Well, when I walked in she saw me and she took off her apron

And she grabbed her going-home hat

She bought a ticket with her tips

Now we’re curled up on the sofa

Me and her and that mean eyed cat

THERE YOU GO

1957

Well here I am and there you go, you’re gone again

I know you’re gonna be the way you’ve always been

Breaking hearts and telling lies is all you know

Another guy gives you the eye and there you go

There you go, you’re gone again

I should have known, I couldn’t win

There you go, you’re by his side

You’re gonna break another heart, you’re gonna tell another lie

Because I love you so, I take much more than I should take

I want you even though I know my heart is gonna break

You build me up and for a while I’m all aglow

Then your fickle heart sees someone else and there you go

There you go, you’re gone again

I should have known, I couldn’t win

There you go, you’re by his side

You’re gonna break another heart, you’re gonna tell another lie

The outsize prominence of Johnny’s most storied compositions, so closely associated as they are with his mythic legacy, tend to overshadow other mere classics in his canon. Such is the case with THERE YOU GO, one of his most successful releases on Sun, which spent an astonishing twenty-three weeks in the top ten in 1957. When asked, years later, what he thought was his most underrated record, this was the first one he mentioned.

His fourth single, recorded just a month after he became a regular on the Opry, “There You Go” was sitting at number two (and “I Walk the Line” was still number three, seven months after its release) when Johnny made his national television debut on The Jackie Gleason Show on January 19, 1957. In between, one December afternoon, he finished up some Christmas shopping and dropped in on his friend Carl Perkins, who was in the middle of a recording session at Sun Studio. Also stopping by that day was Elvis, who had just moved on to RCA. Soon the three buddies, accompanied by Sam’s newest discovery, a hell-raising piano player from Louisiana named Jerry Lee Lewis, were engaged in an impromptu jam session for the ages. When the fun and games threatened to go on and on, the recording engineer, Cowboy Jack Clement, figured he would just go next door and grab himself a sandwich. In one of those serendipitous events that just couldn’t have been made up, Clement chose to walk out the door and leave the tape recorder running. When he returned, he had just preserved a once-in-a-lifetime moment, and the players in that studio went down in music history as the Million Dollar Quartet.

The Million Dollar Quartet: Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley, and Johnny Cash at Sun Studio, Memphis, December 4, 1956

“The Streach,” a drainage ditch that Johnny fished in, Dyess, photographed by Joseph Cash, present day

COUNTRY BOY

1957

Country boy, ain’t got no shoes

Country boy, ain’t got no blues

Well, you work all day while you’re wantin’ to play

In the sun and the sand, with the faces tanned

But at the end of the day, when your work is done

You ain’t got nothing but fun

Country boy, ain’t got no ills

Country boy, you don’t owe no bills

You get a wiggly worm and then you watch him squirm

While you put him on a hook and you drop him in a brook

And if everything’s gonna turn out right

You’re gonna fry fish tonight

Country boy

You’re lucky free

Country boy, I wish I was you

And you was me

Country boy, you got work to do

Country boy, in the mornin’ dew

You gotta cut the weeds, you gotta plant the seeds

There’s many a row you know you gotta hoe

But when it’s quittin’ time, and your work is through

There’s a lot of life in you

Country boy, got a shaggy dog

Country boy, up a hollow log

Well, he comes in a run, when you pick up your gun

And with a shell or two, and your dog and you

When you get your rabbit, you’ll skin his hide

He’s gonna be good fried

Country boy

You got a lot to lose

Country boy

How I wish I was in your shoes

COUNTRY BOY was unquestionably the most… country song that Johnny recorded at Sun, which meant that it was not destined for DJ booths or dance halls or, ultimately, any Sam Phillips favorite hits album. Still, it was as authentically Cash as anything he ever wrote. It is impossible to look on this as anything other than his first autobiography. Was it merely a romantic (re)telling of what he had come to see as an innocent time? Or was Johnny already feeling the weight of constant pressure and lofty expectations, and really wishing “I was in your shoes”?

To add a fascinating layer to this song of the heart, Cash rerecorded “Country Boy” late in his life, offering a completely different perspective on this, his life story told in song.

GIVE MY LOVE TO ROSE

1956

I found him by the railroad track this morning

I could see that he was nearly dead

I knelt down beside him and I listened

Just to hear the words the dying fellow said

He said, “They let me out of prison out in Frisco

For ten long years I’ve paid for what I’ve done

I was trying to get back to Louisiana

To see my Rose and get to know my son.”

“Give my love to Rose, please won’t you, mister?

Take her all my money, tell her to buy some pretty clothes

Tell my boy that Daddy’s so proud of him

And don’t forget to give my love to Rose.”

“Won’t you tell them I said thanks for waiting for me?

Tell my boy to help his mom at home

Tell my Rose to try to find another

’Cause it ain’t right that she should live alone.”

“Mister, here’s a bag with all my money

It won’t last them long the way it goes

God bless you for finding me this morning

And don’t forget to give my love to Rose.”

In 1956, during Johnny’s first tour of California, a grizzled old guy with a mission made his way backstage after the show. He had just been released from prison and, knowing that the young star was from the South, began sharing a heartbreaking story of the wife he left behind in Shreveport, Louisiana. “If you get back there before I do,” he tearfully implored, “would you give her my love?” The pathetic plea of that ex-con moved Johnny immensely. He went back to his motel room and wrote this, one of his earliest and most powerful laments, a tale of regret, honor, and, ultimately, redemption. He was twenty-four years old.

JOHN CARTER CASH

DAD CONNECTED WITH people’s lives and their stories in profound and intimate ways. It could be something he heard, something he had experienced himself, a secretly shared moment of intimacy, or simply a passing moment. Like a seasoned novelist, he put himself in the place of the person he wrote about. He opened his heart and connected the tale to the listener. GIVE MY LOVE TO ROSE was one such creation, with Dad coloring in the story of the sad, fatefully stricken ex-inmate. Though he had never walked in that man’s shoes, Dad had known loss and isolation. He was well acquainted with true suffering. The song is as powerful as a two-hour film.

The muddy cauldron of the Mississippi River, 1940s

BIG RIVER

1957

Now I taught the weeping willow how to cry

And I showed the clouds how to cover up a clear blue sky

And the tears that I cried for that woman are gonna flood you, Big River

And I’m gonna sit right here until I die

I met her accidentally in Saint Paul, Minnesota

And it tore me up every time I heard her drawl, Southern drawl

Then I heard my dream was back downstream, cavortin’ in Davenport

And I followed you, Big River, when you called

Then you took me to Saint Louis later on, down the river

A freighter said she’s been here, but she’s gone, boy, she’s gone

I found her trail in Memphis, but she just walked up the bluff

She raised a few eyebrows and then she went on down alone

Well, I pulled into Natchez, next day, down the river

But there wasn’t much there to make a rounder stay very long

When I left it was raining, so nobody saw me cry

Big River, why she doing me this way?

Now, won’t you bat it down by Baton Rouge, River Queen, roll it on

Take that woman on down to New Orleans, New Orleans

Go on, I’ve had enough, dump my blues down in the Gulf

She loves you, Big River, more than me

The Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle with Chet Atkins, Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, c. 1951

The Mississippi River dominates everything in its path as it winds its way down from north-central Minnesota, bisecting ten states through the heart of the U.S., and empties into the Gulf of Mexico, south of New Orleans. It carried the steamboats and riverboats that propelled commerce for half the country for centuries, provides drinking water and irrigation, produces hydroelectric energy, and is home to hundreds of species of marine and terrestrial wildlife. The vagaries of the BIG RIVER controlled generations of American lives, its floodwaters overflowing with abundance and taking without pity. The floods that devastated farms along its route over the years would also leave behind rich black silt to fertilize the land for the next growing season.

The river informs the culture of the cities on its banks, such as Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Davenport, Saint Louis, Memphis, Natchez, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans. It inspired classic literature from writers such as Edna Ferber, Herman Melville, and Cornelia Meigs. Life on the Mississippi, a memoir by Mark Twain, chronicled his time as a steamboat pilot, and also regaled with fascinating tales of a journey he took from New Orleans up to Saint Paul. Later, Twain’s characters Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn captured the imagination of young boys, including J.R. Cash, growing up in the shadow and (almost) within earshot of the very same brooding, swirling, muddy cauldron as did the fictional Tom and Huck. Huddled under his bedcovers at night, reading by flashlight, praying the battery would hold out on the radio he held close to his ear, J.R. could only dream of being able to see these exotic places one day.

The radio was young J.R.’s ticket to ride. And ride he did! He first listened to an Opry broadcast as a teen. The performers were rendered larger than life in his mind’s eye by the big sounds and melodies coming from the broadcast’s home at the mystical Ryman Auditorium in “far-off” Nashville. A turn of the dial would bring in local acts, which J.R. might have found more accessible, and fueled a boy’s aspirations that he might get himself heard on the radio one day. He even developed a fondness for the smooth warbling of crooners like Bing Crosby and Perry Como, their elegant tones and suave “uptown” demeanors dazzling and seemingly unattainable to a cotton-pickin’ country boy.

JOHN CARTER CASH

BIG RIVER” IS a masterpiece. Its depth and enormity are still difficult for me to comprehend fully. Dad was only a young man when he composed it, yet this is essential American poetry. On the surface, it is the story of a brokenhearted man following the path of the great Mississippi, forlornly chasing a woman who remains elusive, just out of his reach. Yet it is so much more than a simple boy-loves-girl, boy-loses-girl tale of lovesick despair. The song’s distinct and elegant phrasing deserves its distinguished place in the music literature of this nation. Each city along the narrator’s journey is yet another dagger to the heart; at every stop he finds another rejection. The towns all hold their vividly imagined character — the bluffs in Dad’s hometown of Memphis, or the rollicking nightlife in Saint “Looey”; no map could portray such imagery. We smell the American soil itself and feel the turning of the muddy water. When at last we reach the Gulf of Mexico, we realize that the big river has forever swept his love away. The narrator is no match for its pull.

COME IN, STRANGER

1958

She said, “Come in, stranger

It’s good to have you home

I hurried through ’cause I knew it was you

When I saw your dog, wagging his tail

Honey, why didn’t you let me know by mail?

You’ve been gone so long.”

She said, “Come in, stranger

I know you’re weary from all the miles

Just sit right there in your easy chair

And tell me all about the places you’ve been

How long it’ll be before you leave again

I hope it’s a long, long while.”

She said, “Come in, stranger

Everything round home is fine

I’ve watched and I’ve waited

For you to get back

And I missed you

All the time.”

She said, “Come in, stranger

Oh how I miss you when you’re gone

I walk the floor and I watch the door

And when I lie awake and wonder where you can be

I’d give anything to have you here with me

I get so lonesome all alone.”

She said, “Come in, stranger

And won’t you listen to my plea?

Stay long enough, so that the one I love

Is not a stranger to me.”

Recorded precisely three years after it all began, COME IN, STRANGER was the last Johnny Cash–penned song to be released while he was at Sun. It rode all the way to the top of the charts, hitting number one the week that his third daughter, Cindy, was born.

He had traveled far since 1955, farther than even his most outlandish dreams could have taken him. But the old adage “Be careful what you wish for” couldn’t have been more apt. The wide open road, seemingly limitless, had developed potholes. Warning signs were popping up everywhere. He was becoming a stranger at home. But maybe the road could go on forever. For now, it led to Hollywood, where bright lights — blinding lights — awaited.

I WILL ROCK AND ROLL WITH YOU

1978

They used to call me rockabilly

All of us ran through

When Elvis opened up the door

Boom-bop-a-lop-bam-boo

I didn’t ever play much rock and roll

’Cause I got so much country in my soul

But I’m a different man for lovin’ you

And I’ll take a shot at what you ask me to

And baby I will rock and roll with you

If I have to

Memphis 1955

On Union Avenue

Carl and Jerry and Charlie and Roy

And Billy Riley, too

A new sun rising

On the way we sing

And a world of weirdos

Waiting in the wings

But I love you

And though I’m past forty-two

There are still a few things

Yet I didn’t do

And baby, I will rock and roll with you

If I have to

Although Johnny moved on from Sun Records to Columbia in 1958, he never really left. The magic of those three years stayed with him, propelled him, and at times even haunted him. In some ways, this would be the era that defined Johnny Cash for all time, culminating in his induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

Bookending his residency at popular music’s most renowned incubator of innovation and revolution, the squat brick former upholstery shop that became Sam Phillips’s earthquake central, at 706 Union Avenue in Memphis, was this joyous, affectionate look (albeit twenty years later) at that giddy period. I WILL ROCK AND ROLL WITH YOU name-dropped various luminaries who crossed that hallowed threshold as it celebrated the phenomenon that turned a sharecropper’s kid into a cultural deity. It was Johnny’s love letter — and thank you — to that which created him.

Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two, 1959

With producer Don Law, early 1960s

AS EARLY AS 1957, the writing was on the wall: Johnny’s days as a Sun star were numbered. The little label was not capable of playing in the big leagues economically, and its artists were missing out on promotion and reliable paydays. The following year, Johnny moved to Columbia Records, with the assurance of higher royalties, marketing clout, worldwide exposure, and the creative freedom that Sam Phillips would not grant.

At the same time, Memphis was feeling… small. Elvis had provided the route out of town, and the destination. The California dream had long promised new starts, stimulated imagination, and stoked ambition, even before the swimming pools and movie stars. Johnny, Vivian, and the three girls headed west and kept going until they ran out of road, settling in North Hollywood, in a house chosen because it allowed kids. His career was in high gear, the future was again boundless, and all was going to be right in the world. The next years were some of the most creative of Johnny Cash’s life. They form the foundation of his towering and everlasting artistic reputation. They also nearly killed him. Vivian Cash called California “the ruination of everything.”

Johnny was just twenty-six when he left Sun, yet he had always been the grown-up in that room. He spent his last year there resisting attempts to make him into a teen idol on the order of Ricky Nelson, even as his two most blatant dance floor recordings, “Ballad of a Teenage Queen” and “Guess Things Happen That Way” (both written by the brilliantly nutty Jack Clement, the same guy who recorded the Million Dollar Quartet), simply burned up the charts, remaining Johnny’s bestselling records for years. His music for his new label contained not a hint of a jingle or a jump that could be reminiscent of those frisky days when Luther played that strange boogie. Under producer Don Law, Johnny became the adult he always wanted to be. For better or worse.

WHAT DO I CARE

1958

When I’m all through if I haven’t been what they think I should be

If the total isn’t high enough when they figure me

When I grow old if there’s no gray from worry in my hair

What do I care? What do I care?

What do I care just as long as you were mine a little while?

When the road was long and weary you gave me a few good miles

What do I care if I miss a goal because I make a slip?

I’ll still be satisfied because I tasted your sweet lips

What do I care if I never have much money?

And sometimes my table looks a little bare

Anything that I may miss is made up for each time we kiss

You love me and I love you, so what do I care?

ALL OVER AGAIN

1958

Every time I look at you I fall in love, all over again

Every time I think of you it all begins, all over again

One little dream at night and I can dream all day

It only takes a memory to thrill me

One little kiss from you and I just fly away

Pour me out your love until you fill me

I wanna fall in love beginning from the start, all over again

Show me how you stole away my heart, all over again

One little dream at night and I can dream all day

It only takes a memory to thrill me

One little kiss from you and I just fly away

Pour me out your love until you fill me

I wanna fall in love beginning from the start, all over again

Show me how you stole away my heart, all over again

Johnny’s first Columbia single, ALL OVER AGAIN backed with WHAT DO I CARE, reached the top ten and drifted over onto the pop charts, a decent first swim in the big new pond. Both were love ballads that would have been at home on the easy-listening charts alongside Dino and Damone (with whom Airman Cash had served in Germany) and Como and Bennett. Johnny’s writing had returned to the uncomplicated time — just a couple of years before — when there were no cares and love promised to conquer all. He was still pledging to walk the line, renewing the vow of devotion that defined him to the world, all over again.

Early Columbia Records publicity photo, 1959

RUN SOFTLY, BLUE RIVER

1958

Run softly, Blue River, my darlin’s asleep

Run softly, Blue River, run cool and deep

Oh I thrill to her kisses and she thrills to mine

Run softly while she sleeps and dreams for a time

’Cause she dreams of tomorrow when she’ll be my wife

And I pray that as peaceful as you is our life

And if your murmuring soothes me ’til I’m sleeping, too

Run softly, Blue River, we’ll both dream with you

Unlike Sun, Columbia Records favored full-length albums as much as hit singles, which allowed the budding composer to hone his melodies and expand his output. His first long player, The Fabulous Johnny Cash — the cover of which featured a shot of Johnny looking every bit as debonair as Sinatra himself — included two especially personal compositions. RUN SOFTLY, BLUE RIVER is a bona fide lullaby, full of soft imagery and sweet dreams. He wrote it from the perspective of an entranced groom on the eve of his wedding day, and sang it to his kids at bedtime.

DRINK TO ME

1958

A rose, a carnation, the lily and an orchid

Make such a pretty bouquet

But only the orchid was worthy of you

So I threw all the others away

Then you took the orchid and you breathed on its petals

And after a day or two

The flower still blooms, but the scent’s not the orchid’s

It carries the savor of you

So if you’re gonna drink to me, drink with your eyes

And I’ll never cry for wine

Or leave a kiss in an empty coffee cup

Then pass it from your lips to mine

’Cause I’ve got a thirst burning way down in my soul

And honey from a sugar tree

Is not half as sweet as the air that you breathe

Honey, come here and drink to me

Backstage, 1957

DRINK TO ME has one of the most fascinating origin stories of any in the Cash catalog, having been inspired by a song first published as a poem in 1616. While a junior at Dyess High School in 1949, J.R. Cash was asked to sing at the senior class graduation ceremony, where he performed “Song: To Celia,” a seventeenth-century Elizabethan love poem set to music and frequently known by its first line: “Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes.” Setting aside the unimaginable course of distance and time from London to northeast Arkansas, this was an early display of the wide-ranging interests and eclectic tastes that would astound and inspire listeners — and distinguish Johnny — throughout his life. Less than a decade after young J.R.’s school performance, a four-hundred-year-old ode to inextinguishable love was the inspiration for his own pledge to forever.

In the studio with nephew Roy Cash, Jr., 1959

I STILL MISS SOMEONE

1958

At my door the leaves are falling

A cold wild wind will come

Sweethearts walk by together

And I still miss someone

I go out on a party

And look for a little fun

But I find a darkened corner

’Cause I still miss someone

I never got over those blue eyes

I see them everywhere

I miss those arms that held me

When all the love was there

I wonder if she’s sorry

For leaving what we’d begun

There’s someone for me somewhere

And I still miss someone

Among Johnny’s most beautiful and everlasting creations is this song that never made the charts. Nevertheless, it ranks as one of his greatest hits, as revered as the biggest sellers, including by him. I STILL MISS SOMEONE is the B side that made the A-list.

Cowritten by Roy Cash Jr., son of Johnny’s eldest brother, while Roy sat at his desk in class in high school, this is the Cash composition covered by more artists than any other, from Linda Ronstadt to Gram Parsons to Stevie Nicks to Hank Williams Jr.

It also marked the end of Johnny’s short retro dalliance with the “smooth sounds” that hearkened back to his formative music years in the 1940s and early 1950s. Another music form was on the rise that roused him from this easy-listening interlude. It set him on a course that took him far from his rock and roll roots. Improbably, it took him back home.

Industry trade ad, Variety, 1964

Monkeying around at home, Hollywood, 1959

Performing in Korea, November 1962

With the band, June, and friends, including Johnny Western, at the site of the failed 1876 James-Younger Gang bank raid in Northfield, Minnesota, 1962

Korea, 1962

At home, Hollywood, 1959

Signing autographs, March 1958

With Gordon Terry, Des Moines, Iowa, April 1961

Fishing day with friends, late 1950s

Performing with the Tennessee Two, mid-1950s

DON’T TAKE YOUR GUNS TO TOWN

1958

A young cowboy named Billy Joe grew restless on the farm

A boy filled with wanderlust who really meant no harm

He changed his clothes and shined his boots

And combed his dark hair down

And his mother cried as he walked out

“Don’t take your guns to town, son

Leave your guns at home, Bill

Don’t take your guns to town.”

He laughed and kissed his mom and said, “Your Billy Joe’s a man

I can shoot as quick and straight as anybody can

But I wouldn’t shoot without a cause

I’d gun nobody down.”

But she cried again as he rode away

“Don’t take your guns to town, son

Leave your guns at home, Bill

Don’t take your guns to town.”

He sang a song as on he rode, his guns hung at his hips

He rode into a cattle town, a smile upon his lips

He stopped and walked into a bar

And laid his money down

But his mother’s words echoed again

“Don’t take your guns to town, son

Leave your guns at home, Bill

Don’t take your guns to town.”

He drank his first strong liquor then to calm his shaking hand

And tried to tell himself at last he had become a man

A dusty cowpoke at his side

Began to laugh him down

And he heard again his mother’s words

“Don’t take your guns to town, son

Leave your guns at home, Bill

Don’t take your guns to town.”

Filled with rage then, Billy Joe reached for his gun to draw

But the stranger drew his gun and fired before he even saw

As Billy Joe fell to the floor

The crowd all gathered round

And wondered at his final words:

“Don’t take your guns to town, son

Leave your guns at home, Bill

Don’t take your guns to town.”

In 1958, a fresh-faced, clean-cut acoustic group out of California called the Kingston Trio turned the music world upside down with a bouncy sing-along tune called “Tom Dooley,” which sold millions of records and launched what became known as the folk music boom. The song was a murder ballad (based on a real-life event in North Carolina that occurred a century before, no less) that had college kids dancing in the aisles as the condemned man shuffled off to the gallows.

Evidently, story songs about killing had gone mainstream. Nobody was paying more attention to this phenomenon than a new Californian who hailed from the South, and who was no stranger to writing and singing about watching men (even if fictional) die: Johnny Cash.

In the first month of his tenure at Columbia, where he was given free rein to record to his heart’s desire, Johnny not only laid down all those “easy tracks” but introduced what became his first number one at the new label. Anyone listening for the boy singing about teenage queens on Dick Clark’s TV show only months before would have been bewildered.

DON’T TAKE YOUR GUNS TO TOWN is a morality play acted out in a sweeping Western saga with a decidedly serious tone. Like “Folsom Prison Blues,” it examines right and wrong and consequences, themes that would dominate Johnny’s writing for the next four decades. The account of naive, reckless, and, ultimately, dead Billy Joe is a cautionary tale of what happens when the warnings of an experienced loved one are not heeded.

Lyrics to a later version of “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town,” 1980s

“Guns” was an immediate, giant hit, needing just two weeks to reach the top ten, where it stayed for fifteen weeks, six of them at the summit. It also placed Johnny in the middle of the folk music renaissance.

JOHN CARTER CASH

DAD’S SONGS ARE timeless and relate to our world today as much as, if not more than, when they were written. The tales he put into his music are rich with imagery, and we feel as if we know the characters. He brings the listener into a relationship with them, and there is no better example than the character Billy Joe from “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town.” We feel the boy’s charm and can almost see his smirking and laughing face as he walks out the door of his home, disregarding his mother’s warning, guns on hips. Every step he takes toward his fate is clear. As he “drank his first strong liquor,” we can nearly taste it. In the world we live in, the warning within this song touches us that much more deeply. Finally, Billy Joe learns his lesson, though much too late. It clears away our callous disregard of tragedy, bringing a closer understanding of humanity through this personal tale.

PICKIN’ TIME

1958

I got cotton in the bottom land

It’s up and growing and I got a good stand

My good wife and them kids of mine

Gonna get new shoes, come pickin’ time

Get new shoes, come pickin’ time

Ev’ry night when I go to bed

I thank the Lord that my kids are fed

They live on beans eight days and nine

But I get ’em fat, come pickin’ time

Get ’em fat, come pickin’ time

The corn is yellow and the beans are high

The sun is hot in the summer sky

The work is hard ’til layin’ by

Layin’ by, ’til pickin’ time

Layin’ by, ’til pickin’ time

It’s hard to see by the coal-oil light

And I turn it off pretty early at night

’Cause a jug of coal oil costs a dime

But I stay up late come pickin’ time

Stay up late, come pickin’ time

My old wagon barely gets me to town

I patched the wheels and I watered ’em down

Keep her in shape so she’ll be fine

To haul my cotton, come pickin’ time

Haul my cotton, come pickin’ time

Last Sunday morning when they passed the hat

It was still nearly empty back where I sat

But the preacher smiled and said that’s fine

The Lord’ll wait ’til pickin’ time

The Lord’ll wait ’til pickin’ time

Especially given his already storied pedigree (and that he was still just twenty-six years old), Johnny might well have donned a cardigan and joined the minstrel set playing on campuses across America. Instead, he embraced folk music’s elemental underpinnings, and focused his attentions on telling personal stories of trials and triumphs of working people and the underdog.

It was the move to California that set him on this alternate journey. The hoped-for incursion into Hollywood was not panning out, forcing Johnny to do some soul-searching as to his direction and purpose. Instead of glitz and big-screen idolatry, he focused on his message and artistry. And as he had already done numerous times in his still brief career, he looked to his own life for inspiration, producing three searing, striking masterpieces that owed nothing at all to klieg lights and everything to real life.

PICKIN’ TIME is Johnny at his simplest and most brilliant. This story of farming life lived on the edge, with the earth giving and taking at its whim, is universal. One does not need to pick cotton to know hardship or experience desperation. And to seek deliverance is the essence of the human condition. Johnny was once asked if he ever wrote “a perfect song.” Yes, he said: “Pickin’ Time.” Hard to argue with that.

Mississippi Delta flooding, February 1937

FIVE FEET HIGH AND RISING

1959

How high’s the water, Mama?

“Two feet high and rising.”

How high’s the water, Papa?

“She said, ‘It’s two feet high and rising.’”

We can make it to the road in a homemade boat

That’s the only thing we got left that’ll float

It’s already over all the wheat and oats

Two feet high and rising

How high’s the water, Mama?

“Three feet high and rising.”

How high’s the water, Papa?

“She said, ‘It’s three feet high and rising.’”

Well, the hives are gone, I lost my bees

The chickens are sleeping in the willow trees

Cow’s in water up past her knees

Three feet high and rising

How high’s the water, Mama?

“Four feet high and rising.”

How high’s the water, Papa?

“She said, ‘It’s four feet high and rising.’”

Hey, come look through the windowpane

The bus is coming, gonna take us to the train

Looks like we’ll be blessed with a little more rain

Four feet high and rising

How high’s the water, Mama?

“Five feet high and rising.”

How high’s the water, Papa?

“She said, ‘It’s five feet high and rising.’”

Well, the rails are washed out north of town

We gotta head for higher ground

We can’t come back ’til the water goes down

Five feet high and rising

Well, it’s five feet high and rising

THE MAN ON THE HILL

1959

Will we get cold and hungry?

Will times be very bad?

When we’re needing bread and meat

Where we gonna get it, Dad?

“We’ll get it from the man in the house on the hill

Yes, we will from the man on the hill.”

Plowing time is over

Still, the fields are bare

How we gonna make a living

With twenty acres to share?

I’ll beg for more land from the man on the hill

Yes, I will, I’ll ask the man on the hill

I ain’t got no Sunday shoes

That I can wear to town

Papa, reckon the boss

Has got a pair of hand-me-downs?

I’ll go and ask the man in the house on the hill

Yes, I will, I’ll ask the man on the hill

Maybe he will help us

Maybe we’ll get by

But who’s gonna pay the dying bills

If we all should die?

We’ll leave it to the man in the sky when we die

Yes, we’ll leave it to the man in the sky

Farms and homes inundated with flooding, Mississippi Delta region, February 1937

Abandoned tenant house on a Mississippi Delta plantation, 1937

It is almost incomprehensible today to imagine that frontier America still existed less than a century ago and how vital cotton farming was to the economy and to society. During King Cotton’s heyday, more than two-thirds of the farmland in the country was covered with the white crop. It demanded the complete fealty of its lowly subjects, requiring attention from morning to night, every day, just so they might eke out the barest existence. If the rains came, or didn’t, or the boll weevil or the aphid or the thrip or the cabbage looper, or if the soil or the family gave out, then there was no crop and no money. There was no telling how it would go.

Drought and flood were equal opportunity menaces. Farms withered and children starved. Animals were swept away by raging storms. J.R. Cash was just shy of his fifth birthday when weeks-long, nonstop rains devastated the Mississippi Delta region, forcing the families of Dyess to evacuate to higher ground as the waters rose higher and higher. It was one of Johnny’s earliest memories, no doubt traumatizing, and it never left him. This event inspired one of his most beloved story songs, FIVE FEET HIGH AND RISING.

Johnny’s reverence for the land was ingrained in him well before Dyess, along with an abundant amount of awe and submission. The entire being of the humble farmer, who surely resents the wretched dirt under him even as he has no choice but to surrender to it, is rendered dependent and defeated. He does not escape it, nor does his flesh and blood. THE MAN ON THE HILL owns his soul.

Currency, called “doodlum,” used in the Dyess Colony

MEET ME IN HEAVEN

1996

We saw houses falling from the sky

Where the mountains lean down to the sand

We saw blackbirds circling round an old castle keep

And I stood on the cliff and held your hand

We walked troubled, brooding windswept hills

And we loved and we laughed the pain away

At the end of the journey, when our last song is sung

Will you meet me in Heaven someday?

Can’t be sure of how it’s going to be

When we walk into the light across the bar

But I’ll know you and you’ll know me

Out there beyond the stars

We’ve seen the secret things revealed by God

And we heard what the angels had to say

Should you go first, or if you follow me

Will you meet me in Heaven someday?

Living in a mansion on the streets of gold

At the corner of Grace and Rapture Way

In sweet ecstasy, while the ages roll

Will you meet me in Heaven someday?

In sweet ecstasy, while the ages roll

Will you meet me in Heaven someday?

Jack Cash, Dyess, early 1940s

Jack, J.R., and Reba, Dyess, early 1940s

Johnny’s brother Jack, two years older, was a strong, serious young man, admired by all. He played ball, chased girls, got into fights, loved his mother, looked after the younger kids, and read his Bible faithfully — he was going to be the one who “made it” out of Dyess. Except life is unreliable and fate is merciless.

Jack often spent time after school and on weekends taking odd jobs to bring in a few extra pennies. So it was on the morning of Saturday, May 13, 1944 — the day before Mother’s Day — that he made a dedicated and adult yet ill-fated decision. He passed up a day of fishing with J.R., one of the rare idyllic pastimes that a grown-up Johnny would always associate with “simpler” times, to cut logs into fence posts at the Dyess High School machine shop. This project would earn him three needed dollars. But in a catastrophe even more horrifying for its utter commonness, a gruesome accident on the table saw that day would end Jack’s promising life at age fourteen a week later.

Watching his adored brother’s agonizing death was perhaps the most consequential event of Johnny Cash’s life. It followed him, haunted him, informed his worldview, inspired him, and shattered him. As Jack’s earthly journey was ending, he described Heaven as if he were standing at its gates. Which he was.

“Can you hear the angels?” Jack asked his mother, who refused to move from his bedside the entire week it took for her beloved son to die. “I wish you could. They’re so beautiful… It’s so wonderful, and what a beautiful place that I’m going.” To Ray, Jack issued the ultimate invitation: “Will you MEET ME IN HEAVEN, Daddy?” As half of Dyess sobbed outside, and Dr. Hollingsworth joined the family on his knees in prayer, the light of the Cash family was extinguished.

The next day, one week after Mother’s Day, J.R. joined the men of the town to dig his brother’s grave. The day after that, they were all back in the fields, harvesting the cotton. A half century later, Jack’s little brother wrote of that searing time: “Lest you get too romantic an impression of the good, natural, hardworking, character-building country life back then… picture Carrie Cash down in the mud between the cotton rows on any mother’s worst day.” There was no time to breathe, much less grieve, in the Dyess Colony.

Out in Bassett Cemetery, Jack Dempsey Cash’s final resting place is marked with his life dates and his parting message: “Will you meet me in Heaven?” And in Hendersonville, Tennessee, Ray Cash’s grave says the same.

Jack Cash, Dyess, early 1940s

JOHN CARTER CASH

MY FATHER’S STRENGTH was fastened together by an early life of tragedy and grief. Yet his brother’s spirit never left him; it followed him every day of his life. Jack was a moral guidepost against which Dad measured his actions according to what he believed Jack would have done. The two were inseparable as kids, and that never changed. Whenever Dad dreamed of Jack, he was always two years older, a fatherly figure leading the way. I recall Dad one summer morning around 1984, waking me with a smile on his face. “Jack visited me last night,” he said. I rubbed my sleepy eyes. “He wore a suit with a blue tie. I wish you could have known him, son.”

The sadness my grandparents knew in their early lives held no candle to the devastation of losing Jack. My father took it as hard as anyone. It broke him, certainly, yet in some ways, it sparked an inspired creativity and strength that would define his life to come. Like my dad, my grandfather had few outlets and little education on how to handle this all-consuming grief. Certainly my father and grandpa had their struggles in life, but Dad never showed any resentment or ever spoke one negative word to me about Grandpa Ray. Every morning he was in town, the first thing he would do was walk across the street to their house and visit his parents. Ray Cash was a man of few words, but he and Dad talked warmly and easily. One of the greatest lessons Dad ever taught me was through the respect he had for both his mother and father.

In 2006, decades past that terrible day in 1944, my second son, Jack Ezra Cash, was born. My mother’s father’s name was Ezra James Carter. Hope in family and belief in brighter things to come carries on in the passing of the names.

Working lyrics to “Meet Me in Heaven,” 1995

Johnny and Vivian with Rosanne and Kathy, California, late 1950s

DON’T STEP ON MOTHER’S ROSES

1959

We all were called to come back

To the old home on the farm

Mother’s passed away

What a mournful day

And as my daddy watched

His eyes were filled with pain and hurt

When someone stepped upon a rose

And crushed it in the dirt

“Don’t step on Mother’s roses,” Daddy cried

“She planted them the day she was my bride

And every time I see a rose

I see her smiling face

She made my darkest days look bright

Round the old home place.”

“Don’t step on Mother’s roses, let ’em grow

The way they did since many years ago

They’ll bloom for me each year

And I’ll have Mother near

Don’t step on Mother’s roses

Let ’em grow.”

Years have passed away

And how the old home place has changed

Daddy had to go

We all miss him so

Children pick the roses

As they go along the way

But when their petals are abused

I hear my daddy say:

“Don’t step on Mother’s roses,” Daddy cried

“She planted them the day she was my bride

And every time I see a rose

I see her smiling face

She made my darkest days look bright

Round the old home place.”

“Don’t step on Mother’s roses, let ’em grow

The way they did since many years ago

They’ll bloom for me each year

And I’ll have Mother near

Don’t step on Mother’s roses

Let ’em grow.”

The same year he wrote “The Man on the Hill” and “Five Feet High and Rising,” Johnny penned this melancholy lament of loss. It could be said to reflect his own disappointment at growing difficulties at home and the first dent in his record-selling prowess.

The gurus at Columbia Records were surely puzzled, if not aghast, when Johnny’s “creative freedom” took him into such unexpected territory. After all, when he signed on with them, his continuous string of huge pop singles was seemingly confirmation that they had bought a bargain, another Ricky Nelson or even, dare they hope, Elvis. “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town” was hardly dance-worthy, but number one was number one. Until it wasn’t. Johnny threw them for a loop.

The California country crowd — people like Merle Travis, Joe Maphis, and Tex Ritter — had their own take on country-and-Western music, with a decided emphasis on the “Western.” Their folk music didn’t tinkle, their dancing was square, and they spent a lot of time telling stories and inventing guitar licks. Johnny was influenced by the artistry of these new friends and neighbors. When he delivered Songs of Our Soil; Now, There Was a Song!; and Ride This Train, consecutive collections of traditional country and folk music with not a single radio hit among them, brows were furrowed and concern was expressed. Columbia wanted to sell records. They didn’t understand that Johnny was building a legacy.

With Vivian, late 1950s

Johnny and Vivian with Wandene and Roy Cash, mid-1950s

Ride This Train, released in 1960, is considered Johnny Cash’s first concept record. The idea of an entire album devoted to a central theme, with each song contributing to the story, was not new. Johnny was especially taken with Travis’s Folk Songs of the Hills, from 1947, and Marty Robbins’s Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs. But Johnny raised the genre to an art form. The remarkable Ride This Train (there actually aren’t any train songs on it) was a travelogue across America, telling of fast-disappearing locations and fascinating people at stops along the way. It is a brilliant historical document; Johnny considered it one of his defining moments.

Johnny in the kitchen, early 1960s

The bloom of the Hollywood rose had faded quickly. Johnny and California were a mismatch. Early on, there were screen tests for big-budget films with movie stars such as Jayne Mansfield and TV roles alongside the likes of Henry Fonda, but hopes for a movie career just never made it past hopes. Being way out west was isolating, requiring even more travel and time away from the girls — now a quartet, with the arrival of Tara in 1961 — and Vivian. Disoriented and alone, the family moved continually, ever searching for connection and permanence. Finally, Johnny built a house on the side of a mountain overlooking rural Ojai, two hours from the sparkle and dazzle he once thought he wanted. It was their fourth home in three years.

Johnny thought the clean air and blue skies out in the country would be good for his flock. Life would be simpler, healthier, and, maybe, a bit slower. But it was not to be. He was seldom there long enough for it to truly be home. Vivian, a city girl all her life, preferred people to mountain lions, their closest neighbors. She was lonely and miserable; he was distracted and despondent. Things got very messy.

THE BIG BATTLE

1962

I think, sir, the battle is over

And the young soldier lay down his gun

I’m tired of running for cover

For I think the battle is done

For see over there where we fought them

It’s quiet, for they’ve all gone away

All left is the dead and the dying

The ground’s covered with them today

So you think the battle is over

And you even lay down your gun

You carelessly rise from your cover

For you think the battle is done

Now boy, hit the dirt, listen to me

For I’m still the one in command

Get flat on the ground here beside me

And lay your heart to the sand

Can you hear the deafening rumble?

Can you feel the trembling ground?

It’s not just the horses and wagons

That make such a deafening sound

The fight yet to come’s not with cannon

Nor will the fight be hand-to-hand

No one will regroup the forces

No charge will a general command

The battle will rage in the bosom

Of mother and sweetheart and wife

Brother and sister and daughter

Will grieve for the rest of their lives

Now go ahead, rise from your cover

Be thankful that God let you live

Go fight the rest of the battle

For those who gave all they could give

I see, sir, the battle’s not over

The battle has only begun

The rest of this battle will cover

The part that has blackened the sun

For though there’s no sound of the cannon

And though there’s no smoke in the sky

I’m dropping the gun and the saber

And ready for battle am I

Johnny and Vivian, California, early 1950s

Johnny and Vivian with Rosanne, Kathy, and Cindy, 1959, along with handwritten words to “California Poem,” 1966

Backstage, mid-1960s

UNDERSTAND YOUR MAN

1963

Don’t call my name out your window, I’m leavin’

I won’t even turn my head

Don’t send your kinfolk to give me no talkin’

I’ll be gone, like I said

You’d say the same old thing

That you been sayin’ all along

Lay there in your bed and keep your mouth shut

’Til I’m gone

Don’t give me that old familiar cry and fuss and moan

Understand your man

I’m tired of your bad-mouthin’

Understand your man

You can give my other suit to the Salvation Army

And everything else I leave behind

I ain’t takin’ nothin’ that’ll slow down my travelin’

While I’m untanglin’ my mind

I ain’t gonna repeat

What I said anymore

While I’m breathin’ air

That ain’t been breathed before

I’ll be as gone as the wild goose in winter

Then you’ll understand your man

Meditate on it

Understand your man

You hear me talking

Understand your man

Remember what I told you

Understand your man

Johnny’s 1963 passport

UNDERSTAND YOUR MAN is one of Johnny’s biggest hits, spending seventeen weeks in the top ten from March to June 1964. His and Vivian’s love story had reached its concluding chapter, with this biting, sneering rant — the polar opposite of the pledge that was “I Walk the Line.” Ironically, Johnny included “Understand Your Man” on his 1964 Columbia album called, yes, I Walk the Line. The album was nominated for a Grammy and earned Johnny a gold record. He would later state that this tirade had been a form of therapy, a strong message delivered musically. The purification having presumably been accomplished, he then imposed a moratorium on singing it that lasted for decades. But it is the last song he ever performed in public, at the Carter Family Fold, in southwestern Virginia, on July 5, 2003.

Letter written to family from Dublin, 1963

FORTY SHADES OF GREEN

1960

I close my eyes and picture

The emerald of the sea

From the fishing boats at Dingle

To the shores of Donaghadee

I miss the River Shannon

And the folks at Skibbereen

The moorlands and the meadows

With their forty shades of green

But most of all I miss a girl

In Tipperary town

And most of all I miss her lips

As soft as eiderdown

Again I want to see and do

The things we’ve done and seen

Where the breeze is sweet as Shalimar

And there’s forty shades of green

I wish that I could spend an hour

At Dublin’s churning surf

I’d love to watch the farmers

Drain the bogs and spade the turf

To see again the thatching

Of the straw the women glean

I’d walk from Cork to Larne to see

The forty shades of green

But most of all I miss a girl

In Tipperary town

And most of all I miss her lips

As soft as eiderdown

Again I want to see and do

The things we’ve done and seen

Where the breeze is sweet as Shalimar

And there’s forty shades of green

First trip to England, 1959

Johnny first laid eyes on the Emerald Isle in 1959, from a plane, on his first flight over the Atlantic Ocean, as he headed to England for a show date. He would make numerous visits to Ireland over the years. The imagery is so vivid, and the melody is so hauntingly gorgeous and timeless, that it was often (mistakenly) thought that FORTY SHADES OF GREEN was an old Irish folk song. At times, Johnny would have to preserve his honor by insisting that, yes, “It was really me!”

JOHN CARTER CASH

MY DAD TOLD me a story about a man who approached him after a concert in Dublin in 1980. “I love ‘Forty Shades of Green’!” the colorful Irishman said. “But you didn’t write it! I recall me dear old mother singing it to me when I was but a boy. ’Tis a fine old folk ballad, it is!” “What year might that have been?” asked my father. “Was perhaps 1966,” said the man. “I could not have been more than ten years old!” “My friend,” replied my father, “I wrote it in 1960.” When Dad performed the song at any show on the Emerald Isle, the entire audience sang along with every word.

SING IT PRETTY, SUE

1961

So you gave up all between us for a glamorous career

And with all your talent, you should be the big star of the year

Then you’ll be public property, so I release my claim to you

Go on and give ’em all you’ve got, sing it pretty, Sue

I can’t take just part of you and give the world a half

So smile for all the papers and give ’em autographs

Go on to all the cities, so your public can see you

But I’ll watch on television, so sing it pretty, Sue

I hope you’ll soon be on the top of every hit parade

I’ll try to be excited ’bout the progress that you’ve made

I’ll collect your pictures like any fan would do

And I’ll buy all your records, so sing it pretty, Sue

But I won’t ever tell a soul that we have ever met

I’ll just be one of millions who’ll give the praise you get

And maybe every year or so, I’ll drop a card to you

To tell you I’m still listening, so sing it pretty, Sue

Not all of Johnny’s recordings and compositions received pride of placement, particularly with the record label growing ever more impatient with him for producing artistic gold but commercial tin. Such is the case with SING IT PRETTY, SUE, a standout that got lost on an album that didn’t sell very well. Johnny once said that he wrote it “about somebody special… that I’ve forgotten all about now.” Ouch.

Ride This Train was just the beginning of Johnny’s folk odyssey. Soon, he was at it again. Blood, Sweat and Tears was another staggering achievement, an entire record of working man blues. This is Johnny at his most brilliant, as he presents dramatic stories of the common man and his never-ending struggles. The epic “The Legend of John Henry’s Hammer” is here, along with classics from Jimmie Rodgers and Merle Travis. Johnny’s empathy toward the little guy and the downtrodden is on display, and he comes full circle, evoking and honoring the ethic that scarred him and formed him. These are people like his own people. If there is an instant — a heartbeat — that reveals who Johnny Cash is, and presages what he will become, it is Blood, Sweat and Tears. He was thirty years old.

It is inconceivable that this album could have been produced at Sun, the memory of which was fast fading. It had been four years since “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town” had been Johnny’s last big hit, and his records were routinely unappreciated by a public more focused on the latest spin-off of “The Twist” than the travails of their lowly brethren. The record label was at its wit’s end. Fortunately for all concerned, the pounding sound of Mexican trumpets soon would wake everybody up and allow history to happen.

Backstage before a show

Onstage, early 1960s

Promo flyer used shortly after W.S. Holland joined the band, making it the Tennessee Three, 1961

Promo poster for Hollywood Bowl show, 1962

TENNESSEE FLAT-TOP BOX

1961

In a little cabaret

In a South Texas border town

Sat a boy and his guitar

And the people came from all around

And all the girls

From there to Austin

Were slipping away from home

And putting jewelry in hock

To take the trip

To go and listen

To the little dark-haired boy

Who played the Tennessee flat-top box

And he would play

Well, he couldn’t ride or wrangle

And he never cared to make a dime

But give him his guitar

And he’d be happy all the time

And all the girls

From nine to ninety

Were snapping fingers, tapping toes

And begging him, “Don’t stop.”

And hypnotized

And fascinated

By the little dark-haired boy

Who played the Tennessee flat-top box

And he would play

Then one day he was gone

And no one ever saw him round

He vanished like the breeze

They forgot him in the little town

But all the girls

Still dreamed about him

And hung around the cabaret

Until the doors were locked

And then one day

On the hit parade

Was the little dark-haired boy

Who played the Tennessee flat-top box

And he would play

The beguiling tale of the little dark-haired boy who played the TENNESSEE FLAT-TOP BOX — which is a nickname for an acoustic guitar — carries a bit of serendipity with it. Johnny was proud of the musicianship that he put into its writing, especially the nifty guitar licks that help make it so appealing. He never read music, even as he composed classic melodies, but he knew how he wanted a song to sound. However, while Luther could play a mean boogie, he just couldn’t master this arrangement. Frustrated, Johnny called timeout on the session, and in the hall outside the studio, he ran into picker extraordinaire Roy Nichols, one of the California crew. For the next three hours, Johnny taught Roy every single note of the song, one by one, until it was ready, and it is Nichols’s licks that are heard on the record.

The boy in the song made it from South Texas to the hit parade, and Johnny did, too, although he just missed the top ten. A quarter century later, the song, like the boy, returned, this time in a magical way. Rosanne Cash was six years old when her father wrote it, so she had no idea of its history when she recorded it in 1987. Her version became the only Johnny Cash–written number one song by anyone other than Johnny Cash, and she did not know he had written it.

SEND A PICTURE OF MOTHER

1962

After seven years behind these bars together

I’ll miss you more than a brother when you go

If only I had not tried to escape

They’d pardoned me with you, I know, yes, I know

Won’t you tell the folks back home I’ll soon be coming

And don’t let them know I never will be free

Sometimes, write and tell me how they’re doing

And send a picture of Mother back to me

Say hello to Dad and shake his poor hardworking hand

And send a picture of Mother, if you can

I am happy for you that you got your freedom

But stay with me just another minute or so

After all this sweating blood together

Who’ll be my fighting partner when you go?

The hardest time will be on Sunday morning

Church bells will ring on Heaven Hill

Please ask Reverend Garrett to pray for me

And send a picture of Mother, if you will

Say hello to Dad and shake his poor hardworking hand

And send a picture of Mother, if you can

Johnny played his first prison show in October 1959, at the Huntsville State Prison Rodeo Revue, in Texas, alongside Western actors James Arness, Chill Wills, and Ken Curtis. Two months later, he performed on the annual New Year’s Day Show of Stars at California’s San Quentin State Prison. History and legend records that one of the inmates in the audience at the “Q” that day was Merle Haggard.

Johnny introduced SEND A PICTURE OF MOTHER to a live audience when he went back to San Quentin with June Carter and the Tennessee Three on January 1, 1963. He also sang it with the Carter Family at his first visit to Folsom, in 1966, as well as at the 1968 concerts there that produced the historic album. Together with “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town,” with its lesson in listening, and 1961’s “There’s a Mother Always Waiting at Home,” which Johnny remembered as a small boy hearing his own mother sing as she waited for Ray to return from his rambles, this was the third Cash recording of the period to invoke the power of a mother’s love and guidance. There was a growing melancholy to Johnny’s writing. Carrie Cash had always believed in his destiny. As once blue skies turned gray, it is not surprising that songs about Mother and home came to dominate. Once again, Johnny was telling his own story.

The decline in Johnny’s career and the fall of his marriage were accompanied — fueled, even — by the destruction of his health. The routine, perilous, and prevalent distribution of “pep pills” by the medical profession in the 1950s and ’60s, with almost no information on their safety, reached epidemic proportions, with hardly anyone saying, Stop! Millions of unsuspecting patients, from athletes and students to astronauts, housewives, long-haul truck drivers, and dieters — and musicians — were offered little magic pills to supposedly solve their problems. When it became known just how addictive these “miracle” drugs were, doctors’ knee-jerk reaction was to simply prescribe something else: antianxiety meds to counteract the stimulants’ effects. It was a monstrous trap, with the medications taking control of body and spirit and not letting go.

Johnny’s entry into this world of dangerous dependence began as the accepted way to maintain focus and stamina in the face of the bone-wearying grind of life on the road. Later, doctors treated him for depression and mood disorders by alternating “uppers” and “downers,” thus ensuring that he was in a perpetually altered state. “All I wanted to do was die,” he later said. But for reasons known to no man, there were other plans for him. They began with a fire.

“Ring of Fire” in 1963 reversed the Cash fortunes in spectacular fashion. This ferocious exaltation of overpowering passion is the yin to “I Walk the Line”’s yang, the flip side of the same coin. Accompanied by the blaring of trumpets, Johnny was back. At the last second, with his back against the wall, he swung for the fences and connected. Cliché? Fluke? How about herald? To many, “Ring of Fire” is the most important song of Johnny Cash’s career. It didn’t merely keep the door from closing: it kicked the damn thing down. Everything that followed owes its existence to the fiery ring.

The record stormed up the charts, into territory he had not visited in years, spending nineteen weeks in the top ten, seven of them at the summit. If the public hadn’t been listening, they were now. Love is a burning thing, and as much as it may hurt, the pain is worth it. Again, the human story everyone wishes for.

The suits at the record company, so recently ready to send him on his way, were listening, too. Johnny was Big Man at Columbia again, and if he wanted another concept album, he would get another concept album. He took advantage of the opportunity with Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian, as courageous a project as anything he ever did. The sad plight of America’s indigenous people was not on many radars when Johnny took up the cause. After befriending Indian activist and folksinger Peter La Farge, and operating under the mistaken impression that he himself had Cherokee blood, Johnny produced this angry, highly influential, game-changing album in 1964. It helped place him firmly in the social activist community, as he sang of injustice, broken treaties, and genocide against his “family,” which, even if not related by blood, was truly forgotten family to every American.

The essence of Bitter Tears was La Farge’s masterwork, “The Ballad of Ira Hayes.” Johnny brought the song in from the fringes and pushed it into the mainstream consciousness. It told the pathetic, atrocious true story of the twenty-two-year-old Pima Indian who was part of the contingent of Marines who raised the American flag on the island of Iwo Jima during World War II, only to die of exposure and alcoholism ten years later. It was a defining moment for Johnny Cash and cemented his association with the Native American cause forever.

Bitter Tears found a receptive country audience despite — or perhaps because of — its serious subject matter, even in the midst of the British (music) invasion, reaching number two on the charts. The “Ira Hayes” single went to number three. Johnny performed it at the Newport Folk Festival, in Rhode Island, an appearance that caused something of a schism in his core audience, as his affiliation with the social protest movement was not universally appreciated. Along with the continuing problems with his health and home, Johnny felt more and more isolated, despite the resurgence in his career.

Onstage with Marshall Grant, Rising Sun, Maryland, 1962

Private First Class Ira Hayes, age nineteen, at Marine Corps training school, 1942

In 1965, after a fruitless midnight search for a Texas doctor who would fill his prescription for the medication he was desperate to have, ashamed to take, and powerless to stop taking, Johnny went rogue, crossing into Mexico, following a cabdriver’s not-so-clinical advice about an “alternate” supplier on a street corner in Juárez. When Johnny came back over the border into El Paso, authorities arrested him for “smuggling” Benzedrine and Equanil, the two most popular legal mood-controlling substances… if obtained legitimately. The result was a fine, suspended sentence… and awful pictures of the country music star in handcuffs. It did not seem that the dark cloud that had been following Johnny for years was going away. His record sales dipped back down, he retreated to Chattanooga and the embrace of his “real” friends, and he tried to ride out the storm. It took a while.

Singer and activist Peter La Farge

At river’s edge, outside Nashville, 1967

YOU WILD COLORADO

1965

Oh, you wild raging river

Like my woman’s lips, you lure me

Pied piper of the desert

Roll on to the sea

You’re the same at noon or midnight

And I follow where you go

But you’re planning no returning

You wild Colorado

If I had no love of life

I’d become part of your flow

But I fear the place you’d take me

You wild Colorado

Oh you wild raging river

From the fountains of the mountains

You ripple down the valleys

Growing wide and swift and deep

With what power you cut your canyons

How long ago

You’re as wayward as my woman

You wild Colorado

It had been a wild ride on a fast-moving river. In a single decade, Johnny’s songs covered about as many human emotions as there are, from deliriously high highs to hellish, bottom-scraping lows. He achieved his dreams and then dashed them himself, erecting a towering reputation only to squander it. Somehow, through it all, the ecstasy and the pain, triumph and collapse, he persevered, standing back up every time he was counted out, by sheer will and God’s grace. A person who falls and gets back up is much stronger than a person who never falls. But no one — except maybe Johnny himself — saw what was coming next. Johnny Cash was about to become the biggest recording artist in the world.

California, 1963

Fishing with Johnny Horton, Cleveland County, Arkansas, 1959

Onstage, 1965

Cash home on Old Hickory Lake, Hendersonville, Tennessee

AFTER SOME TRULY awful years of decline and despair, Johnny began righting his ship in 1967. For starters, he was writing again, more prolifically than he had in a decade. The result was From Sea to Shining Sea, the first Johnny Cash album with all Johnny Cash compositions. It marked a return to the concept records that had burnished his substantial artistic credentials (though, like the earlier creative works, this one did not sell much). The end of his marriage was a final acknowledgment of the end of the California dream, and he moved back to Tennessee, where he graduated from cheap apartments and the couches of compassionate friends to a lakefront “Nature House” in Hendersonville, north of Nashville, which then remained home for the next thirty-five years.

It wasn’t exactly calm, and there was still more than enough storm, but nothing could have prepared Johnny — or the world, for that matter — for the earthquake that was about to come.

FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA

1967

The beautiful spacious skies

The amber waves of grain

To the majestic purple mountains

Above the fruited plain

God did shed His grace

From sea to shining sea

On you and on me

From the Sleepy Hollow mountain country

To the swamps of Okefenokee

To Guthrie, Oklahoma

To Hibbing, Minnesota

To Grants Pass, Oregon

To Stovepipe Wells, California

From Texas to Montana

From California to Maine

In the sunny days

The winter snow

From Arizona sand to Cherokee, North Carolina

To Tarpon Springs, Florida

America, it’s time to be refreshed

Recalled to memory

God did shed His grace on thee

From sea to shining sea

The land is big

The best is free

Sand and surf, grass and tree

From sea to shining sea

And past Virginia, down from Maine

It’s a rolling, wild terrain

Three thousand miles of shore

Just like three thousand years before

And then the hills begin to rise

’Til they almost touch the sky

From the flat, black Delta land

To the singing Kansas sand

Down from the desert heat I see

Keeping it ours

Forever free

From sea to shining sea

America, He did shed His grace on thee

From sea to shining sea

With FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA, Johnny evoked the themes of his earliest travelogue from back at the beginning of the 1960s, a veritable lifetime before. But where Ride This Train stopped at coal mines and farms and timber mills, this trip encompassed the broad entirety of America, reaching up into its purple mountains and spacious skies to beseech God to bless and refresh the land. Against the backdrop of “America the Beautiful,” a son of the soil bore witness to his belief in the place and its people. With every speck of his soul attached, he was laying out his own particular blueprint for eternity.

With mother, Carrie Cash, Oak View, California, January 1968

Anaheim, California, March 1969

ANOTHER SONG TO SING

1967

Do they ask you where I am or where I’ve been?

Do they ever say, “Where is the lonely friend?”

Is my name whispered in your bedside prayers?

Do you feel a vacant spot beside you there?

Well there’s always one more path that I must walk

And there’s people I should sit down with and talk

And somebody might appreciate the flowers I could bring

So there’s always another song to sing

Do you tell them I was wilder than the wind?

Do you remember that I needed lots of friends?

And at other times I’d rather be alone

Where I could not be found when I was gone

Well there’s always one more canyon to explore

To touch the things left by those gone before

At the top of the tiniest hill I can feel like I’m a king

And there’s always another song to sing

Conventional wisdom has it that Johnny Cash’s career was under a cloud until he crossed through the iron gates of Folsom Prison in January 1968. He wasn’t selling records, bookings had evaporated, his time had passed. Such a scenario would make what happened there all the more compelling. And there is some validity to it. But he wasn’t exactly invisible or forgotten as fate waited to announce itself. It may be argued that one of his most creative periods was through the mid-1960s, and he never stopped making brave, unprecedented, and unique artistic choices. The Beatles didn’t see everyone who came backstage at the Cow Palace outside San Francisco before their show there, but they did welcome Johnny Cash. His Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 collection went to number one and spent sixteen weeks in the top ten in 1967. That was useful when he lost his wallet in Amarillo and, lacking ID, walked into a bank carrying a copy of that album to prove he was who he said he was (it worked). But it wouldn’t be long before almost everyone in America would know his face. And his voice: Johnny would eventually amass twenty-two gold and platinum records.

Entrance to Saltpeter Cave, aka Nickajack Cave, near Chattanooga, Tennessee

THE WHIRL AND THE SUCK

1967

It took a mighty good man with salty hands

And a mighty long raft

To keep the fore before the aft

You take ten good men and guts and luck

And you might navigate

The Whirl and the Suck

Well, the Tennessee River changed its mind

At Chattanooga, she oughta unwind

She coulda run right on to the Georgia Sea

But she cut right back through Tennessee

Well, the settlers come by raft and boat

Bringing everything that could stay afloat

But like a loco hoss

That’ll twist and buck

They hardly ever made it through

The Whirl and the Suck

It took a mighty good man with salty hands

And a mighty long raft

To keep the fore before the aft

You take ten good men and guts and luck

And you might navigate

The Whirl and the Suck

When General Washington was in his knickerbocks

The Cherokee Indians threw the Chattanooga rocks

And the Chickamauga tribe and the Nickajack

They kept the watch where the river cut back

And if a raft or a boat ever rode the bend

The Indians got them ’cause they had them hemmed in

It took a mighty good man with salty hands

And a mighty long raft

To keep the fore before the aft

You take ten good men and guts and luck

And you might navigate

The Whirl and the Suck

Treacherous area of the Tennessee River known as “The Suck,” near Chattanooga

Also in 1967, Johnny purchased twelve acres of land in Chattanooga, two hours from Hendersonville, on the Tennessee-Georgia border. The region had been a refuge for him, an escape from the pressures that compounded over the past few years. This is where the people he considered his real friends were, trainmen at the nearby Southern Railway terminal, workers in the factories and mills along the Tennessee River, even hobos who lived deep in the dark woods, their wild, wary eyes the only indication of their presence.

A few years later, Johnny personally took a camera crew into one such forest to film scenes for a music video. The director reported that he had never been so terrified in his life. On another expedition, Johnny asked his buddies for assistance in finding a steam engine for a different video shoot. Not having much luck procuring one, the gang — including their fearless mentor — entered the rail yard after hours and heisted one. When it was discovered that one of the perps was Johnny Cash, the authorities allowed the plunder to simply be brought back… in return for a cameo in the video. (It should be noted that Johnny, the ringleader, was a big television star at the time. They knew where to find him.)

Johnny was comfortable in Chattanooga. He and his friends explored far and wide, ambling through Civil War battlefield sites — the bloody, horrific Battle of Chickamauga had been fought just down the road. They investigated historic, revered Indian ground — the Trail of Tears started here — and many of the thousands of caves that stretched for miles, including Lookout Mountain Cave, home of the underground Ruby Falls, as well as an old Cherokee mineral mine known as Nickajack Cave. Upstream from Nickajack was a treacherous patch of the Tennessee River, long notorious for its ferocious currents and deadly whirlpools and suckholes. Between the raging water and hostile Indians raining boulders and all sorts of calamity down from the cliffs above, death and destruction rode on board passing boats every day. Johnny said he wrote the history lesson THE WHIRL AND THE SUCK while sitting on a ledge half a mile inside Nickajack Cave.

CISCO CLIFTON’S FILLIN’ STATION

1967

Cisco Clifton had a fillin’ station

About a mile and a half from town

Most cars passed unless they were out of gas

So Cisco was always around

Regular gas was all that he sold

Except tobacco, matches and oil

Other than that he fixed lots of flats

Keepin’ Cisco’s rough hands soiled

He’d wipe the glass and check the air

And a hundred times a day

He patiently gave directions

On how to get to the state highway

Usually he’d give ’em water

Or a tire or two, some air

And once a big black Cadillac

Spent seven dollars there

He’d give anybody anything they’d ask

And lend anything he had

His tools or tires, bumper jacks or wire

To the good ones or the bad

In wintertime, there was a depot stove

And a table for a checker game

And every morning at sunup

The same checker players came

So Cisco Clifton’s fillin’ station

Was always in the red

Personal loans were personally gone

But never a word was said

One morning at eight, them checker players

Heard a big bulldozer roar like a freight

And Cisco said, “I hope my kids stay fed

When they build that interstate.”

He’d managed to pay for the property

Where his little fillin’ station sat

And friends still came for the checker game

So Cisco settled for that

He wouldn’t say so, but Cisco knew

That the interstate was too much to fight

But to keep his will and to pay his bills

He did odd jobs at night

He still opened up at sunrise

And the checker game went on

The cars flew past on high-test gas

And the neighbors had sold out and gone

If a car ever did go by, he was lost

And if they stopped, they were treated the same

So at Cisco Clifton’s fillin’ station

There’s a howdy and a checker game

H. Ballard Harris, the inspiration for Cisco Clifton

The actual Clifton’s Fillin’ Station, Cisco, Utah

It would be easy to hear the poignant account of CISCO CLIFTON’S FILLIN’ STATION and think that it is “just” another Johnny Cash story song masterpiece, albeit one of his most moving compositions. But knowing that Cisco was based on an actual, real-life, living, checker-playing fillin’ station man makes the saga even more riveting. Johnny met H. Ballard Harris when he stopped at Clifton’s (yes) Fillin’ Station, in remote Cisco (again, yes), Utah, in the summer of 1966. The service man was surely just as shocked to have a customer as Johnny was that he’d avoided running out of gas in the middle of the desert — something he was prone to do (a lot). The right place and the right guy and the right time. In the process of pumping seven dollars’ worth of fuel into Johnny’s tank, a man whose time had passed inspired a timeless commentary.

Cisco Clifton was not simply a guy who watched cars go zooming by on the interstate. He represented a way of life that was fast disappearing from the American world. “Progress” was not a positive for everyone; considerations of the relative merits of high-test and regular gas were stand-ins for more profound examinations of what modernity was wreaking. But the plight of a forgotten relic of a slower time — though Johnny and, likely, Cisco/Ballard would hardly have regarded those days quite so harshly — was a particularly hard sell during the psychedelic Summer of Love, and this sensitive, provocative portrait did not get the attention it deserved. It remains a quiet, though still stunning, exemplar of Johnny’s finest work.

For anyone curious, or who might have formed a mental picture of Cisco Clifton, rocking in his chair as the world left him behind, remember Johnny’s inventiveness: Harry Ballard Harris was fifty-two years old when he encountered the man who would immortalize him. He would live to age ninety-one, surviving Johnny by two years.

Outside the entrance gate to Folsom Prison, January 1968

THE WALLS OF A PRISON

1967

I walked in the big yard to feel the warm sunshine

A ninety-nine-year man stepped over to me

He offered a smoke and he said as I rolled it

“Tomorrow I’m going to break out and go free.”

“They watch us by sunlight, they watch us by spotlight

But I know a way for a man to go free

Down under my cell, I’m digging a tunnel

The walls of a prison will never hold me.”

I told him that I’d have no part of his scheming

My time would be over, one year from today

His eyes blazed with fire, and he looked right through me

Bitter, but broken, again he did say

“They watch us by sunlight, they watch us by spotlight

But I know a way for a man to go free

Down under my cell, I’m digging a tunnel

The walls of a prison will never hold me.”

Next morning at breakfast, the old man was missing

Then we all heard the rifles high up on the wall

He’d gone through the tunnel, just like he had promised

And they said he was crying, when they saw him fall

They watch us by sunlight, they watch us by spotlight

But I know a way for a man to go free

Down under my cell, I’m digging a tunnel

The walls of a prison will never hold me

With the Reverend Gressett outside Avenue Community Church, Ventura, California, 1968

The Reverend Floyd Gressett, Riverside, California, c. 1968

Avenue Community Church in Ventura, California, is an unlikely place to start a journey leading to the dreaded — and dreadful — Folsom Prison, located more than four hundred miles away in a town with the honest-to-God name of Represa. The pastor of the church, the Reverend Floyd Gressett, ministered to street people, ne’er-do-wells, and other down-on-their-luck types, such as prisoners. He would make the trek way up north to Represa to counsel needy souls inside the forbidding, gray stone walls of Folsom, where they tossed the worst of the worst. One of the inmates happened to be a big Johnny Cash fan…

Floyd Gressett, it turned out, was Johnny’s pastor, too. For several years — Vivian Cash remembered the fifty-eight-year-old preacher shuffling up the family’s long driveway on the day they moved into the mountain house to introduce himself — Johnny had attended Avenue, prayed with his fellow parishioners, raised money, even performed. When Reverend Gressett asked Johnny if he would do a show for the men at Folsom, the answer was an immediate yes. On November 8, 1966, with no fanfare, Johnny, the Statler Brothers, the Carter Family, and the Tennessee Three did a free outdoor show in the prison yard in front of a (literally) captive audience of eighteen hundred. It was so well received that the warden invited them to come back again. The wheels were turning even before Johnny agreed. So were the pages in his journal. By the next day, he had written THE WALLS OF A PRISON.

From Sea to Shining Sea was an ambitious, underappreciated work. It yielded no hit singles to buoy it, but the album squeaked into the top ten. For all the disorder in Johnny Cash’s life at the time, the spark of creativity and purpose was not extinguished. The album’s place in the Cash ledger will forever be defined by the calendar, though. Two days prior to the release of this record, Johnny arrived back for that promised return engagement at Folsom — they let him come inside to play this time — and all else was forgotten.

But there was another stop first.

Performing for inmates at Folsom Prison, California, January 13, 1968

THIS SIDE OF THE LAW

1970

On this side of the law

On that side of the law

Who is right? Who is wrong?

Who is for and who’s against the law?

Well, you see, I didn’t really mean you any harm

But I simply couldn’t make it on the farm

When the land won’t give a lot

You gotta do with what you got

And all I got’s the muscle in my arm

Well, I wouldn’t ever hurt my fellow man

And mister, seems to me you’d understand

I’m just trying to help myself

Without hurting anybody else

And a man has got to do the best he can

On this side of the law

On that side of the law

Who is right? Who is wrong?

Who is for and who’s against the law?

Oh, I didn’t really mean to let my family down

And I’m not giving you the runaround

I had rather be dead

Than to have to beg my daily bread

And to pay my way no matter where I’m bound

Well, I didn’t really think that I did wrong

Just as long as I stayed here where I belong

I did the only thing I could

Same as anybody would

Guess I was simply trying to get along

On this side of the law

On that side of the law

Who is right? Who is wrong?

Who is for and who’s against the law?

Sometimes you literally just don’t see it coming. On November 2, 1967, Johnny left a friend’s house in Rossville, Georgia, just over the state line from Chattanooga, intending to drive a short distance to visit another friend. However, after a series of unforeseen developments — including a wrong turn at an open cattle gate, the stubbornness of a new Fleetwood Eldorado with an aversion to mud and woods, and a blind slog along an isolated rural path — the door he ended up knocking on was not his friend’s, and the lady he disturbed had her own aversion to muddy strangers calling out names she did not know. In response, she met Johnny in the front doorway… with a shotgun pointed at his chest, sending him stumbling off the porch and into the shrubbery below. Then she called The Law.

Although Johnny’s wayward wander took him only a mile off his intended route, in another stroke of bad luck, it deposited him across the border and in the neighboring county, where he was just a problem causer from out of town. There were many ways things could have gone all kinds of wrong. Fortunately, down in LaFayette, the Walker County seat, some twenty miles away, Sheriff Ralph Jones was, of course, a big Johnny Cash fan. So was his wife. Neither of them wanted to see their favorite singer in jail, and it helped that there wasn’t anything to charge their “guest” with. The bag of pills in his pocket was excessive, but not illegal; in fact, he had a prescription from a local hospital. And the lady with the gun, who obviously could take quite good care of herself? There was a reason she lived out where she did. She simply wanted everybody to leave her alone, including The Law.

Sheriff Jones had heard the stories coming out of El Paso. He knew the deal. He returned Johnny’s property to him, but offered some cautionary words. You have everything to live for, he said. Why ruin it over a little pill? Johnny later admitted he had never felt so ashamed. Route 41 back to Nashville was especially long and dark that night, but along the way, it became Johnny Cash’s Road to Damascus. He had seen his light. He knew what he wanted to do, what he needed to do. And how he would do it.

At the other end of the road was June Carter.

The road home to Nashville, 1960s

The Carter Family in Texas: (back row, left to right) A.P., Janette, Brother Bill, Sara, Maybelle; (front row, left to right) Helen, Anita, June, in Villa Acuña, Mexico, 1940

YOU BEAT ALL I EVER SAW

1966

I’ve walked through every town

Saw fortunes lost and found

And when your trail failed

I walked holes in both my soles

But I don’t expect you back

You’re somewhere making tracks

I crossed your burning bridges

And walked through miles of sand

Met the lawless and the law

But you beat all I ever saw

I dreamed a million miles

About your eyes and smiles

I tried to love the best

And to turn from all the rest

But I scanned the skies for you

And I only saw your hue

They threw away your mold

You were made of frozen gold

And your heart would never thaw

You beat all I ever saw

The Carter Family was country music royalty. The pioneering singing group from Clinch Mountain, in southwestern Virginia, had been present at the “Big Bang,” the earliest days, before country music was even called that. Over nearly two decades, Alvin Pleasant Carter; his wife, Sara; and Sara’s cousin Maybelle produced some of the most memorable and enduring classics in and out of the genre, before disbanding in 1943. At that point, Maybelle (who was married to A.P. Carter’s brother Ezra) took up the mantle, carrying the family’s name into a new generation, along with her daughters Helen, June, and Anita. This latter-day Carter Family joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1950.

In a family overflowing with talent, it was the middle girl, June, who dominated. She boldly filled the comedic niche in the act, studied theater with the great Elia Kazan and Sanford Meisner in New York, and placed her outsize personality front and center as she took non-Nashville roles in television and film. The boys were captivated with her sauciness and daring. In 1956, at his Opry debut, a quaking, tongue-tied Johnny Cash encountered her backstage. He was so nervous that all he could blurt out was the ridiculous boast, “I’m going to marry you someday.” A photo taken of that moment seems to capture June doing her best not to collapse into bales of hysteria. “I can’t wait,” she replied.

June Carter as a teen, mid-1940s

June and Mother Maybelle, who is receiving the first Tex Ritter Award, Nashville, 1974

June Carter joined the Johnny Cash show in 1962. Although it at first seemed an ill-fated love, since both had spouses and families, it was hard to stop their feelings for each other. She wrote “Ring of Fire” to describe what she called her “torment” over the relationship. That record’s massive success just fueled their flame, ensuring that “Johnny and June” became inevitable and, ultimately, iconic. She felt called to take on the responsibility of being his keeper — not a job for the weak of spirit — and her presence in his life came to be seen as life-affirming, if not lifesaving.

“Normal” was not usual to June. She had been a performer since she was in single digits (as had her sisters; mother Maybelle was an ancient eighteen — and pregnant — when she helped “invent” modern country music in 1927). The Carters were an all-woman traveling band in an era when such a thing was not a thing. June’s coming of age involved doing commercials on the radio — from Mexico! — and riding motorcycles with her father. That’s pretty far from Poor Valley.

Ezra (Eck) Carter was a confirmed eccentric. He dammed up creeks and sold the electricity generated to his friends. He was the bane of Maybelle’s existence, spending all her money on… anything. Or nothing. But it was those unexplained disappearances on his little boat out of Port Richey, Florida, that really got to her. It reached the point that they stopped calling out the rescue teams to search the gulf waters for him. Once, after Eck resurfaced following a two-week absence — spent entirely on his boat — his wife, so soft-spoken and mild-mannered, reached her limit. “Daddy,” she sighed, “YOU BEAT ALL I EVER SAW.”

Now, there was a song.

JOHN CARTER CASH

MY PARENTS TOLD the story to me and likewise through the years to others (mostly after their marriage) of their first meeting. It was always told as a simple encounter, quick and to the point. Yet still I must say that they were sometimes known to “expand on reality” and make the drama either a little more than historical or perhaps half fiction. So at times I can’t help but wonder if the tale of their meeting is exactly the truth. Where did this meeting take place? Backstage at the Ryman, the Grand Ole Opry, they said. But I have a distinct recollection of them saying that Dad nearly accidentally knocked Mom to the floor running toward the footlights onstage through the dark of the tiny alcove behind the barn-door-painted curtain — yet the historic photo here seems to capture the moment of their meeting. So what is the real truth, exactly? When I questioned my parents on this in the tour bus one long day in the 1990s, they smiled at me knowingly.

“Well,” my mother said, “we never let the truth stand in the way of a good story!”

The Carter Sisters with Mother Maybelle, c. 1952

June Carter, late 1950s

June Carter with Maybelle Carter behind her, mid-1950s

First meeting of Johnny Cash and June Carter, backstage at Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, July 7, 1956

’CAUSE I LOVE YOU

1968

I’ll sweep out your chimney, yes, and I will bring you flowers, yes

And I will do for you most anything you want me to

If we live in a cottage you will feel like it’s a castle

By the royal way you’re treated and the attention shown to you

I’ll be there beside you if you need a crying shoulder, yes

And I’ll be there to listen when you need to talk to me

When you wake up in the darkness I will put my arms around you

And hold you ’til the morning sun comes shining through the trees

I’ll be right beside you no matter where you travel

I’ll be there to cheer you ’til the sun comes shining through

If we’re ever parted I will keep the tie that binds us

And I’ll never let it break ’cause I love you

I will bring you honey from the bee tree in the meadow

And the first time there’s a rainbow I’ll bring you a pot of gold

I’ll take all your troubles, and I’ll throw ’em in the river

Then I’ll bundle down beside you, and I’ll keep you from the cold

I’ll be right beside you no matter where you travel

I’ll be there to cheer you ’til the sun comes shining through

If we’re ever parted I will keep the tie that binds us

And I’ll never let it break ’cause I love you

Johnny’s long-standing kinship with the Kingston Trio continued into the 1960s. In 1967, he and June recorded a Billy Edd Wheeler song called “Jackson” that had previously been done by the Trio. It was Johnny’s biggest hit in years, climbing to number two, and it earned him — and her — their first Country Music Association Awards nomination and a Grammy. On accepting the award, Johnny told the crowd, “This is a fine wedding present.” The next day, March 1, 1968, they made it official, and forever, when they married in Franklin, Kentucky.

Johnny Cash and June Carter, London, Ontario, February 22, 1968

Johnny would say that ’CAUSE I LOVE YOU was his favorite composition. He recorded it several times, both alone and as half of a duet. Written in the wake of the prison shows, in the days ahead of the wedding, it found him on top of the world. Everything happened with such astonishing speed — it would be only ten weeks between the Georgia jail and the Folsom stage, and less than two months from there to the altar — that Johnny could scarcely keep up. He even had to squeeze in his marriage proposal where he could, interrupting a song onstage in London, Ontario, to pop the question. The common denominator was June. Had it been just five years since “Ring of Fire” started their story? Johnny was determined that this chapter would beat all. He promised so.

June and Johnny, early 1968

Onstage with the Carters, London, Ontario, February 22, 1968. During their duet (bottom middle), Johnny proposed marriage to June. (She said yes.)

Johnny’s year-end letter to himself, December 31, 1968

Johnny and June arrive for their wedding, Franklin, Kentucky, March 1, 1968

I PROMISE YOU

1968

I promise you the day you marry me

I’ll be everything to you that I should be

And while you’re in the springtime of your years

You’ll not know what it’s like to shed a tear

I’ll be the same through all that we go through

I promise you I promise you

I promise you for richer or for poorer

I’ll more than share each pain that you endure

And when you’re in the autumn of your years

You’ll call me in the night and I’ll be near

I’ll love you and I’ll let you know I do

I promise you I promise you

I promise you for better or for worse

I’ll stand by you as I did at the first

And when you’re in the winter of your years

I’ll be right by your side to dry your tears

Yes I’ll be the same through all that we go through

I promise you I promise you

The wedding itself was a quiet event, in a picturesque country locale at a church off the town square. There was no elaborate press, no advance team, no celebrity entourage. There were fewer than a dozen guests (not counting the townspeople and shopkeepers who rushed to the church’s balcony when word trickled out that June Carter and Johnny Cash were in the clerk’s office, filling out marriage documents). Half of them were Johnny’s band and their wives. The only singing was from Carter Family friend and future Hall of Famer George Morgan, who delivered a stunning a cappella rendition of the traditional wedding song “Oh Promise Me.” Afterward, everyone loaded up and went home.

That afternoon, Johnny composed his own wedding hymn, I PROMISE YOU. He included it on his 1972 album A Thing Called Love.

FLESH AND BLOOD

1969

Beside a singing mountain stream

Where the willow grew

Where the silver leaf of maple

Sparkled in the morning dew

I braided twigs of willows

Made a string of buckeye beads

But flesh and blood needs flesh and blood

And you’re the one I need

Flesh and blood needs flesh and blood

And you’re the one I need

I leaned against a bark of birch

And I breathed the honeydew

I saw a northbound flock of geese

Against a sky of baby blue

Beside the lily pads

I carved a whistle from a reed

Mother Nature’s quite a lady

But you’re the one I need

Flesh and blood needs flesh and blood

And you’re the one I need

A cardinal sang just for me

And I thanked him for the song

Then the sun went slowly down in the west

And I had to move along

These were some of the things

On which my mind and spirit feed

But flesh and blood needs flesh and blood

And you’re the one I need

Flesh and blood needs flesh and blood

And you’re the one I need

So when the day was ended

I was still not satisfied

For I knew everything I touched

Would wither and would die

And love is all that will remain

And grow from all these seeds

Mother Nature’s quite a lady

But you’re the one I need

Flesh and blood needs flesh and blood

And you’re the one I need

FLESH AND BLOOD very well may be the most beautiful song John R. Cash ever wrote. He would say that it was inspired by a bucolic family picnic and the majesty of Mother Nature. (At other times, he would confide that the artistry was informed by a romantic afternoon he and June spent “appreciating” the outdoors and each other.) Johnny’s love song parade culminates in this psalm of passion and confession. His view of life is captured through elegant simplicity — “Love is all that will remain.”

“Flesh and Blood” would be the standout cut on the soundtrack to the 1970 John Frankenheimer film I Walk the Line, starring Gregory Peck and Tuesday Weld and featuring eight Cash-written songs. The song rocketed into the top ten just three weeks after its release and reached number one.

Christmas poem to June, New York City, 1982

Onstage in San Quentin prison, California, February 24, 1969

SAN QUENTIN

1969

San Quentin, you’ve been living hell to me

You’ve galled me since nineteen sixty-three

I’ve seen ’em come and go and I’ve seen ’em die

And long ago I stopped asking why

San Quentin, I hate every inch of you

You’ve cut me and you’ve scarred me through and through

And I’ll walk out a wiser, weaker man

Mr. Congressman, you can’t understand

San Quentin, what good do you think you do?

Do you think I’ll be different when you’re through?

You bent my heart and mind and you warped my soul

And your stone walls turn my blood a little cold

San Quentin, may you rot and burn in hell

May your walls fall and may I live to tell

May all the world forget you ever stood

And may all the world regret you did no good

San Quentin, I hate every inch of you

Johnny was on a roll. And it was all headed upward. The “Folsom Prison guy” was the comeback player of the year and MVP. Everybody wanted to tell his story. Everybody wanted to touch the hem of his coat. Books, TV, movies. The kids loved the badass who swaggered into a maximum security prison and said “hell” and “shit” (as quaint as that seems now). The warden appreciated him for not starting a riot there, when he quite well could have. And others were awestruck that he had the courage to stand in that den of sin and sing a religious song — one written by an inmate — “Greystone Chapel.”

The setlist had been crafted especially for the occasion. It was a mix of pathos, humor, and nostalgia. There were four Cash originals, but the breakout (so to speak) was the OG itself, “Folsom Prison Blues.” Twelve years after it was Johnny’s first national hit, it was back, becoming his first number one single since “Understand Your Man” in 1964 and powering Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison to the top during an incredible eighty-eight-week run and two Grammys. Even more, it was his highest-charting pop album to date, and it spent almost two and a half years breathing that rarefied air. Eight months — only eight! — had passed since Sheriff Jones had delivered that lecture to the bedraggled man in the Walker County jail. Now that man was about to own the music world.

There was no stopping him. Almost immediately after the record’s release, the never-ending question was, When and where is the next one? The answer came in less than a year. Somehow, Johnny Cash at San Quentin outsold everything that had come before, in spades. With a surprise hit single penned by Shel Silverstein — the offbeat “A Boy Named Sue” — leading the way, the concert at California’s oldest prison, with the country’s largest death row, was a cultural convulsion. A documentary film on the American penal system, broadcast internationally, featured the February 24, 1969, show — Johnny’s third visit to the Q (he would return twice more) — as its anchor, sending the Columbia album release into the stratosphere. Johnny’s biggest-selling record spent an astounding twenty weeks at number one, sat in the pop top ten for another twenty weeks, won a Grammy, and earned triple platinum sales status.

A potentially chilling moment during the concert occurred when Johnny sang SAN QUENTIN, a song he had written from the perspective of an inmate. When he defiantly delivered the climactic line “San Quentin, may you rot and burn in hell!,” many of the convicts leaped from their seats and stood on the benches, screaming maniacally. “It was like a tinderbox. All it needed was John to light it,” said his drummer W.S. Holland, who had a direct line of sight into the room. The guards up in the balcony surrounding the mess hall visibly stiffened, their fingers tightly gripping the rifles that were at the ready. But Johnny Cash did not come to burn San Quentin that day, and when he followed with a plaintive, soulful rendering of Thomas Dorsey’s gospel treasure “Peace in the Valley,” he had many of the hardened criminals with their heads on the tables, weeping freely.

Johnny didn’t even like the song “San Quentin.” A producer had asked him a couple of days prior to the show if he might compose an anthem just for the event, a sort of signature tune on par with what “Folsom Prison Blues” was for the institution a hundred miles to the north. Johnny bristled at the suggestion. He did not like to write “by request,” wasn’t good at it, and usually resisted. As his plane descended through the clouds over San Francisco Bay, he still wasn’t certain he would do it, but by touchdown, he had scribbled the lyrics on a crumpled piece of paper pulled from the trash. He told no one, and when he dropped the musical bomb into the set, even the cameramen and recording engineers were aghast, wondering if the middle of America’s most notorious prison was really where they wanted to be at that moment.

JOHN CARTER CASH

DAD TOLD ME that he wrote the song “San Quentin” in a rush, to say the least. He said that he sat in the plane all the way to San Francisco debating whether he would do it or not. When the plane started to descend, he pulled out a pen and paper and wrote the song, start to finish, before the aircraft hit the tarmac. He said the song wasn’t his favorite composition, although many consider it to be one of the best. There is anger there in the words, frustration and bitter angst.

I personally am grateful for my father being pushed to write the song. If he had taken more time with it, we would have had a completely different piece of music.

STARKVILLE CITY JAIL

1969

Well, I left my motel room

Down at the Starkville Motel

The town had gone to sleep

And I was feeling fairly well

I strolled along the sidewalk

’Neath the sweet magnolia trees

I was whistling, picking flowers

Swaying in the southern breeze

I found myself surrounded

One policeman said, “That’s him

Come along, wild flower child

Don’t you know that it’s two a.m.?”

They’re bound to get you

’Cause they got a curfew

And you go to the Starkville City jail

Well, they threw me in the car

And started driving into town

I said, “What the hell did I do?”

And he said, “Shut up and sit down.”

Well, they emptied out my pockets

Took my pills and guitar picks

I said, “Wait, my name is — ”

“Ah, shut up.”

Well, I sure was in a fix

The sergeant put me in a cell

Then he went home for the night

I said, “Come back here, you so-and-so

I ain’t being treated right.”

Well, they’re bound to get you

’Cause they got a curfew

And you go to the Starkville City jail

I started pacin’ back and forth

And now and then I’d yell

And kick my forty-dollar shoes

Against the steel door of my cell

I’d walk awhile and kick awhile

And all night nobody came

Then I sadly remembered

That they didn’t even take my name

At 8 a.m. they let me out

I said, “Gimme them things of mine!”

They gave me a sneer and a guitar pick

And a yellow dandelion

They’re bound to get you

’Cause they got a curfew

And you go to the Starkville City jail

And you go to the Starkville City jail

Despite gaining a reputation as “America’s favorite prisoner” — a designation he absolutely detested — Johnny Cash was never a “prisoner.” His rap sheet, such as it was, didn’t amount to much. He spent three hours in a Nashville jail for raising a ruckus with a buddy on the city streets during a DJ convention in 1961 (only because it took ex-governor of Tennessee Frank Clement that long to get out of bed and personally pay the five dollars to spring the disruptive miscreants). There was the El Paso border incident in 1965, with a misdemeanor fine and no jail time but a lot of awful publicity. There was a “drunk” detention in rural Nevada that cost Johnny fifty bucks. And there was his afternoon spent chatting with Sheriff Jones in Georgia in 1967. That’s it. No shoot-outs, nothing in Reno. Not a lot of “there” there. The whole “prison thing” started in a marketing department and then the “bad news spread like wildfire.”

“My record company would rather I be in prison than in church,” Johnny once remarked with exasperation. They wrote a good story; it just wasn’t quite, well, true.

But Johnny himself was responsible for some of the fake news, too — perhaps believing Barnum’s precept on publicity — until it wasn’t fun anymore. (Columbia Records’ advertising campaign for the Folsom triumph included full-page ads reading “Johnny Cash Goes Back to Prison.”) He “admitted” in his autobiography that he had spent “seven nights” in jail, when in actuality, it was five, the presumed lesson being that the deeper the hole, the higher the climb. In any case, his empathy for the forgotten men was due to his heart, not homesickness or a nostalgic desire to return to life behind bars.

El Paso, Texas, Sheriff’s Department mug shot, October 4, 1965

So far, that was four jail or almost-jail incidents. The fifth, another not-exactly-Billy-the-Kid moment, occurred following a show at Mississippi State University and a subsequent party with college students at a frat house nearby. Johnny did spend a night in the Oktibbeha County jail for this one; he was “drying out,” after being detained for PWI — picking flowers while intoxicated — as he walked back to his motel. (The site of this dreadful event is memorialized today with a state historical marker.)

The day before San Quentin, Johnny wrote the song he wanted to write for the concert, an effort to bring a little light into that dark place. STARKVILLE CITY JAIL is a (somewhat) autobiographical account of his unfortunate encounter with Magnolia State justice. “Thirty-six dollars for picking flowers and a night in jail. You can’t hardly win, can you?” he asked the hardened criminals in the cafeteria, who all laughed and nodded appreciatively at the absurdity of it all. As the ad said, “He’d ‘been there,’ too.”

Marty Stuart and friends at the dedication of the Mississippi Country Music Trail marker at the site of Johnny’s arrest in Starkville, 2021

Dyess, 1968

COME ALONG AND RIDE THIS TRAIN

1969

Come along and ride this train

Come along and ride this train

Cross the mountains, prairies, reservations

Rivers, levees, plains

Come along and ride this train

I know a land where mountain streams are running free

I know a prairie where there’s miles between each tree

I know where there’s people you would like to get to know

Come along with me and go

Come along and ride this train

Come along and ride this train

Cross the mountains, prairies, reservations

Rivers, levees, plains

Come along and ride this train

I heard a story that I’d like to share with you

And I know a valley that I’d like to take you through

I will show you things that I am sure you’d like to see

Come along and go with me

Johnny and June, Dyess, 1968

With Glen Campbell on The Johnny Cash Show, Nashville, 1969

The same month that Johnny Cash at San Quentin was released saw the debut of The Johnny Cash Show on ABCTV. The convergence of these two events would help cement his legacy, as would a major profile in Look magazine; the release of a full-length documentary film, Johnny Cash: The Man, His World, His Music (which featured Johnny’s emotional return to his abandoned, decrepit boyhood home in Dyess); and a biography (the first of many), Winners Got Scars Too: The Life and Legends of Johnny Cash, by Christopher S. Wren. But the key element was the television show. Johnny’s variety show was groundbreaking and the gold standard for innovation. For fifty-eight episodes, over three seasons, from 1969 to 1971, he introduced country artists to a national audience on an unprecedented scale. Names like Haggard, Pride, Wynette, and Lynn became familiar and heroic.

The breadth of music presented week after week was staggering. Louis Armstrong and Mahalia Jackson appeared toward the ends of their lives. James Taylor, Neil Diamond, and Linda Ronstadt got their earliest network TV exposure. Bob Dylan would not travel the sixty miles from his home for the famous Woodstock festival, but he came to Nashville (from New York) for Johnny Cash. Neil Young was “petrified” before he did the show but then invited his fellow guests to join him in the studio the next day, when he recorded “Heart of Gold.” The Statler Brothers became icons on Johnny’s show before they became the most awarded act in country music history. Kris Kristofferson, Mickey Newbury, Gordon Lightfoot, Ian Tyson. Johnny’s stature grew by the week. The great American balladeer Burl Ives told him he was a “positive influence” on young people. Actor Kirk Douglas had never before stepped foot in the state of Tennessee but said Johnny was bridging the chasm between the coasts and America’s heartland. Over eighty members of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame walked into Johnny’s “house.”

Onstage at Grand Ole Opry House during The Johnny Cash Show, Nashville, 1970

“Ride This Train” depot set, The Johnny Cash Show, Nashville, 1970

The Man in Black was created on the show. Every week, Johnny sat in front of a railroad depot set and invited people in living rooms across America to COME ALONG AND RIDE THIS TRAIN with him as he “visited” important moments and places in history, remembered great men and women, celebrated common people, and offered insightful commentary on social and human issues of the day. It was unlike anything previously seen on national television and defined Johnny as the voice of America. He was never better.

After the 1969 Country Music Association Awards were presented, ABC took out full-page ads in trade publications stating, “They should have just called it The Johnny Cash Show.” In a tour de force that, more than half a century later, has never been bested, Johnny won five trophies — every one that he was up for. It was the first time the CMA Awards show was broadcast live to a national audience, so for much of America, Johnny Cash became country music that night, and he never stopped being that. For many others, though, this was old news. The president of Columbia Records, the august Clive Davis, had been busy announcing/confirming that Johnny was currently the biggest-selling recording artist on earth. At the time, there were no fewer than six Johnny Cash albums on the pop chart. For most people, though, the most spectacular revelation of that night came when Mr. and Mrs. Cash climbed the stage to accept the Vocal Group of the Year Award from Chet Atkins. As Johnny later sang, “June was pregnant with my boy.”

SOUTHWIND

1969

Southwind, you picked her up in Jacksonville

And left me cold and lonesome in the rain

Southwind, you took her off to Nashville

Left me choking in the smoke behind the train

And you go whoo-woo-woo

She’s gone again

On the Southwind

Southwind, I need a forty-dollar ticket

And about this time tomorrow I’ll be gone

Southwind, but if I had forty dollars

I would buy myself a smile to carry on

And you go whoo-woo-woo

She’s gone again

On the Southwind

Southwind, take her fast and take her far

’Cause that’s the way she always likes to go

Southwind, I will be waiting for the round trip

If you’ll bring her back and I done told her so

Don’t you go whoo-woo-woo

She’s gone again

On the Southwind

In the middle of the TV show’s run, Johnny released his career-defining album. Hello, I’m Johnny Cash is a collection of masterpieces, a portrait of the artist at his very peak. The record included the first Kris Kristofferson song he ever cut, “The Devil to Pay”; his own favorite love song, “’Cause I Love You”; possibly the most poignant train song ever, Cowboy Jack Clement’s gorgeous “I’ve Got a Thing About Trains”; and a marvelous, magical cover of folkie Tim Hardin’s “If I Were a Carpenter,” which would win Johnny and June another Grammy. The lead track was one of his best train compositions, SOUTHWIND, a song that used another real-life locomotive to tell another story of longing and lost love; it was a grown-up, world-weary version of “Wide Open Road.” The human condition is eternal. Only the names change to protect the guilty.

Naturally, Hello, I’m Johnny Cash went to number one. And it went gold ten days after its release. A month later, there was even better news.

Lyrics to an early version of “Southwind,” c. 1968

Left: Johnny and John Carter airborne to Australia, 1973
Right: With newborn John Carter, Madison, Tennessee, March 1970

I GOT A BOY AND HIS NAME IS JOHN

1972

I got a boy and his name is John

You oughta see little John tag along

Goin’ where his daddy goes

Learnin’ what his daddy knows

We got a boy and his name is John

You oughta see little John tag along

Goin’ where his daddy goes

Learnin’ what his daddy knows

He’s got a friend and her name is Kay

And Kay goes with him every day

Gonna take Kay along

Gonna teach Kay this song

He’s got a friend and his name is George

But he’s not the one from Valley Forge

And he’s never been president

That ain’t the George we meant

He’s got a friend and his name is Gibbs

(It’s a dog, I know, but he’s his friend)

(Yeah, I know, but it’s a dog. I know, but he’s his friend, okay)

He’s got a friend and his name is Gibbs

Gibbs is so fat you can’t see his ribs

A dog named Sergeant, too, he’s his friend

Watch out he might bite you

I got a boy and his name is John

You oughta see little John tag along

Goin’ where his daddy goes (and his mommy goes)

Learnin’ what his daddy knows (and his mommy knows)

(He will pick corn with his mama)

I got a boy and his name is John

You oughta see little John tag along

Goin’ where his daddy goes (his mommy goes)

Learnin’ what his daddy knows

(Okay, he’d go with both of us, you can go with me, and he can go with us)

(That’ll be nice, okay, baby, together)

I got a boy and his name is John

You oughta see little John tag along

Goin’ where his daddy (and mommy) goes

Learnin’ what his daddy (and mommy) knows

The birth of John Carter Cash on March 3, 1970, must have seemed foreordained. How else could that magical year have gone? His parents-to-be were on the cover of every country music and even “movie star” fan magazine. June’s moods were tracked and breathlessly reported. Johnny was pestered with questions about the imminent birth at every stop. No detail was too small. When the seven-pound, ten-ounce heir to two imposing legacies did make his appearance, President Nixon sent congratulations, news broadcasts trumpeted the glad tidings, and wire services sent family photos around the world direct from the Madison Adventist Hospital. Johnny thanked June’s ob-gyn on his TV show while dedicating a song to him.

It was an intensely emotional time. The new dad saw the baby as an affirmation of his restoration, a sign from above that he had been blessed and forgiven. He vowed that he would do right by his son. The day after John Carter left the hospital to go home, Johnny went into the studio and recorded “What Is Truth,” dedicating the song to the newborn. He and June funded a playroom at the hospital in the little one’s name. The next month, at six weeks of age, Baby Cash accompanied his parents to the White House, where he upstaged the leader of the free world, prompting POTUS Nixon to quip, “He’s a little small for the Lincoln bed right now, but the way Johnny Cash is going, he’ll probably end up there one day.”

Fishing with John Carter, Alaska, 1985

Siblings Rosanne, John Carter, and Rosey, early 1970s

June and John Carter, mid-1970s

John Carter, late 1970s

With June and John Carter, Hawaii, 1990

With June and John Carter on John Carter’s sixteenth birthday, March 1986

YOU’VE GOT A NEW LIGHT SHINING IN YOUR EYES

1971

You’ve got a new light shining in your eyes

And I can see now right where your beauty lies

And it’s showing in your face that your heart has found a place

And I can hear it in your whisper and your sighs

You’ve got a new way of doing things you do

And it’s plain to see there’s been a change in you

And I wonder could it be that the change is due to me

For I have felt a certain something, too

You’ve got a way about you now that you never had before

You’ve got a look you’re wearing now like no look you ever wore

I tried to hide it for a while but now I realize

You’ve got a new light shining in your eyes

You’ve got a way about you now that you never had before

You’ve got a look you’re wearing now like no look you ever wore

I tried to hide it for a while but now I realize

You’ve got a new light shining in your eyes

REACHING FOR THE STARS / THESE ARE MY PEOPLE

1970

Some two hundred million

Thanking God for having brought us

Safely thus far in our journey

We are reaching for the stars that beckon

Reaching for the stars that call us

And we answer back still louder

By the power of God that brought us

We are reaching, we are reaching

Reaching for the stars tomorrow

These are my people

This is the land where my forefathers lie

These are my people

In brotherhood, we’re heirs of a creed to live by

A creed that proclaims that by loved ones’ bloodstains

This is my land and these are my people

These are my people

They were born on and lived by the land

These are my people

And their cities were raised by hardworking hands

And their faces do tell that they’re holding on well

To this, their land

Yes, these are my people

These are my people

These are the ones who will reach for the stars

These are my people

By the light of the earth, you can tell they are ours

A new step to take and a new day will break

For this, my land

Yes, these are my people

Ten years after Ride This Train made its first whistle-stop, giving listeners their earliest hint of where Johnny Cash’s expansive vision would take them, he fulfilled his own manifest destiny with America: A 200-Year Salute in Story and Song. This sweeping look at American history, released several years before the nation’s bicentennial, included a recitation of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address; the mournful Civil War ballad “Lorena” (that war was a theme — and lesson — frequently invoked by Johnny during the Vietnam era); and, meaningfully, “Big Foot,” a recounting of the national catastrophe at Wounded Knee.

The album reached number three — a surprisingly strong performance for a collection not designed for radio play or hit singles. Released after the end of Johnny’s TV series, America was a powerful statement of where we had been as a people, and where we were going. Depot to depot, sea to sea, no longer defined our limits. He closed the record with a soaring declaration of what made his America the chosen land: REACHING FOR THE STARS / THESE ARE MY PEOPLE.

Onstage in the White House East Room, Washington, DC, April 17, 1970

With President Richard Nixon in the Oval Office, Washington, DC, July 26, 1972

BY 1970, IT seemed that Johnny Cash had lived several lifetimes, each more epic than the last. His ascent to the top of his field had been improbable, even impossible, just two years before, but he had beat the devil. His albums contained lessons and parables doubling as hit records. He turned The Johnny Cash Show from a simple trifle into a bastion of originality, innovation, and activism, using its stage to transform himself as well as what “entertainment” could accomplish. He sang for presidents and prisoners, in houses great and small, offering up his life story as both warning and inspiration. By the end of his life, John R. Cash would be called by journalist Chet Flippo “our most enduring musical conscience.”

His anointing came by accident. Or coincidence. Or maybe it was something else. On April 17, 1970, Johnny gave a command performance at the White House, at the invitation of President and Mrs. Nixon, as part of a series of events celebrating and honoring American culture called “An Evening at the White House.” As it happened, that very day, the country was gripped with the drama surrounding the Apollo 13 space mission, which had experienced an onboard explosion (“Houston, we’ve had a problem”), crippling the spacecraft and placing the lives of the crew in peril. After four tense days, on the morning of the seventeenth, the crew returned to Earth safely, provoking a huge release of collectively held breath.

That evening, a euphoric president took the stage in the East Room, reveling in the astronauts’ safe return, calling it “one of the great days of America’s history.” The commander in chief praised the “courage, poise… character and ingenuity” of all involved, saying, “In America, we have people who come up to the mark.” Then he bestowed this tribute on his “distinguished guest”:

I think it is only appropriate… that Johnny Cash be here tonight, because he fits…

He was born in Arkansas and he now lives in Tennessee, but he belongs to the whole country.

It was the first time Johnny had been associated so personally with a great national moment. President Nixon’s remarks would be echoed by his successors for the next three decades. In all, Johnny would meet seven of America’s chief executives: Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, fellow Arkansan Clinton, and Bush II, who would award him the National Medal of Arts in 2002. Johnny would sing of and to America’s grace all his days. At the same time, he knew the tragedy of life and what a thin line separated where he stood from where he had started. Others were not so fortunate, had no voice, or needed a chance. He refused to let them be forgotten. As Bono, of U2, said,

Johnny didn’t sing to the damned; he sang with the damned, and sometimes you sensed he might prefer their company.

He not only sang in prisons; he quietly visited inmates, often just to sit and play cards with them. He supported women’s shelters, did benefits for Native Americans, donated to schools and countless charities and civic organizations, and funded hospitals and orphanages. There were also the private acts of care few ever heard about. After reading a newspaper article, Johnny gave money to Vanderbilt Hospital, in Nashville, to pay for a lifesaving kidney machine for a Black man he did not know. He was most outraged by injustice against the powerless. “It should sicken the conscience of everyone, especially those who have more and know better,” he said. His songs had a point, and he was not afraid to share them, no matter the venue.

Telegram from future president Jimmy Carter, 1976

The Nixons and the Cashes, White House East Room, Washington, DC, April 17, 1970

Johnny and June with President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush, 2002

APACHE TEARS

1964

Hoofprints and footprints

Deep ruts the wagons made

The victor and the loser

Came by here

No headstones but these bones

Bring Mescalero death moans

See the smooth black nuggets

By the thousands lying here

Petrified but justified

Are these Apache tears

Dead grass, dry roots

Hunger crying in the night

Ghosts of broken hearts

And laws are here

And who saw the young squaw

They judged by their whiskey law

Tortured ’til she died

Of pain and fear

Where the soldiers lay her back

Are the black Apache tears

The young men, the old men

The guilty and the innocent

Bled red blood

And chilled alike with fears

The red man, the white man

No fight ever took this land

So don’t raise the dust

When you pass here

They’re sleeping, and in my keeping

Are these Apache tears

For much of his life, Johnny believed he had Indian blood. It was a Cash family article of faith, passed down for generations, that the family tree contained original American branches. (Johnny later discovered that his people actually hailed from England and Scotland.) His commitment to the Native cause, nurtured through his friendship with activist Peter La Farge (who, it turned out, was also erroneous in thinking he was an American Indian), was therefore very personal. Johnny’s courage in putting out a record like Bitter Tears was very solemnly honored by his brethren. In 1966, Johnny was formally adopted by the Seneca Indian nation, and the next year he was elected president of the Tribal Indian Land Rights Association.

“We must remember the past… the mistakes as well as the successes,” he stated. The La Farge songs on Bitter Tears were outraged denunciations of wrongs committed against Indians, but APACHE TEARS, which Johnny wrote, is quiet and sad, as befits the setting: a lonely, dusty burial ground filled with the bones and echoes of those killed there. In tribal mythology, black Apache tear stones are said to have been formed from the tears of weeping wives of doomed warriors who perished in a battle with the United States Cavalry in Arizona in the 1870s. Johnny humanizes the legend and the pain and pathos behind it in a harrowing way, making for one of the album’s most powerful cuts.

ALL OF GOD’S CHILDREN AIN’T FREE

1964

I’d sing more about more of this land

But all God’s children ain’t free

I’d open up every door I can

’Cause all God’s children ain’t free

I met a beaten broken man

He shovels dirt but got no land

And he held out his hand to me

All God’s children ain’t free

I’d sing along to a silly song

But all God’s children ain’t free

I’m gonna sing the blues for the men they done wrong

’Cause all God’s children ain’t free

Mister, how ’bout the man you condemn to die

By taking everything that he’s livin’ by

And reject him from society

All God’s children ain’t free

I’d be happy walking any street

But all God’s children ain’t free

I’d have a smile for all I meet

But all God’s children ain’t free

I’d whistle down the road but I wouldn’t feel right

I’d hear somebody cryin’ out at night

From a sharecropper shack or penitentiary

All God’s children ain’t free

Folk-music activists Joan Baez and Bob Dylan at the March on Washington, 1963

Johnny’s life took him “from sea to shining sea.” One of his stops was New York City’s Greenwich Village, home base of the folk music social protest movement. “The Ballad of Ira Hayes” brought him there, and to the Newport Folk Festival, where he sang Dylan and La Farge, and also A.P. Carter and himself.

As had been true for most of his life and most of his experiences, Johnny didn’t fit in neatly in this world. It was counterculture territory — Ginsberg and the Beat scene and the coffeehouse poets and all. That made it a fascinating — and dangerous — place for a fish-out-of-water country singer with a drug problem in the 1960s. Johnny didn’t stay around very long, but indelible impressions were left, one product of which was ALL OF GOD’S CHILDREN AIN’T FREE, a song that would have been quite at home at any hootenanny, campfire, or even civil rights rally of the era.

Performing at the Newport Folk Festival, Rhode Island, July 26, 1964

Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Wounded Knee, South Dakota

BIG FOOT

1968

Big Foot was an Indian chief

Of the Miniconjou band

A band of Miniconjou Sioux

From South Dakota land

Big Foot said to Custer

“Stay away from Crazy Horse.”

But Custer crossed into Sioux land

And he never came back across

Then Big Foot led his people

To a place called Wounded Knee

And they found themselves surrounded

By the Seventh Cavalry

Big chief Big Foot

Rise up from your bed

Miniconjou babies cry

For their mothers lying dead

Big Foot was down with a fever

When he reached Wounded Knee

And his people all were prisoners

Of the Seventh Cavalry

Two hundred women and children

And another hundred men

Raised up a white flag of peace

But peace did not begin

An accidental gunshot

And Big Foot was first to die

And over the noise of the rifles

You could hear the babies cry

Big chief Big Foot

It’s good that you can’t see

Revenge is being wrought

By Custer’s Seventh Cavalry

Then smoke hung over the canyon

On that cold December day

All was death and dying

Around where Big Foot lay

Farther on up the canyon

Some had tried to run and hide

But death showed no favorites

Women, men and children died

One side called it a massacre

The other a victory

But the white flag is still waving

Today at Wounded Knee

Big chief Big Foot

Your Miniconjou band

Is mourned and remembered here

In South Dakota land

Viewing historical marker at site of 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre, 1968

In December 1968, Johnny was invited to visit the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the site of the infamous massacre of nearly three hundred Lakota Sioux, mostly women and children, near Wounded Knee Creek, by the United States Army on December 29, 1890. The event is one of the most egregious atrocities in the history of the United States.

While touring the monument with descendants of some of the victims, Johnny stood in the very spots where they had been shot dead. Hearing their stories, he was struck not only by the disgrace to the national character that Wounded Knee inflicted, but also by the devastating individual catastrophes: families destroyed, lives so callously wasted. While there, he wrote BIG FOOT — “So no one forgets,” he said. Big Foot, also known as Spotted Elk, was the chief of the Miniconjou tribe of Lakota and the half brother of Sitting Bull. Despite having surrendered to the Army and being unarmed, he was killed in the massacre, his body left to freeze on the frigid, snow-covered plain.

Like “Apache Tears” four years earlier, this song focuses on the human carnage inflicted on America’s first people. Its power is heightened by the straight-ahead lyrics, their reproach delivered by simply telling the story and allowing the outrage to incinerate the conscience.

Johnny did not compose such soul-searing rebukes for them to be hidden away. Bitter Tears delivered an entire album full of history lessons, stripped to their core. And he put “Big Foot” on the America: A 200-Year Salute album, its inclusion just as essential as the celebrations.

JOHN CARTER CASH

NEARLY TWENTY YEARS ago, I took an ardent journey. I went back to Wounded Knee, South Dakota, with Marty Stuart to where my father had visited the place of one of our nation’s dark spots. The massacre there is something he made me aware of from when I was young, and it held great import in my heart to return and seek the spirit of that place, the people there, and to perhaps feel a finer closeness to my father’s memory. I walked those hills, took in the history, sat with the people, and listened to their songs. I certainly felt my father’s hand on my back then, somehow more than I do normally. Somehow, I have heard his music differently after that. I have also been past the White House since he passed, and I get the same sort of feeling. I recall the times I went with him to meet the presidents, from Richard Nixon when I was one month old to George Walker Bush not long before my father’s passing.

Though I don’t recall my first White House visit, I have heard the stories. I was tiny, diaper full and needing a nap. My mother wasn’t shy. She asked if there was a place she could lay me down. They took me to a bedroom near the Oval Office. One of my first naps in a bed outside my home was in the Lincoln bed.

Spotted Elk, aka Big Foot, leader of the Miniconjou Lakota, 1888

ROUTE 1, BOX 144

1969

His dying barely made the morning paper

And they summed it up in twenty words or more

“Killed in action, leaves wife and baby

At Route 1, Box 144.”

He grew up on a little farm

Just a couple of miles out of town

As a boy he worked in his daddy’s field

And when his daddy could spare him

He hired out to the neighbors

For whatever they could pay him

He was thought of as just average, a good boy

Nothing more, the average amount of friends

He married his high school sweetheart

They bought a little plot of ground

Couple of miles out of town on a mailbox it said

Route 1, Box 144

Well, back in town there were very few people

That really knew him

Because he hardly ever came to town

Except for maybe on Saturdays

Of course, the usual crew was always there

But he didn’t spend a lot of time

With the usual crew

He took care of his business

Bought what he had to have or could afford for his family

And went back to his little farm

With a baby on the way he went to the Army

And it was just a short while

That the news came

That he was killed in action

His body was sent back on a plane

And then by train

And then they brought the body from the train station

To Route 1, Box 144

He never did great things to be remembered

He’d never been away from home before

But you’d have thought that he was president or something

At Route 1, Box 144

Every now and again, there is a sleeper, an unheralded jewel that doesn’t immediately get the notice that it deserves, but which eventually moves the earth with its import and insight. The album Hello, I’m Johnny Cash is such a piece of artistic mastery — with a Grammy winner, top-five singles, and never-ending extraordinary performances — that not one cut could claim precedence over another. And yet.

For Johnny, life was a series of personal moments. His most impactful and poignant songs were simple depictions of real people, real events, real lessons, told one at a time, just the way life is lived. And in 1968, nothing was more real, or affected more people, than the war raging in Southeast Asia. The very fabric of America was tattered by Vietnam. Families were decimated. Anger, grief, and resentment ruled the land. Everyone knew someone who had lost their own best and brightest in that far-off jungle. The politicians debated, the country seethed, boys kept dying, and everyone chose a side.

Which made ROUTE 1, BOX 144 remarkable. That’s because for most Americans, what was happening to the nation wasn’t about policy or strategy or destiny or any of that. It was about the empty place at the supper table.

In October 1968 the war came to Johnny’s inner circle when Army corporal James Van Howard was killed in action. Jimmy was the son of eminent songwriter Harlan Howard (“Busted”) and Opry star Jan Howard (she had sung the line “Mama sang tenor” on Johnny’s “Daddy Sang Bass” three months prior and had also sung on “Ring of Fire”). The following year, Johnny wrote and recorded “Jimmy Howard” in his honor, but never made it public, giving the recording to the fallen soldier’s mother.

Hundreds that you’d not expect to see there

Were drawn by his good influence far and wide

A lot of lives made changes for the better

They changed the day that Jimmy Howard died

The same day Johnny recorded “Jimmy Howard” for Jimmy’s mother, he did “Route 1, Box 144” for all mothers. Nestled toward the end of side A of the greatest album the man ever made was the greatest argument for peace ever devised.

WHAT IS TRUTH

1970

The old man turned off the radio

Said, “Where did all of the old songs go?

Kids sure play funny music these days

They play it in the strangest ways.”

Said, “It looks to me like they’ve all gone wild

It was peaceful back when I was a child.”

Well, man, could it be that the girls and boys

Are trying to be heard above your noise?

And the lonely voice of youth cries

“What is truth?”

A little boy of three sitting on the floor

Looks up and says, “Daddy, what is war?”

“Son, that’s when people fight and die.”

The little boy of three says, “Daddy, why?”

A young man of seventeen in Sunday school

Being taught the golden rule

And by the time another year has gone around

It may be his turn to lay his life down

Can you blame the voice of youth for asking

“What is truth?”

A young man sitting on the witness stand

The man with the book says, “Raise your hand

Repeat after me: I solemnly swear.”

The man looked down at his long hair

And although the young man solemnly swore

Nobody seems to hear anymore

And it didn’t really matter if the truth was there

It was the cut of his clothes and the length of his hair

And the lonely voice of youth cries

“What is truth?”

The young girl dancing to the latest beat

Has found new ways to move her feet

The young man speaking in the city square

Is trying to tell somebody that he cares

Yeah, the ones that you’re calling wild

Are going to be the leaders in a little while

This old world’s waking to a newborn day

And I solemnly swear that it’ll be their way

You better help that voice of youth find

What is truth

The graduate with the highest grades

Gets a scholarship for the marks he made

One of the lower-grade classmates

Goes to the Army when he graduates

The lucky scholar gets a white-collar job

The ex-GI is one of the mob

The white-collar man has got it made

The ex-GI doesn’t have a trade

And the lonely voice of youth cries

“What is truth?”

The old lady takes a pill for her nerves

Says “These kids today got more than they deserve

They don’t have to work the way we did

Sometimes I think we’re too good to our kids

They drive fast cars, they drink and smoke

Half of ’em run around high on dope

Always livin’ for the latest thrill

They make me nervous — what’d I do with my pills?”

And the lonely voice of youth cries

“What is truth?”

Singing with the Reverend Billy Graham at one of Graham’s crusades

In December 1969, Johnny and June Cash hosted a Sunday supper that would have boggled anyone’s brain just two years before. America’s preacher, the Reverend Billy Graham, perennially named one of the most admired men in the world, had asked to meet America’s hottest musical artist, prompting the incredible invitation out to the lake. Dr. Graham — “Call me Billy” — and his wife, Ruth, were actually on a mission that afternoon. He may have been the most eminent evangelist in the country, but he was also the father of a teenage son who happened to listen to a lot of Johnny Cash’s music. If Billy could connect with said singer, maybe young Franklin Graham would find his father cool enough, and the two could reach a détente of sorts.

It was the beginning of a friendship that lasted a lifetime. Johnny had been terrified that Billy would judge him for his past mistakes and even apologized for some of the “language” on his records. What Johnny found was a man who did not admonish and was quick to forgive. It was difficult for Johnny to forgive himself, but Billy Graham helped him start, although not by condemning him. “We are Christian brothers. It is that simple,” said Johnny. “He doesn’t preach to me in the way many define that. He sets an example. He responds to my requests for help with moral questions.” Perhaps in some ways Billy Graham was the man J.R. had always pictured his big brother Jack becoming. And it was the Reverend Franklin Graham who would preach at John Cash’s funeral in 2003.

Another of Billy’s missions that December day was to enlist Johnny in a crusade, as it were, to connect with young people via music. “Today’s music needs to speak to youth,” he told the world’s biggest seller of music. “You, Johnny, can do that, because your life is an inspiration. You speak the truth.”

The next month, on the set of The Johnny Cash Show, Johnny was sitting with his old friend from California, Merle Travis, who was a writer on the show. As the men watched rehearsals, Kenny Rogers and the First Edition began singing the (somewhat) suggestive lyrics of their hit song “Something’s Burning.” The old-school Travis remarked, “Kids sure play funny music these days.” Johnny had his song. Taking the title from Pontius Pilate’s question to Jesus, Johnny recorded his most provocative contemporary social statement on March 9, 1970.

The song was interpreted as a protest song on its release, generating some dissent for its support of “long hairs,” demonstrators, and purveyors of “funny music.” But he performed it at the White House a month later, and President Nixon led the thunderous applause it generated. After all, the song was inspired by the president’s best friend (and Ruth Graham was sitting in the front row). More than forty years later, mischievous filmmakers held out the dubious proposition that it was an anti-Nixon song. That would have surprised both men.

WHAT IS TRUTH reached number three and hit the top twenty on the pop charts.

Johnny’s year-end letter to himself, December 31, 1970

MAN IN BLACK

1971

Well, you wonder why I always dress in black

Why you never see bright colors on my back

And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone

Well, there’s a reason for the things that I have on

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down

Living on the hopeless, hungry side of town

I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime

But is there because he’s a victim of the times

I wear the black for those who’ve never read

Or listened to the words that Jesus said

About the road to happiness through love and charity

Why, you’d think He’s talking straight to you and me

Well, we’re doing mighty fine, I do suppose

In our streak of lightning cars and fancy clothes

But just so we’re reminded of the ones who are held back

Up front there ought to be a man in black

I wear it for the sick and lonely old

For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold

I wear the black in mourning for the lives that could have been

Each week we lose a hundred fine young men

And I wear it for the thousands who have died

Believing that the Lord was on their side

I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died

Believing that we all were on their side

Well, there’s things that never will be right, I know

And things need changing everywhere you go

But ’til we start to make a move to make a few things right

You’ll never see me wear a suit of white

I’d love to wear a rainbow every day

And tell the world that everything’s okay

But I’ll try to carry off a little darkness on my back

’Til things are brighter, I’m the Man in Black

Letter regarding motivation for writing “Man in Black,” 1992

Johnny Cash’s most profound, fervent manifesto, which would forever ennoble him and bring him honor, came as a result of an identity crisis. It was 1971 and he had found that being lead dog was not always the prime position. No one, it seemed, was satisfied. He was too pro this or not enough anti that. He talked to the wrong people. He should; he should not. If he was that guy’s friend, he couldn’t be mine. He tried walking the line, but that was not working out. Being Johnny Cash was becoming torturous.

“Everybody wants a piece of me, but I just don’t have enough to give,” he told friends. “They all want to tell me who I should be.” One afternoon at his house, as he met with his TV show staff to plan a special episode geared toward young people, Johnny admitted that he was nervous. “The kids want something real. I want them to see and hear the real me, not the guy somebody else says I am.”

Someone in the group spoke up. “Then you tell them who you are! Tell the world who Johnny Cash is!” Johnny retired to his bedroom upstairs to contemplate that ultimate question. Three hours later, MAN IN BLACK was written. Introduced just days later to an Opry House packed with college students who did listen, Johnny’s ultimate statement of purpose remains as relevant and vital as ever a half century later. He spoke of peace and the poor, of the lonely and forgotten, of Jesus and lost souls. It was as if his whole life had been spent preparing for this moment. He was up to it.

This was a bolder Johnny Cash than had been heard from since Bitter Tears. There was nothing “political” about “Man in Black,” but in America, everything was political. As usual, some grumbled, but they didn’t quite know what for. “Cash sang for Nixon.” That was a peremptory disqualification, no matter what he said. “He was taking a swipe at Nixon.” Were they all listening to the same song? It was a whirlwind.

“Man in Black” went to number three.

Poem concerning Vietnam War, c. 1974

Performing for troops, Long Binh Post, South Vietnam, January 1969

SINGIN’ IN VIETNAM TALKIN’ BLUES

1971

One morning at breakfast, I said to my wife

“We’ve been everywhere once and some places twice.”

As I had another helping of country ham

She said, “We ain’t never been to Vietnam

There’s a bunch of our boys over there.”

So we went to the Orient, Saigon

Well, we got a big welcome when we drove in

Through the gates of a place that they call Long Binh

We checked in and everything got kinda quiet

But a soldier boy said, “Just wait ’til tonight

Things get noisy, things start happening

Big bad firecrackers.”

Well, that night we did about four shows for the boys

And they were living it up with a whole lot of noise

We did our last song for the night

And we crawled into bed for some peace and quiet

But things weren’t peaceful

And things weren’t quiet

Things were scary

Well, for a few minutes, June never said one word

And I thought at first that she hadn’t heard

Then a shell exploded not two miles away

She sat up in bed and I heard her say,

“What was that?”

I said, “That was a shell, or a bomb.”

She said, “I’m scared.” I said, “Me, too.”

Well, all night long that noise kept on

And the sound would chill you right to the bone

The bullets and the bombs and the mortar shells

Shook our bed every time one fell

And it never let up, it was gonna get worse

Before it got any better

Well, when the sun came up, the noise died down

We got a few minutes’ sleep, and we were sleepin’ sound

When a soldier knocked on our door and said

“Well, last night they brought in seven dead and fourteen wounded.”

And would we come down to the base hospital and see the boys

Yeah

So we went to the hospital ward by day

And every night we were singing away

Then the shells and the bombs was going again

And the helicopters brought in the wounded men

Night after night, day after day

Coming and a-going

So we sadly sang for them our last song

And reluctantly we said, “So long.”

We did our best to let them know that we care

For every last one of them that’s over there

Whether we belong over there or not

Somebody over here loves them

And needs them

Well, now that’s about all that there is to tell

About that little trip into living hell

And if I ever go back over there anymore

Hope there’s none of our boys there for me to sing for

I hope that war is over with

And they all come back home

To stay

In peace

Being escorted by U.S. Army Private James Scarvey, Long Binh Post, South Vietnam, January 1969

American troops engaged in combat, Vietnam

Johnny never publicly criticized any American president, regardless of party. He had too much respect for the office. Like most Americans, he initially supported President Nixon’s plan to end the Vietnam War and was unashamed to express that. But it was the human toll that ached his heart. He found no contradiction in being pro fighting men and pro peace. He and June went to the front in early 1969. What he saw shook him to the core. SINGIN’ IN VIETNAM TALKIN’ BLUES came out of that experience. It was Johnny’s most provocative statement on the war, describing the battlefield as a “living hell” and expressing the hope that there would be an end to the fighting. This was not entertainment. This was not music as an escape. There was no escaping what was going on.

The strident, intense spoken-word delivery of Johnny’s message was not easy listening. And certainly not everyone wanted to hear it. “Singin’ in Vietnam Talkin’ Blues” made it only to number eighteen, the worst showing for a Cash single in four years. Despite being a key social statement, it is not well remembered. Perhaps it is too brutal a reminder of an accursed time. But it should be required listening for every American.

POOR PEOPLE

1971

Poor people are friends of mine

The ones I really do care about

Poor people, the underdog

The down and out

But a poor girl can always dream

That things are not always the way they seem

And a poor man can make dreams come true

If he gets a little help from me and you

And there are many, many little children down

In the heartbreaking, hungry side of town

Come along with me and I’ll show you some

That don’t know where their supper is coming from

Three months after his TV show ended, Johnny and June visited The David Frost Show on BBC Television. The talk show’s producers asked if Johnny would write “a song or poem” specifically for the occasion. He composed this short verse but never completed it or recorded it. The Frost appearance is the only known performance of POOR PEOPLE.

JOHN CARTER CASH

MY FATHER WAS not judgmental. He told me that being a Christian meant to follow the teachings of Jesus, to study the “words in red” within the Bible, and that understanding what a Christian is wasn’t something that one could necessarily learn in a church. He offered kindness to those he met everywhere: strangers, politicians, criminals, the common folk and the wealthy. He knew what it was to be without, to be hungry, to work hard to get the next meal, and to cling to loved ones first, knowing all too well that love supplied security, not money.

JACOB GREEN

1973

Jacob Green got busted for possession

Next morning early he appeared in court

But he was sent to jail to wait

To be tried at some later date

Next morning early

There came a sad report

At the jail they took away his clothes to shame him

And to make sure Jacob Green had no pride left

They cut off all his hair

Today they found him hanging there

Afraid to face the day

He killed himself

It happened yesterday, and if you turn your head away

Somewhere in some dirty hole that scene will be rerun

Not only Jacob Green, but many more you’ve never seen

It could be someone that you love gets done

Like Jacob Green got done

Jacob’s father hired a team of lawyers

Inspections and long inquiries were held

The sheriff then retired

The paper said two guards were fired

They put a brand-new coat of paint on Jacob’s cell

But like a tomb that looks so white and shiny

Inside you’ll find corruption never seen

And somewhere out there tonight

In a dirty hole without a light

They’ll be locking up another Jacob Green

It happened yesterday, and if you turn your head away

Somewhere in some dirty hole the scene will be rerun

Not only Jacob Green, but many more you’ve never seen

It could be someone that you love gets done

Like Jacob Green got done

A major focus of Johnny’s prison reform efforts was the difficult issue of the youthful offender. His testimony before the United States Senate’s Subcommittee on National Penitentiaries in July 1972 emphasized that it was a crisis, with young people, first-time offenders, and those convicted of minor offenses being thrown together with hardened criminals, often with tragic results. Johnny urged that priority be given to rehabilitation and argued for less punitive sentences, with the goal being to reduce recidivism. Believing that he had been given the platform of fame to try to make a difference, he would repeat these objectives many times, including in meetings with presidents. Johnny extended this work through his personal involvement and by donating money and striving for human dignity so that “reform” meant prisoners might actually stand a chance of coming out better than when they went in.

Three months after his congressional statement, Johnny traveled to Österåker Prison, north of Stockholm, Sweden, to perform for the inmates. There he introduced JACOB GREEN, a harrowing depiction of the jail suicide of a teenage boy, locked up for possession without a trial, which was inspired by a real-life event.

Reciting “Ragged Old Flag” in the U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC, June 14, 1977

Letter to President Ford, 1974

RAGGED OLD FLAG

1974

I walked through a county courthouse square

On a park bench an old man was sitting there

I said, “Your old courthouse is kinda run down.”

He said, “Naw, it’ll do for our little town.”

I said, “Your old flagpole has leaned a little bit

And that’s a ragged old flag you got hanging on it.”

He said, “Have a seat,” and I sat down

“Is this the first time you’ve been to our little town?”

I said, “I think it is.”

He said, “I don’t like to brag

But we’re kinda proud of

That ragged old flag.”

“You see, we got a little hole in that flag there

When Washington took it across the Delaware

And it got powder-burned the night Francis Scott Key

Sat watching it, writing, ‘Say, can you see.’”

“And it got a bad rip in New Orleans

With Pakenham and Jackson tugging at its seams

And it almost fell at the Alamo

Beside the Texas flag, but she waved on, though.”

“She got cut with a sword at Chancellorsville

And she got cut again at Shiloh Hill

There was Robert E. Lee, Beauregard and Bragg

And the south wind blew hard on that ragged old flag.”

“On Flanders Field in World War I

She got a big hole from a Bertha gun

She turned bloodred in World War II

She hung limp and low a time or two.”

“She was in Korea and Vietnam

She went where she was sent by her Uncle Sam

She waved from our ships upon the briny foam

And now they’ve about quit waving her back here at home.”

“In her own good land here she’s been abused

She’s been burned, dishonored, denied and refused

And the government for which she stands

Is scandalized throughout the land.”

“And she’s getting threadbare and wearing thin

But she’s in good shape for the shape she’s in

’Cause she’s been through the fire before

And I believe she can take a whole lot more.”

“So we raise her up every morning

We take her down every night

We don’t let her touch the ground

And we fold her up right.”

“On second thought

I do like to brag

’Cause I’m mighty proud of

That ragged old flag.”

Serving as grand marshal of the United States Bicentennial parade, Washington, DC, July 1976

Some words provoke an immediate, visceral reaction. They tug, caress, slam, overwhelm. The hearer draws them into a personal realm, applies them to a wider sphere, acts, reacts, laughs, cries, prays, curses. The greatest works demand attention. Johnny’s epic poem RAGGED OLD FLAG is such a piece of artistry. Like a prism or, better, a mirror, the lyrics — the emotions — reflect differently, depending on the view.

Written in January 1974 (and first recited publicly just two weeks later), “Ragged Old Flag” was conceived with the Vietnam wounds still raw and Watergate consuming what seemed to many to be America’s last gasps of air. It just didn’t end. The sweeping canvas of America’s wars, and the flag’s place as a symbol of national unity, was a statement of resolve in the face of this bleakness.

The record-buying public was lukewarm toward this declaration, and the single stalled at number thirty-one. The album of the same name, with all songs written by Johnny, crept into the top twenty. This was not the accomplishment it deserved, but the album cover image of Johnny Cash, standing in front of the American flag, was compelling and unforgettable. Within two years, he was the grand marshal of the United States Bicentennial parade, which was followed by an invitation to recite “Ragged Old Flag” in the well of the U.S. House of Representatives in observance of Flag Day. A decade earlier, he was in handcuffs in El Paso.

Four decades later, the angle of the prism/mirror has shifted. Johnny Cash is still in prime time, only now the resolve of the 1970s is the defiance of the present. The ragged old flag is a banner for a new generation. Today’s audience knows it from the stirring, patriotic statements of American pride made in Super Bowl ads. The words endure, their power continues.

DON’T GO NEAR THE WATER

1970

From the fountains in the mountains

Comes the water running cool and clear and blue

And it comes down from the hills

And it goes down to the towns and passes through

When it gets down to the cities

Then the water turns into a dirty gray

It’s poisoned and polluted

By the people as it goes along its way

Don’t go near the water, children

See the fish all dead upon the shore

Don’t go near the water

’Cause the water isn’t water anymore

I took my boy fishing to my old favorite fishing hole

I had caught many a fish out of that deep clear water

From the time I was a boy like him

After we’d fished a few minutes

He said, “Did you get a bite yet, Daddy?”

I said, “I think I got a nibble, son.”

“Me, too,” he said

Then he said, “Daddy, if we catch a fish can we eat him?”

I said, “Well, there was a time, son

This water’s bad now and it might not be safe to eat the fish

But there was a time…”

There was a time the air was clean

And you could see forever ’cross the plains

The wind was sweet as honey

And no one had ever heard of acid rain

We’re torturing the earth

And pouring every kind of evil in the sea

We violated nature

And our children have to pay the penalty

Don’t go near the water, children

See the fish all dead upon the shore

Don’t go near the water

’Cause the water isn’t water anymore

With Burl Ives on The Johnny Cash Show, Nashville, 1970

In 1970, Johnny had Burl Ives on his TV show to promote an environmental movement to clean up water and air pollution. The first Earth Day occurred that year, one month after John Carter’s birth, and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s Keep It Clean! campaign to further the ideal of a better world for all caught Johnny’s attention. In support of the Johnny Horizon program, Johnny Cash wrote DON’T GO NEAR THE WATER, a plea to stop “torturing the earth.” It was included on 1974’s Ragged Old Flag album.

Poster for U.S. Bureau of Land Management anti-litter campaign, c. 1970

First Earth Day, April 22, 1970

Dyess, by Joseph Cash, present day

DRIVE ON

1992

Well, I got a friend named Whiskey Sam

He was my boonie rat buddy for a year in ’Nam

He said, “I think my country got a little off track

It took ’em twenty-five years to welcome me back.”

But it’s better than not coming back at all

Many a good man I saw fall

And even now, every time I dream

I hear the men and the monkeys in the jungle scream

Drive on, it don’t mean nothin’

My children love me but they don’t understand

And I got a woman who knows her man

Drive on, it don’t mean nothin’, it don’t mean nothin’

Drive on

I remember one night, Tex and me

Rappelled in on a hot LZ

We had our 16s on rock and roll

And with all of that fire I was scared and cold

I was crazy and I was wild

And I have seen the tiger smile

I spit in a bamboo viper’s face

And I’d be dead but by God’s grace

Drive on, it don’t mean nothin’

My children love me but they don’t understand

And I got a woman who knows her man

Drive on, it don’t mean nothin’, it don’t mean nothin’

Drive on

It was a slow walk in a sad rain

And nobody tried to be John Wayne

I came home but Tex did not

And I can’t talk about the hit he got

But I got a little limp now when I walk

And I got a little tremolo when I talk

But my letter read from Whiskey Sam

“You’re a walkin’ talkin’ miracle from Vietnam.”

Drive on, it don’t mean nothin’

My children love me but they don’t understand

And I got a woman who knows her man

Drive on, it don’t mean nothin’, it don’t mean nothin’

Drive on

Johnny called DRIVE ON his “second Vietnam song.” It could have been called “Twenty-Five Years Later Talkin’ Blues,” as it tells the story of a veteran recalling the war’s horrors, past and present. Only the past never stayed in its wretched place, and every day of the present was discolored by the sins inflicted by friend and enemy. Johnny was a rabid reader and scholar, especially of history. “Drive On” did not flinch in crawling into the shadows to tell what most people preferred not to think about.

The pathos of “Drive On” was galvanized by Johnny’s own situation. By the 1990s, he lived in excruciating pain every minute of every day. Botched jaw surgery had left him nearly incapacitated with agony. His reading included scores of volumes on Vietnam, PTSD, and chronic pain. He identified with fellow sufferers, many of whom experienced even worse than he did. Once again — still — it was the personal stories that roused him, that compelled him to speak out.

Johnny Cash’s “activism” was his humanity talking. His words did change the world. He would have said that he was just a singer of songs. Those who heard him knew better.

Above: Letter to manager Lou Robin regarding “Drive On”
Below: Working lyrics to “Drive On”

In concert, Owings Mills, Maryland, 1977

WHEN CASH SANG GOSPEL HE COULD MAKE THE STAUNCHEST ATHEIST LONG TO BELIEVE, BECAUSE SIN NEVER SEEMED MORE PALPABLE AND SALVATION NEVER SO NECESSARY.

— CHRIS DAVIS

I AM A CHRISTIAN.” Johnny’s journey from Kingsland to the Promised Land had its share of detours and byways, but he never wavered. “God never gave up on me,” he once said. “Even when I gave up on myself. I always knew He loved me.” Johnny never knew his devout forebears, but their imprint was stamped on future generations, including on the spirituals the family sang in the cotton fields when he was young. The songs, and the peace and hope they brought, stuck with him. They also inflamed him.

As he matured as a man, an artist, and a “Christian warrior,” his songwriting followed. At the end of his life, he was just as “excited” at the certainty of Heaven as he had ever been.

JOHN CARTER CASH

IN MY FATHER’S office, within easy reach, was his mother’s hymnbook, Heavenly Highway Hymns. From “Just as I Am” and “In the Garden” to “Do Lord” to “Where We’ll Never Grow Old,” the weathered book held the songs that meant the most to my father. But these weren’t only songs that reassured his faith; they were a connection to his youth, to the first times he proudly sang out in public, to the days he developed his singing voice and his connection with a congregation. My father, being from a line of ministers from many generations back, felt just as at ease performing and commanding a large audience as a small group of friends. This was genetic memory, something certain and in his blood. He may have been an entertainer and musician, but he was a pastor first.

All through his life, Dad sang these songs, the songs his mother played him on piano as a boy. I remember when he first met his later-life record producer Rick Rubin. He was more excited over Rick’s willingness to allow him to record gospel than he was the possibility of making music that would lead to a surge in popularity and career. Singing spirituals meant more to my father than success.

IT WAS JESUS

1959

Well a man walked down by Galilee

So the holy book does say

And a great multitude was gathered there

Without a thing to eat for days

Up stepped a little boy with a basket

“Please take this, Lord,” he said

And with just five loaves and two little fishes

Five thousand had fish and bread

Who was it, everybody? It was Jesus

Who was it, everybody? It was Jesus

Who was it, everybody? It was Jesus

It was Jesus Christ, our Lord

Now pay close attention, little children

It’s somebody you ought to know

It’s all about a man that walked on earth

Nearly two thousand years ago

Well, He healed the sick and afflicted

And He raised them from the dead

Then they nailed Him on an old rugged cross

And put thorns on His head

Who was it, everybody? It was Jesus

Who was it, everybody? It was Jesus

Who was it, everybody? It was Jesus

It was Jesus Christ, our Lord

Well, they took Him down and they buried Him

And after the third day

When they came to His tomb

Where they knew He was gone

’Cause the stone was rolled away

He’s not here for He is risen

The angel of the Lord then said

And when they saw Him walking

With these nail-scarred hands

They knew He came back from the dead

Johnny was quite serious when he told Sam Phillips back in 1954 that he wanted to be a gospel singer. The producer was equally adamant that this was not going to happen at Sun Records. The issue was never reconciled. At Columbia, Johnny wasted no time fulfilling his destiny, recording IT WAS JESUS at his very first session with the new label and making his second album release a full-length collection of traditional and newly composed spirituals, Hymns by Johnny Cash, in 1959. Three years later, Hymns from the Heart would be his second gospel album. He was, indeed, serious about it.

Johnny’s fundamentalist upbringing made singing these songs as natural as breathing. It seemed incongruous for him to appear at dance halls and ballrooms, beside the rock and roll kids (he was twenty-seven), singing “It Was Jesus,” but he did so — repeatedly. And why not? That is who he was.

At the Western Wall, Jerusalem, 1972

LAND of ISRAEL

1968

From the top of Sinai

To the Sea of Galilee

Every hill and plain is home

Every place is dear to me

There the breezes tell the stories

Oh, what stories they do tell

Of the mighty things that happened

In the Land of Israel

Here, where Moses and the prophets

Spoke of one who would be king

Of a heavenly Messiah

And the blessings He would bring

Oh, to hear again the call

“All is peaceful, all is well.”

Upon every rock and mountain

In the Land of Israel

From the rolling plain of Sharon

To Mount Tabor’s lofty heights

To the desert of Beersheba

All is calm, all is right

Green the trees are on the mountain

Sweet the water in the well

May there nevermore be sorrow

In the Land of Israel

Here, where Moses and the prophets

Spoke of one who would be king

Of a heavenly Messiah

And the blessings He would bring

Oh, to hear again the call

“All is peaceful, all is well.”

Upon every rock and mountain

In the Land of Israel

Aerial view of Jerusalem, with President Truman’s statement recognizing the State of Israel, May 14, 1948

The modern state of Israel was created in 1948. But for devout evangelical Christians, such as Carrie Rivers Cash and, consequently, her children, especially Jack and J.R., Israel had long been an ideal, an article of faith, even more than it was a place. It was where Jesus became man and suffered for mankind’s sins. There Heaven and Earth came together. In May 1968, the twentieth anniversary of what the faithful considered the fulfillment of the prophecy that God’s chosen people would one day be restored to their Promised Land, newlyweds Johnny and June Cash took their honeymoon here, walking where Jesus walked, touching the stones, breathing the air, and looking over the valleys where His voice echoed some two thousand years before. For believers, it still did.

This was not some light, romantic getaway. The Six Day War between the Jewish state and its Arab neighbors had been fought less than a year prior, and regional tensions remained high. Everyone, pilgrims included, was watchful. Johnny had other plans as well. His latest scheme was to record an album there in the Holy Land, capturing the sounds and the emotions of the ancient territory. The executives at Columbia thought the idea was preposterous. Only four months earlier, Johnny had stormed the ramparts at Folsom Prison. They were putting out an album of that event but had not yet, and there was no telling how that investment would pan out. Now the guy wanted to go into a war zone and do it again! That’s a firm no, they said.

Not to be deterred, Johnny got himself a small handheld tape recorder, put a camera around his neck, pulled out a map, and did it all himself. In a place where miracles had been performed and wonders beheld, Johnny Cash worked some wonders of his own.

Christmas poem to June, 1977

Johnny and June’s wedding reception, Hendersonville, March 1, 1968

HE TURNED THE WATER INTO WINE

1968

He turned the water into wine

He turned the water into wine

In the little Cana town

The word went all around that

He turned the water into wine

He walked upon the Sea of Galilee

He walked upon the Sea of Galilee

Shout it far and wide

He calmed the raging tide

And walked upon the Sea of Galilee

He turned the water into wine

He turned the water into wine

In the little Cana town

The word went all around that

He turned the water into wine

He fed the hungry multitude

He fed the hungry multitude

With a little bit of fish and bread

They said everyone was fed

He fed the hungry multitude

He turned the water into wine

He turned the water into wine

In the little Cana town

The word went all around that

He turned the water into wine

Johnny and June visited many sacred sites, including Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, and Nazareth, where He grew up; the Garden of Gethsemane, the site of His passion and arrest by the Romans; Calvary, where He was crucified; and the Wailing (Western) Wall, one of the holiest and most prayerful places in the Jewish faith. At each location, Johnny described what he saw and felt into the little tape recorder. One stop was the town of Cana, the setting for the wedding feast, described in the Gospel of John, where Jesus turned the water into wine. The experience so moved Johnny that during the ten-mile car ride from Cana to the Sea of Galilee, he wrote his gospel masterwork, HE TURNED THE WATER INTO WINE. This is Cash at his most fervent, boldly declaring the same all-embracing faith he would perform at San Quentin and the White House with equal force and fearlessness.

The Holy Land was Johnny’s third gospel album. It was powered by the single “Daddy Sang Bass,” written by Carl Perkins, which spent more weeks at number one than any Johnny Cash song, before or after. The album rose to number six at Billboard, remaining on the charts for half a year. It also crossed over to the pop list, an awe-inspiring achievement for a half-spoken-word religious collection. Sandwiched between the prison albums, The Holy Land showed that Johnny had kept his traditional base even as his appeal expanded to new audiences. He now counted presidents, preachers, and prisoners among his fans. Not so bad for another record that nobody wanted him to make.

Attending a reception, Jerusalem, 1971

Early preparation for Johnny Cash in the Holy Land film project, 1971

GOD IS NOT DEAD

1968

When Jesus called to God upon the cross

No answer came, for His will must be done

Then how the world trembled at His voice

When He said, “This is my beloved son.”

It isn’t God but man that’s dead

When love is locked outside

Do you deny that there’s a God

Or is God just denied?

God is not dead

He never died

What man on earth can make one blade of grass

And who can make one seed then make it grow?

With all the power and wisdom in our hands

Who can command which way the wind to blow?

And who can match the miracle in an eagle’s eye

Or hang a rainbow in a cloudy sky?

God is not dead

He did not die

God is not dead

God is not dead

On April 8, 1966, Time magazine startled its readers — the world, really — with a provocative, all-black cover and, in bright red lettering, the three words “Is God Dead?” The story questioned whether God was still relevant in modern society. On September 9, 1968, John R. Cash answered that with absolute conviction when he recorded GOD IS NOT DEAD. The song was the closing track on The Holy Land, placed there to serve as his final, definitive word on the matter. In 1971, Johnny and June closed the “Joyful Noise” episode of The Johnny Cash Show in the same fashion.

I’M GONNA TRY TO BE THAT WAY

1970

Once upon a time there lived a man

Many years ago in a foreign land

Knew how to live right

Tried to be a light

Gave everybody a helping hand

I’m gonna try to be that way

I’m gonna try to be that way

Do the kind of things a man oughta do

Say the kind of things a man oughta say

I’m gonna try to be that way

He never done anybody wrong

He tried to help everybody along

He brought a better plan to make a better man

Out of the rich or the poor

Or the weak or the strong

And He preached love and brotherhood

He went around doing good

Everywhere He went

They knew that He was sent

And the people started acting like they should

I’m gonna try to be that way

I’m gonna try to be that way

Do the kind of things a man oughta do

Say the kind of things a man oughta say

I’m gonna try to be that way

Johnny’s TV show, lest we forget, was a music-variety program. He introduced “Flesh and Blood,” “Man in Black,” “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” “Don’t Go Near the Water,” and “Singin’ in Vietnam Talkin’ Blues,” not to mention John Carter Cash, on the show.

Even with all the abundance of history and significance, it is Johnny’s inspiring, dramatic declarations of his Christian faith that remain eternal. The show’s platform transformed him in the public’s eyes and in his own. He became more confident and much more determined to step up and speak out. The first gospel song he wrote during this period was I’M GONNA TRY TO BE THAT WAY, which was composed after he performed for President Nixon and a room full of faith leaders at the White House in April 1970.

THE PREACHER SAID, “JESUS SAID”

1971

Well, with everybody trying to tell us what to do

You wonder how are you to know whose word is true

But the preachers just keep on bringing us the very same word

And from Saint Paul to Billy Graham the same is heard

And the preacher said of truth, Jesus said

And Jesus said, “I’m the way, the truth and the life.”

Well, we can see that the world is full of greed

There’s so much hate, yet there is so much need

What should we do when no one seems to care?

What can we do when there is no love there?

And then the preacher said of love, Jesus said

Jesus said, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Well, please tell us the road we oughta go

In such confusion, how are we to know?

And if there is a heaven, show us to its gates

Oh, you’d better tell us, preacher, before it’s too late

And then the preacher said of heaven, Jesus said

Jesus said, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness

And all these things shall be added unto you.”

Well, please tell us how we can find a way

To climb every mountain that we face every day

And in time of troubles, what to depend upon

To be the truth and help us carry on

And the preacher said of trouble, Jesus said

Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled

If you believe in God, believe also in me

In my father’s house are many mansions

If it were not so, I would have told you

I go to prepare a place for you

And if I prepare a place for you, I will come again

And receive you unto myself

That where I am, there you may be also.”

When Billy Graham asked Johnny in 1970 if he would appear at a youth crusade the evangelist was holding at the University of Tennessee, the answer was immediate. How do you turn down a personal appeal from the Reverend Billy Graham? Why would you want to? It was the first of some thirty Graham crusades that Johnny took part in over the years. In addition to their spiritual relationship and personal friendship, the two men were recording partners, at least for one song. THE PREACHER SAID, “JESUS SAID” features Johnny singing and Dr. Graham quoting Scripture. It was an unusual duet, and even more so when the two performed it on Johnny’s TV show in 1971. Network variety series rarely — actually, never — ventured from the secular, and there was, in fact, some tension from both studio executives and the audience. “Message” programming and entertainment, it was said, did not go together. But Johnny was having none of that.

He told his producers, “The Psalms say, ‘I will sing praises to the Lord,’ and I will do so.” This was not the Johnny they had signed on for. They wanted the desperado flipping his middle finger and stomping around the stage. Others wanted him to leave all that behind and sing only to the heavenly minded. It was Dr. Graham who advised him to “keep on doing all your songs, and when you have them listening, hit them with a good gospel tune.” Ever walking the line.

With the Reverend Billy Graham, vacationing in Florida with members of the Graham ministry

With members of the Billy Graham organization

Johnny pressed his TV producers to take the show to the Holy Land and tape an episode there. They had gone along with Billy Graham and Mahalia Jackson, and even accepted Johnny and June flashing photos of their Jerusalem honeymoon at the national audience, but Israel was a bridge too far. When the show was canceled in early 1971, Johnny decided he would do it himself, applying his prestige and own money to make it happen.

The Gospel Road is a story of Jesus, told through music and Johnny’s narration. The full-length feature film was shot entirely in Israel and fulfilled a dream that June had, in which she saw her husband standing on a mountaintop, holding a Bible in his hand. It was an intensely personal expression of Johnny’s faith, with him on location every day, writing the script and enlisting family and friends to act or sing. Yet it turned out that there were indeed a sizable number of his fans who preferred him in prison rather than church, and the movie was not a commercial success, leaving Johnny’s finances disintegrating and his (secular) music career teetering.

One of the outstanding songs in the film is an account of Jesus healing a blind man in the Galilean town of Bethsaida, as recounted in the Gospel of Mark. Johnny performed I SEE MEN AS TREES WALKING at youth festivals and crusades, including Explo ’72, held in Dallas in 1972. Known as the Christian Woodstock, there was a crowd of over a hundred thousand.

The Gospel Road may have distanced Johnny from some fans and practical-minded record label executives, but over time, it became a symbol of his courage, his willingness to risk everything, and his refusal to let adversity break his spirit.

The soundtrack album from the movie was released in 1973. For a two-record gospel album, its high-water mark of number twelve was pretty respectable, but the Columbia brass were disappointed and irritated. They felt they had been indulging their onetime biggest seller in his dreams and schemes, and not reaching the top ten was, for them, a failure. A decree came down: No more gospel.

Johnny had heard that line before. Undaunted, the following year he presented a collection of classic hymns as his next release. The label pushed back, forcefully telling him that the only way they would put out Johnny Cash Sings Precious Memories was if he would submit to a “new” direction. A producer from New York was brought in, the Tennessee Three were pushed out, the songs were chosen by others (only one Cash composition was allowed), and “modern” arrangements replaced the familiar boom-chicka-boom Johnny Cash sound. It must have seemed like a good idea… to somebody. Johnny was humiliated. It was even worse when neither the classic gospel record nor John R. Cash made the charts. Five years before, San Quentin had been the number one album in the country.

Planning notes for The Gospel Road, 1972

I SEE MEN AS TREES WALKING

1972

Jesus came to the city of Bethsaida

And a blind man was brought to him

And the blind man said to Jesus

“If you’d only stop and touch me

If you’d only stop and touch me

If you’d only stop and touch me

I know I could see.”

So Jesus touched him

He put his hands on the blind man’s eyes and He said

“Now open your eyes and tell me what you see.”

And I can almost see that man now

Opening his eyes for the first time

Looking around and seeing the dim outline

Of the people around him, he said

“I see men as trees walking

I see men as trees walking

I see men as trees walking

I’m beginning to see.”

So Jesus touched him one more time

He laid His hands on his eyes and He said

“Now open your eyes and look up

And tell me what you see.”

And the man said

“I can see all men clearly

I can see all men clearly

I can see all men clearly

I’ve begun to see.”

And if all that be true

I’ve just got one more thing to say

Jesus, reach down now and touch me

Jesus, reach down now and touch me

Jesus, reach down now and touch me

I would like to see

The entire Cash musical troupe performs at Explo ’72, Dallas, 1972

Apocalyptic thoughts, 1971

MATTHEW 24 (IS KNOCKING AT THE DOOR)

1973

I heard on the radio

There’s rumors of war

People getting ready for battle

And there may be just one more

I heard about an earthquake

And the toll it took away

These are the signs

Of the times we’re in today

Matthew 24 is knocking at the door

And there can’t be too much more to come to pass

Matthew 24 is knocking at the door

And today or one day more could be the last

I heard about a nation fall

And another nation rise

We have the power

To rain down fire and brimstone from the skies

The young and old now prophesy

A coming prince of peace

And last night I dreamed

Of lightning in the East

Matthew 24 is knocking at the door

And there can’t be too much more to come to pass

Matthew 24 is knocking at the door

And today or one day more could be the last

MATTHEW 24 (IS KNOCKING AT THE DOOR) finds Johnny contemplating the prophecy of the end times found in the Gospel of Matthew. A serious thinker and biblical scholar — he has been referred to as the philosopher prince of American country music — Johnny would become an ordained minister, as were his grandfather and great-grandfather and as is his son. It cannot be overstated how deeply ingrained the traditional Christian beliefs of Johnny’s childhood were. He felt every word he spoke down to his core.

William Henry Cash and John Overton were Missionary Baptist circuit-riding frontier preachers, both known for their fire-and-brimstone exhortations, although Johnny was raised in his mother’s Methodist faith. Members of the latter church believed that the terrible troubles of the world presaged the imminent Second Coming of Jesus Christ, an event that signaled the end of the world. In 1971, Johnny began attending Nashville’s Evangel Temple, pastored by Jimmie Rodgers Snow, an Assemblies of God Pentecostal minister, son of Hank Snow, and a 1950s country-rockabilly singer. (Snow would be closely involved in the writing of Johnny’s 1975 autobiography, Man in Black.) Evangel Temple’s members believed that they were living during the end of days and were expecting Jesus’s return at any time.

“Matthew 24” was included on Johnny’s 1973 album Johnny Cash and His Woman, which reached number thirty-two during a brief six-week stay on the charts.

PIE IN THE SKY

1974

From the day of your birth

It’s bread and water here on earth

To a child of life

To a child of life

But there’ll be pie in the sky

By and by, when I die

And it’ll be all right

It’ll be all right

Sometimes I doubt and fear

That I’ve really gained salvation here

For it’s out of sight

For it’s out of sight

But there’ll be pie in the sky

By and by, when I die

And it’ll be all right

It’ll be all right

He said if I do His will

There’s a promise He’d fulfill

And He’s gone now

To prepare me a mansion up there

There’ll be pie in the sky

By and by, when I die

And it’ll be all right

It’ll be all right

NO EARTHLY GOOD

1974

Come hear me, good brothers, come heed, one and all

Don’t brag about standing or you’ll surely fall

You’re shining your light and shine it you should

But you’re so heavenly minded, you’re no earthly good

Come hear me, good sisters, you salt of the earth

If your salt isn’t salted, then what is it worth?

You could give someone a cool drink, if you would

But you’re so heavenly minded, you’re no earthly good

If you’re holding heaven, then spread it around

There are hungry hands reaching up here from the ground

Move over and share the high ground where you stood

So heavenly minded, you’re no earthly good

The Gospel ain’t Gospel until it is spread

But how can you share it where you’ve got your head?

There’s hands that reach out for a hand if you would

So heavenly minded, you’re no earthly good

If you’re holding heaven, then spread it around

There are hungry hands reaching up here from the ground

Move over and share the high ground where you stood

So heavenly minded, you’re no earthly good

Journal entry on the occasion of being awarded a degree in theology, 1977

Biblical artwork by Cash, 1976

In the early twentieth century, the term “pie in the sky” was coined as a derisive reference to those who spent more time assuring the suffering and starving that salvation awaited them in the next life than they spent helping them to avoid starving in this one. The 1911 song “The Preacher and the Slave,” written by legendary labor activist Joe Hill, bitterly attacks the empty promises made to appease the peasants and keep them in their place:

You will eat, by and by

In that glorious land above the sky

Work and pray, live on hay

You’ll get pie in the sky when you die

Was Johnny thinking of his own people — the preachers who had spoken of the deliverance to be had when we die, as well as the family who had toiled through lack of hope, with barely enough to eat? Certainly this was a questioning time for him. His profession of faith had cost him dearly. In his isolation, he turned to clergy for a foundation in the storm but was savagely disappointed to find many to be charlatans and exploiters. He learned a harsh lesson when he was approached by a group of “Southern preachers” who tried to tempt him to join their “club” with offers of esteem and glory. “Just think of how renowned ‘Reverend Johnny Cash’ would be,” they whispered in his ear. He refused the “devil’s bribe,” as he called it, and when he actually became an ordained minister, he refused to publicize it, lest the achievement be turned into a mockery.

PIE IN THE SKY was included on the Ragged Old Flag album, a collection that found Johnny raising thorny questions about life, society, and the soul. Some saw his use of the “pie in the sky” allusion to be a misuse of its original intent, a denial of its angry point; others read a cleverly camouflaged — perhaps too much so — sneer at hypocrisy. Twenty years after most people failed to get the substance of “Folsom Prison Blues,” they were still listening to Johnny Cash and hearing what they wanted to hear.

Since he maybe wasn’t clear enough on “Pie in the Sky,” Johnny made his statement a lot more forcefully on NO EARTHLY GOOD. Here he connects with the words of the poet Oliver Wendell Holmes. The admonition to spend less time and effort thinking of the next world at the expense of the present is the inescapable corollary to the earlier work. Johnny was directing his outrage at specific people, but the net was cast wide, and the blowback was fierce. His criticism cost him some Christian friends; some even questioned whether he was a “real” Christian. Taken together with those he had previously lost due to his public professions of faith, this placed Johnny in no-man’s-land again. So began his time in the wilderness.

“No Earthly Good” was written at the same time as “Pie in the Sky” but did not make it to an album until 1977’s The Rambler.

JOHN CARTER CASH

THOUGH MY FATHER’S albums in the 1970s and early 1980s did not get the same attention as those of his early career, the late 1960s, and his later life, he never lost sight of his creativity. No matter what happened in his life, no matter what interior struggles he was having, he still found a creative fire. There are many gems to be found on these albums, and there are many stories to be found here. For example, there is the story of a bear hunter with a heart of gold, “Tiger Whitehead,” from The Johnny Cash Children’s Album, a record he really enjoyed making (and that was surely inspired by my birth!). In his office, he kept a charcoal rubbing of Tiger Whitehead’s gravestone. He reminded me of the story two months before he died. It took us both back to a wide-eyed, innocent time.

Dad believed that creativity was supposed to be fun, and he taught me to write from the heart. He never pushed me into being creative or seeking a life and career in music (though my mother and he did bring me up onstage from the moment they could safely carry me; beginning at three years old I sang on the choruses of his gospel medleys). He believed that even if we were writing with a goal to create a hit song or were writing for a specific or disciplined reason, firstly we wrote for ourselves.

OVER THE NEXT HILL

1979

By the way the land is laying

I think I’d be safe in saying

That over the next hill we’ll be home

It’s a straight and narrow highway

No detours and no byways

And over the next hill we’ll be home

From the prophets I’ve been hearing

I would say the end is nearing

For I see familiar landmarks all along

By the dreams that I’ve been dreaming

There will come a great redeeming

And over the next hill we’ll be home

By the turn the tide has taken

I would say there’s no mistaking

That over the next hill we’ll be home

There’s a place that we are nearing

That so many have been fearing

And over the next hill we’ll be home

When we get there we’re all hoping

That we’ll find the gate is open

And there’ll be a refuge from the coming storm

For the way’s been long and weary

But at last the end is nearing

And over the next hill we’ll be home

In 1979, toward the end of a road trip, young John Carter Cash, like every kid who ever sat in a back seat, seeing little but the backs of his parents’ heads and the whir of sameness out the window for hour after hour, uttered those eternal words known to every mother and father: Are we there yet? Johnny looked out over the horizon, probably sighed, as did every weary elder ever faced with the question, and replied, as they all had done for ages, Yes, son, OVER THE NEXT HILL we’ll be home. Out of that timeless exchange came one of Johnny’s most essential and accessible contemporary hymns.

Johnny and John Carter, mid 1970s

Johnny onstage, late 1970s

THE GREATEST COWBOY OF THEM ALL

1978

I have always had my heroes

I’ve loved a lot of legends

Many men in my mind are riding tall

But my cowboy hero hat’s off

To the man who rode a donkey

He’s the greatest cowboy of them all

He loves all His little dogies

He speaks to them kind and gently

And He’ll lift up any maverick that falls

He sees every stray that scatters

Like it’s the only one that matters

He’s the greatest cowboy of them all

Once He rode into the sunset

But some returning sunrise

He’ll call up all the riders in the sky

I’ve got to get my roll together

Getting ready for that sunrise

That winds up where old cowboys never die

The trail He rides is narrow

But it’s straighter than an arrow

And He rides point for all the great and small

He will take us through the wire

On to that plain that’s higher

He’s the greatest cowboy of them all

WINGS IN THE MORNING

1979

Wings in the morning and license to fly

Straight to the portals of never more die

Never more pain in them old aching bones

Wings in the morning, to carry us home

My grandfather lived by the book all his life

On rich bottom land with twelve kids and a wife

He never saw TV, nor rode a jet plane

But he knew that heaven was holding his claim

The salt of the earth, yet with faith in the Lord

They all got together in that one accord

And what could be greater than God’s guarantee

That we can have heaven for eternity?

Rocks in the road and we stumble and fall

Lights getting low, so we don’t see at all

But I promise you, on that getting-up day

Wings in the morning, we’ll fly away

Wings in the morning and license to fly

Straight to the portals of never more die

Never more pain in them old aching bones

Wings in the morning, to carry us home

WHEN HE COMES

1979

Every eye shall see

Every ear shall hear

The sound of angels

When He comes

When He comes

Every knee shall bow

Every tongue shall confess

That He is Lord

When He comes

When He comes

And He’ll plant His beautiful feet

Upon this mountain

And the dead of all the ages

Who believed on Him will rise

And I’ll be one, I’ll be one

In the first resurrection

When He comes

When He comes

Everyone then will know

That it’s Him, really Him

The one and only

When He comes

When He comes

Glorified and transformed

I’ll arise at His call

I’ll be ready

When He comes

When He comes

Two years after the furor over “No Earthly Good,” Johnny returned with what he called “my proudest achievement.” A Believer Sings the Truth is a two-record, twenty-song set recorded with many of his family: June, John Carter, Rosanne, Cindy, Anita Carter, and sons-in-law Rodney Crowell and Jack Routh. The double album featured music by Black sanctified singers Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Dorothy Love Coates and contemporary country songwriters, and eight compositions from Johnny himself.

The ambitious project was cursed from the start. Columbia flatly rejected any consideration of another gospel album, resulting in a rift that never healed. After twenty years as a Columbia artist, Johnny was obliged to find an alternate outlet for this work. The small label that took on the project was not up to the task and promptly went bankrupt. Johnny Cash then had to buy his own material back at auction, after which a flood at the House of Cash then ruined all the product he had just repurchased. It took almost a year to get the record to market; it must have seemed like a miracle when it inched into the top fifty for six weeks in early 1980.

Over the next seven and a half years, Johnny’s solo albums spent only twelve weeks on the Billboard charts, and none at all between 1981 and 1987. But he started that decade becoming the youngest person ever elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame, and he began the next being elected to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. He recited “Ragged Old Flag” in front of President Ford, then Carter, then Reagan, and then sang “Battle Hymn of the Republic” at the centennial ceremony of the Statue of Liberty. He performed his duty to American culture by hosting Saturday Night Live. Somewhere along the line, he stopped being a mere icon and became a bona fide hero and national treasure.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe, 1938

His records were not on the charts, but he continued to build his formidable legacy. He starred in TV movies and headed music specials, continued his work with Youth for Christ and Billy Graham, wrote books, and formed country music’s first supergroup, the Highwaymen, with friends Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson. He even found time to record the entire New Testament on tape. This all occurred after his first twenty-five years in the business, when his career was supposedly finished and anyone else would have retired, and before he turned in the ultimate, most epic last act that music had ever heard, one that is unlikely to be equaled in the future.

Meanwhile, he kept writing gospel music.

MY CHILDREN WALK IN TRUTH

1982

I prayed to know more joy in my salvation

A selfish prayer, I finally came to know

For the greatest joy in living comes to me when I am giving

Giving children bread of life and watch them grow

And my greatest joy is knowing that my children walk in truth

And that they are giving you, Lord, of their fire and strength of youth

Yes, I’ve found the greatest joy in my salvation

Is knowing that my children walk in truth

It’s hard to feed someone else when you’re hungry

You can’t teach when you don’t understand

No one will follow you if you don’t live it each day through

A frightened child won’t hold a trembling hand

And my greatest joy is knowing that my children walk in truth

And that they are giving you, Lord, of their fire and strength of youth

Yes, I’ve found the greatest joy in my salvation

Is knowing that my children walk in truth

Johnny turned fifty in 1982. The first indications of the chronic health problems that would dominate the rest of his life were beginning to appear. He seemed to be in hospitals as much as he was in the studio. But some things didn’t change. His new deal with Columbia allowed for gospel projects, but as soon as he started on Johnny Cash — Gospel Singer, the label shut down its “religious division,” leaving Johnny on the outside again. The record never appeared. It wore him down. Finally, they gave up on each other after twenty-eight years of history.

It took four years for some of those orphaned gospel tracks to be released as the Believe in Him album. Johnny penned five of the songs, and on each one he sounds fresh and enthused. One of the songs, ONE OF THESE DAYS I’M GONNA SIT DOWN AND TALK TO PAUL, awakened a creative and determined urge in him to write a book on the life of Saint Paul the Apostle. Meticulously researched and biblically inspired, Man in White was published in 1986.

JOHN CARTER CASH

I RECALL WHEN I was around twenty-one years old, I was going through a very tough time. Even though I had seen the worst of addiction face-to-face — lived with my father’s pill addiction, seeing him struggle, find recovery, and fall back down again — I became an addict. I was addicted to alcohol, and I hit a hard bottom. I was mentally and emotionally bankrupt, suffering and feeling very alone. My father was clean at that time. I went to him for support. I told him I felt lost and didn’t know if I could make it out, trapped and depressed.

Dad was always kind and did not judge. He said, “Remember where you come from. I am an ordained minister. Your grandfathers on both my side and your mother’s were likewise.” He reminded me that his grandfather, his mother’s father, was also a preacher and a man of God, and likewise, his grandfather’s father and grandfather before him. Going back down the line for generations, finding one of my male ancestors who wasn’t a minister is hard.

“Finding peace and salvation is in your blood, son, and you’ll find it, too,” he said. “But also know that, along that same line, whether pastor or not, male or female, many also suffered with great loss and sadness, depression, and drunkenness.”

Sometimes, the weight is heavy. Many may call it “sin.” But he helped me understand that even though we were both Christians, we would suffer and struggle. Dad and I both fell short, as I continue to do. But he also helped me believe Christ lifted and bore my weight through salvation. He taught me to believe that no matter my struggle, I am safe. The victory is already won.

ONE OF THESE DAYS I’M GONNA SIT DOWN AND TALK TO PAUL

1982

One of these days I’m gonna sit down and talk to Paul

I will ask him about his journeys

And he will tell me about them all

One of these days I’m gonna sit down and talk to Paul

I’m gonna tell him I read all his books

And that it sure was hard to follow

Down the same road that he took

But I’m gonna tell him I read all his books

He will introduce me to Luke and Timothy

I will be so glad to meet them

And they will be glad to meet me

He will introduce me to Luke and Timothy

One of these days I’m gonna sit down and talk to Paul

I’m gonna meet his friends in heaven

I’ll be singing with them all

One of these days I’m gonna sit down and talk to Paul

One of these days I’m gonna shake that healing hand

That hand that raised up Eutychus

That old sleeping, fallen man

One of these days I’m gonna shake that healing hand

I know just how he felt locked in that jail

And I bet that him and Silas

Will have quite a tale to tell

I know just how he felt locked in that jail

I will ask him about that trip to Philippi

How he and Silas felt at Philippi

In that miracle at midnight when the jail doors opened wide

We’ll sing those songs they sang at Philippi

I will ask him if he ever went to Spain

I will ask him if he ever went to Spain

I’ll find out if he made it, I’ll find out his secret pain

I will ask him if he ever went to Spain

One of these days I’m gonna sit down and talk to Paul

I will ask him about his journeys

And he will tell me about them all

One of these days I’m gonna sit down and talk to Paul

Carlene Carter, 1975

Christmas with daughters Tara, Cindy, Kathy, and Rosanne, Hendersonville, 1993

ANOTHER WIDE RIVER TO CROSS

1982

I’ve stood on the bank by the weeping willow

With another wide river to cross

Another wide river to cross

With another wide river to cross

And I believe I can make it to the other side

’Cause I feel a hand on me

Helping me with

Another wide river to cross

I wake up to many a day

With another wide river to cross

With another wide river to cross

Another wide river to cross

I jump right in the dark and I swim right on

Toward the light on the other side

It’s always there when there’s

Another wide river to cross

Oh, the whirlpools twist and pull at me

With another wide river to cross

Another wide river to cross

With another wide river to cross

And if I reach up a hand is always

Reaching down for me

It’s always there when there’s

Another wide river to cross

Well, the river Jordan is a narrow stream

But it’s another wide river to cross

It’s another wide river to cross

It’s another wide river to cross

But I believe there’s a resting place

That’s provided just for me

On the heaven side of

Another wide river to cross

Mississippi River as it passes through Illinois

MAN IN WHITE

1986

I studied at the feet of a master

Gamaliel, we called him, the beauty of the law

I was born of the tribe of Benjamin, I was a Pharisee

And I could quote from memory the holy Torah

That day that the Nazarene was brought to trial

It was on a Sabbath eve, there was an earthquake when He died

Just another peasant preacher who came up from Galilee

Blaspheming troublemaker, we let Him be crucified

Then I thought that I would hear no more about Him

But His friends found his tomb empty, claimed that He rose from the dead

Then they said He walked among them with the nail wounds in His hands

That king upon a donkey with a thorn crown on His head

His followers kept growing in great number

And the one that they call Cephas mocked us in the judgment hall

And with the Greek named Stephen, we knew the Gentiles had come in

I cast my vote against him, he was stoned, I saw him fall

Then the friends of the Nazarene became united

And I became enraged, then led a slaughter zealously

I found their secret places, they were beaten, they were chained

But some of them were scattered, justified in fearing me

Then the Man in White appeared to me

In such a blinding light it struck me down

With its brilliance, took away my sight

Then the Man in White

In gentle loving tones spoke to me

And I was blinded so that I might see

The Man in White

But like the wind that blows the scattered sea

From Alexandria to Antioch, their congregation grew

I went to the high priest for letters of permission

To go to other cities, to see my mission through

Six days on the hot Road to Damascus

And just outside the city in the middle of the day

A great unearthly light struck and overpowered me

Prostrate on the hot road, I was blinded where I lay

Then I thought I heard the rushing of great water

And a multitude of angels singing sweet and heavenly

And through the sound of wind came a voice so soft and kind

Meant for only me to hear: “Saul, why do you persecute me?”

As I lay there on the ground, in my blindness

He asked me once again, and suddenly, the voice I knew

So finally I managed a trembling response

“Who are you, Lord?” I asked him, but I already knew

“I am Jesus of Nazareth,” the voice answered

“Arise, go to Damascus, on the street called Straight will be

A place where you will wait for my servant, Ananias

He will open up your eyes, you’ll be a witness unto me.”

So now I live to serve my master

As zealous in His service as I once was as His foe

And keeping His commandments given on Damascus road

I go to all the world, and I let the whole world know

That the Man in White appeared to me

In such a blinding light, it struck me down

With its brilliance, took away my sight, then the Man in White

In gentle loving tones spoke to me

And I was blinded so that I might see

The Man in White

Johnny’s inspiration and aspiration was Saul of Tarsus, the first-century Pharisee who persecuted followers of Jesus but then, after a dramatic conversion to Christianity, became the key figure in spreading His teachings to the world. The man who became Saint Paul began his journey toward redemption when he was blinded by a bright light and heard the voice of Jesus speaking to him. Johnny, too, felt darkness in his life and compared his own deliverance to seeing God’s light, just as the apostle had two thousand years before.

Manuscript pages for the novel Man in White, 1974

REDEMPTION

1990

From the hands, it came down

From the side, it came down

From the feet, it came down

And ran to the ground

Between heaven and hell

A teardrop fell

In the deep crimson dew

The tree of life grew

And the blood gave life

To the branches of the tree

And the blood was the price

That set the captives free

And the numbers that came

Through the fire and the flood

Clung to the tree

And were redeemed by the blood

From the tree streamed a light

That started the fight

Round the tree grew a vine

On whose fruit I could dine

My old friend Lucifer came

Fought to keep me in chains

But I saw through the tricks

Of six sixty-six

And the blood gave life

To the branches of the tree

And the blood was the price

That set the captives free

And the numbers that came

Through the fire and the flood

Clung to the tree

And were redeemed by the blood

From His hands, it came down

From His side, it came down

From the feet, it came down

And ran to the ground

And a small inner voice

Said, “You do have a choice.”

The vine engrafted me

And I clung to the tree

And the blood gave life

To the branches of the tree

And the blood was the price

That set the captives free

And with the numbers that came

Through the fire and the flood

I clung to the tree

And was redeemed by the blood

From His hands, it came down

From His side, it came down

From the feet, it came down

And ran to the ground

Johnny Cash once said, “There’s no lonelier place on Earth to be than being separated from God.” Johnny had been in that place, but by the early 1990s he felt right with both God and man. He and June celebrated their silver wedding anniversary, and they both felt that the time was about right for a quiet valedictory. Johnny had nothing left to prove or accomplish; there were only so many awards and rewards. He’d been declared a legend more times than he ever dared dream of back in Dyess. The biggest rock group in the world, Ireland’s U2, was seeking him out for collaborations. The circle was complete. Then the unexpected: backstage at the Rhythm Café, in Santa Ana, California, he encountered the strangest man he’d ever seen. As Johnny remembered it, the guy looked like “the ultimate hippie: bald on top, but with hair down over his shoulders, a beard that looked as if it had never been trimmed, and clothes that would have done a wino proud.” There were the obligatory sunglasses — indoors, at night. And he was barefoot. In February.

Johnny’s personal evaluation of his early Rubin recordings, 1993

The most important thing that Rick Rubin ever did — or ever will do — was to ask Johnny Cash to just sit down with his guitar in front of a microphone and sing the songs he loved, the songs he wanted to sing.

— CHET FLIPPO

“Hi, John. My name is Rick Rubin.” At the time, Rubin had produced records by acts with names like Slayer, Beastie Boys, and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Fatefully, Johnny did not turn and flee.

That first meeting led to an astonishing and historic collaboration between Johnny and the rap and heavy metal music mogul. Rick innately knew that Johnny still had something vital to contribute to the social discourse. But he couldn’t have known just how much Johnny had to say, or how much people needed to hear it. The American Recordings series restored Johnny to the ranks of the “relevant,” opened up his music to a new generation, and reminded the world who, and what, Johnny Cash always was.

The earliest Cash-Rubin sessions produced American Recordings, which included four Cash compositions. One of his most significant pieces was REDEMPTION. Johnny’s eternal themes of right and wrong were brought to new listeners, who were turned into followers. We all live in that thin space between heaven and hell; Johnny seemed to have dwelled there a little more painfully than most, and lived to tell about it. “You do have a choice,” the song said. He had made his, and was redeemed by the blood.

Portrait of a believer, Owings Mills, Maryland, 1977

I CAME TO BELIEVE

1984

I couldn’t manage the problems

I laid on myself

And it just made it worse

When I laid them on somebody else

So I finally surrendered it all

Brought down in despair

I cried out for help

And I felt a warm comforter there

And I came to believe

In a power much higher than I

I came to believe

That I needed help to get by

In childlike faith, I gave in

And gave Him a try

And I came to believe

In a power much higher than I

Nothing worked out

When I handled it all on my own

And each time I failed

It made me feel twice as alone

Then I cried, “Lord, there must be

A surer and easier way

For it just cannot be that a man

Should lose hope every day.”

And I came to believe

In a power much higher than I

I came to believe

That I needed help to get by

In childlike faith I gave in

And gave Him a try

Then I came to believe

In a power much higher than I

In character for Mean as Hell! album, c. 1965

WHETHER IT WAS the mortally wounded ex-prisoner dying by the railroad tracks, or Billy Joe, who really should have listened to his mother and never gone to town, or the walkin’, talkin’ miracle man from Vietnam, scores of fascinating figures were given life in Johnny’s “dreamsongs.” He painted indelible images of people created from the ether, as a musical novelist would do. The characters were people he knew, wished he knew, or perhaps would have rather never known at all.

His listeners followed along, enthralled by the stories of bad men, sad men, the heartbroken, the heroes. Johnny had been all of them himself at one time or another, or it was at least entirely believable that he had. Whichever it is, there is no turning away. Actually, though, just about every one of the characters who turn up in this chapter was a real person. We can identify them and identify with them — even (especially?) the outlaws! Their stories leap out from the pages and speakers. These are people you just have to get to know.

HARDIN WOULDN’T RUN

1962

I know a man whose plow handle hand

Is quicker than a light

Wes Hardin is his name, they say

He travels in the night for

He might have to kill or

Walk around a fight

And if you ever saw Wes Hardin draw

You know he can skin his gun

He won’t say how many tried and died

Up against the top hand

Up against the wrong man

’Cause Hardin wouldn’t run

He rode in like a Texas wind

Took the eastbound train

Goin’ goin’ with Jane Bowen

’Til the lawmen caught up

So long, Janie, chin up

I’ll be back again

Off he went to Huntsville Prison

“So long, Jane,” he cried

Fifteen years she waited

’Til her heart broke and she died and

She left that bad land

To wait up in the sky

Free at last, the paying passed

For all the wrong he did

First free air they let him breathe

Since he was a kid so

Let him come and let him go

And let him deal and bid

Near the border in El Paso

Lawyer reads the sign

You won’t find him there for business

Every day at nine, for business is real bad

One client’s all he’s had

In quite a long, long time

Then Sheriff Selman’s boy broke in

To Wes’s woman’s place

Up she jumped and pistol-whipped him

Kicked him in the face and

Sheriff Selman demands

Revenge for this disgrace

You could see her every night by candlelight

In Hardin’s favorite bar

She’d be hanging on his arm

And very late they’d leave there

Headed for the Goose Hair

Glad it wasn’t far

Right through the swinging doors

John Selman came with a blazing gun

Wes Hardin chugalugging red-eye

Shot him in the back of the head

John Wesley Hardin fell dead

’Cause Hardin wouldn’t run

John Wesley Hardin was one of the bad men — probably the worst. The notorious nineteenth-century Old West gunslinger and prolific killer was the son of a circuit-riding Methodist preacher. Fortunately, there was little other resemblance to any potential modern-day outlaws named John who dressed like a desperado and wrote of similar vile actions.

Wes Hardin matter-of-factly claimed to have killed over forty men, one of whom had committed the heinous offense of snoring too loudly. Unlike contemporaries such as Billy the Kid or Jesse James, who captured the public’s imagination and became popular antiheroes, Hardin was just too disreputable for true man-of-the-people status, which made him the loser when Johnny was choosing the archetypal villain for his 1965 concept album, Johnny Cash Sings the Ballads of the True West. After much research, Johnny said, “I couldn’t find anyone worse [than Hardin], but I had to write him a little fictional, because trying to tell about all his murders would have made the song too long.”

COUNTRY TRASH

1970

I got a crib full of corn and a turning plow

But the ground’s too wet for the hopper now

Got a cultivator and a doubletree

A leather line for the haw and gee

Let the thunder roll and the lightning flash

I’m doing all right for country trash

I’m saving up dimes for a rainy day

I got about a dollar laid away

The wind’s from the south and the fishing’s good

Got a potbelly stove and a cord of wood

Mama turns the leftovers into hash

I’m doing all right for country trash

I got a mackinaw and a hunting dog

A cap that I ordered from the catalog

A big tall tree that shades the yard

A big fat sow for the winter’s lard

Let the thunder roll and the lightning flash

I’m doing all right for country trash

Well, there’s not much new ground left to plow

And crops need fertilizing now

My hands don’t earn me too much gold

For security when I grow old

But we’ll all be equal under the grass

And God’s got a heaven for country trash

God’s got a heaven for country trash

I’ll be doing all right for country trash

Johnny’s anthem of country pride is proclaimed through the words and heart of a plain dirt farmer, whose earthly possessions may seem simple, but who is content, even downright thrilled, to be living a full life, without pretense or excess. Here is a guy we would just like to sit and chew the fat with, hunting dog at our feet, all right in God’s world.

This is the essential and proper last chapter of “Country Boy,” the way that wish is meant to be fulfilled. Just as Johnny recorded a late-life version of that earlier song, giving its youthful innocence a particular poignancy when examined with the perspective of age, he likewise did the same thing, quite appropriately and effectively, with COUNTRY TRASH. The song was first presented on the excellent album Any Old Wind That Blows in 1973 (although it was written in 1970), and the encore was delivered nearly thirty years later on American III: Solitary Man.

THE BALLAD OF ANNIE PALMER

1972

On the island of Jamaica quite a long, long time ago

At Rose Hall Plantation, where the ocean breezes blow

Lived a girl named Annie Palmer, the mistress of the place

And the slaves all lived in fear to see a frown on Annie’s face

Where’s your husband, Annie, where’s number two and three?

Are they sleeping beneath the palms beside the Caribbean Sea?

At night I hear you riding and I hear your lovers call

And still can feel your presence round the great house at Rose Hall

Well, if you should ever go to see the great house at Rose Hall

There’s expensive chairs and china and great paintings on the wall

They’ll show you Annie’s sitting room and the whipping post outside

But they won’t let you see the room where Annie’s husbands died

Where’s your husband, Annie, where’s number two and three?

Are they sleeping beneath the palms beside the Caribbean Sea?

At night I hear you riding and I hear your lovers call

And I still can feel your presence round the great house at Rose Hall

Johnny and June owned several homes, as might be expected of people who lived their entire lives on the road and didn’t know any other way to do it. Even before it was time to hit the road and go again, Johnny would say that “itchy feet” made it impossible to stay in one place very long. There was the Nature House on Old Hickory Lake in Hendersonville, twenty-five miles north of Nashville. This was home base, where the tour buses stopped and the fans gawked. Johnny and June also had a modest early-twentieth-century bungalow on the Pithlachascotee River in New Port Richey, Florida, where Maybelle and Eck used to live, and where the fishing was always fine. There was the Carter homestead in Poor Valley, in the shadow of Clinch Mountain, in southwestern Virginia, where June was born. And there was Cinnamon Hill.

Sitting high above Montego Bay, in Saint James Parish, Jamaica, is the Cinnamon Hill Great House, a stately former sugar plantation and the family home of the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning (“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”). Johnny bought this magnificent place from his close friend John Rollins, and for thirty years, right up until the end of his life, it was a refuge from the cold Nashville winters that ravaged his health and a peaceful respite from the storms of life. Of course, this being a Johnny Cash story, there was magic involved. In this case, though, not the good kind.

Cash home on banks of Old Hickory Lake, Hendersonville

Cinnamon Hill was part of the vast Rose Hall estate, also owned by the Rollins family, and formerly by an Englishman, John Palmer, who built the house using more than two thousand enslaved workers in the eighteenth century. Legend has it that John was murdered by his wife, Annie Palmer, a practitioner of voodoo and other dark arts. Annie, so the story is whispered, likewise killed two later husbands as well as several slaves when she tired of them as lovers. She gained a fearsome reputation as the White Witch of Rose Hall. Annie later was herself a victim of black magic revenge and was killed. A tomb on the property, carved from bright English limestone, is said to be hers, but her ghost is restless and still roams Rose Hall Great House and its grounds.

Cinnamon Hill Great House, Rose Hall, Jamaica

THE BALLAD OF ANNIE PALMER was part of the album Any Old Wind That Blows, which — witch? — made it to number five.

JOHN CARTER CASH

CINNAMON HILL WAS a home to me, and the people there were like family. Jamaica meant peace to my father, and also adventure. He had a number of interesting friends there, including Ray Fremmar, a Bostonian archaeologist who settled there in the 1960s. Ray owned Green Park, South of Falmouth, not far from the wilderness of the Cockpit Country, known for its wondrous diversity of flora and fauna. The ancient columned Great House was in perpetual shambles, and Ray was a lover of antiques — I would call him a “collector.” His home was full of animal skulls (I recall one of a whale) and artifacts from Jamaica’s past. He was known for exhuming graves and was originally hired by the Jamaican government to find and unearth the remains of a mass grave from the Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865. His entire yard was stone, as he had sold the yard’s dirt for its rich deposits of bauxite. He had dug up the graves in the backyard, and the skeletons were still within. One grave had a stair leading down into the ground. He would allow visitors, should they have the morbid desire, to crawl into the webby hole and have a photo taken lying beside the bones.

Dad would also bring visitors to the Jamaica Swamp Safari Village, owned in the 1970s by Ross Kananga, a crocodile wrestler and stuntman. Ross took Dad once on a crocodile hunt to seek and eliminate the notorious One-Eyed Jack, a thirteen-foot monster who had been wreaking havoc on the local dog and cat population, not to mention hundreds of baby crocs. Dad shot the great lizard one night and we ate crocodile meat for years. Today, the stony skin of the beast still hangs on the wall going up the staircase of Cinnamon Hill.

It was these people, these adventures, that added spirit and salt to my father’s and mother’s life, and likewise to my memory. It was his fuel for creativity.

KENTUCKY STRAIGHT

1972

Up in Kentucky they make a whiskey

They call a Kentucky straight whiskey

And up in Kentucky I married a woman

That I bet she is a better woman

Than that whiskey is whiskey

I call her my Kentucky Straight

I’ve rambled round the countryside

I’ve drifted near and far

I’ve been off to seek my fortune

I’ve been followin’ every star

I’ve rode the devil’s highway

The hell-bound interstate

But now I’m back at happy shack

With my Kentucky Straight

And we rise up every morning with the chickens

And every minute we’re alive we’re livin’

She’s a little bit old-fashioned but her lovin’s up-to-date

And I’m happy here with my Kentucky Straight

I had looked for satisfaction in the arms of quite a few

And I’ve done everything that I was big enough to do

But everywhere I see her face from Maine to Golden Gate

And I knew that this is where it’s at with my Kentucky Straight

And we rise up every morning with the chickens

And every minute we’re alive we’re livin’

I love her so she knows that it was worth her while to wait

’Cause I’m happy here with my Kentucky Straight

Here we find Johnny in love. KENTUCKY STRAIGHT must be the perfect woman. He’s been a rover and looked all over and run up and down the field, but those days are done. Time to grow up and settle down. Some never do either. Others can only wish. It is easy to know this is Johnny telling his own story. He found his way home. Happy shack is a very good place to be.

Any Old Wind That Blows is an excellent collection, with masterful, symphonic arrangements and five Cash originals. It would be his most successful album for the next three years and the second-best chart runner of the post–TV show 1970s.

Relaxing under a tree, Bon Aqua, Hickman County, Tennessee

SATURDAY NIGHT IN HICKMAN COUNTY

1973

When the sun goes down in Nashville

Go out that Memphis highway

Between Centerville and Dickson

On the gravel roads and byways

They’ll be running off the shine

That will be bringing in the bounty

Saturday night in Hickman County

After the beer joint on the blacktop

Country music’s playing steady

And the working men are drinking

And they’re rough and they are ready

And the girl behind the counter

Who has all the boys a-buzzin’

Will be leaving with her husband

Saturday night in Hickman County

Down upon the Piney River

Parked beside the pretty water

In the back seat of a Chevy

Is your next-door neighbor’s daughter

They have split up in two pairs

The four that went off datin’ double

Gettin’ that poor girl into trouble

Saturday night in Hickman County

All the farmers in the valley

Will be sittin’ by the fire

Watch the late news on the TV

Then they’ll quietly retire

Thankful just to be a-livin’

Thankful that tomorrow’s Sunday

Sorry that the next day’s Monday

Saturday night in Hickman County

The good folk of Hickman County were Johnny’s neighbors. Another of his homesteads was an isolated one-hundred-acre spread of meadowland there, with a little Civil War–era cottage and a peaceful stream, some forty miles outside Nashville, in the town of Bon Aqua, named for a nearby natural spring. This area was his sanctuary, and he referred to it as “the center of my universe.”

Bon Aqua would frequently be Johnny’s first destination upon arriving home after long stretches on the road, and he reveled in the isolation, stopping by the local general store for a week’s worth of peanuts, bologna, and Coke, and then settling in for a retreat free of fans, phones, or fame. At one point, he converted a former country store into a makeshift hall, where he and the locals would gather for SATURDAY NIGHT IN HICKMAN COUNTY music fests. The stated intention was to sing and entertain one another, but actually it was merely an excuse for Johnny to stay off the grid and revel in the camaraderie of friends who appreciated him for being their buddy, not at all interested in that star thing.

The song found a home on Johnny Cash and His Woman, which charted at number thirty-two in 1973. A music video was filmed entirely on location in Hickman County, featuring townspeople playing… themselves.

VIRGIE

1974

Virgie, your house was always warm

And my bed was always ready when I came

Virgie, in the middle of the night

You would welcome friends of mine without a name

And you could always hear and see the turning of the key

And your laughing voice to me was like a song

Virgie, your spirit sweet and free

Is living still with me though you are gone

Virgie, you spoke softly and kind

And you’d never say a word to criticize

Virgie, your children love you so

More than we ever let you realize

And day or night I knew that I could bring my cares to you

And when I was wrong, you’d never put me down

Virgie, there’s so much I could say

But I can’t find the way to write it down

LADY

1976

Lady, your arms were always warm

And your bed was always ready when I came

Lady, in the middle of the night

You would open up when you’d hear me call your name

You were always there to see the turning of my key

And your laughing voice to me was like a song

Lady, your spirit’s sweet and free

It’s hanging on with me now that I’m gone

Lady, you spoke softly and kind

And you never had a word to criticize

Lady, you know I love you so

Even more than I ever let you realize

And day or night I knew that I could bring it all to you

And if I was wrong you’d never put me down

Lady, there’s so much I could say

But I can’t find the way to write it down

Originally conceived as a tribute to June’s father’s twin sister, VIRGIE evolved into LADY, one of Johnny’s prettiest, most poignant love songs. It was a standout track on 1977’s The Rambler but only made it to number forty-six.

Johnny was extraordinarily close to his father-in-law, Ezra James Carter. He even dedicated his autobiography, Man in Black, to the man “who taught me to love the Word.” It was Eck who took the reins when the original Carter Family called it quits in 1943, leaving his job with the post office to manage his wife and daughters in a second-generation act, the Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle. He led the family to progressively higher-profile residencies in Richmond; Knoxville; Springfield, Missouri; and, in 1950, Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry. Through it all, Pop Carter worked behind the scenes, driving “the girls” from venue to venue, negotiating contracts, and hiring the talent, such as a skinny guitar player with amazing ability named Chester Burton Atkins. When executives at the Opry were reluctant to hire Chet, Mr. Carter insisted. By 1957, Atkins was the head of operations for RCA in Nashville.

The Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle, with Chet Atkins, perform at the Grand Ole Opry, c. 1951

When Ezra’s middle daughter, June, began “spending time” with a troubled Johnny Cash, the older man and Maybelle provided nonjudgmental comfort, counseling, and a place to lay his head in times of crisis. Then Ezra began to share his library of religious texts. It was Ezra Carter who helped open Johnny’s eyes.

Ezra J. Carter, c. 1915

Letter to future father-in-law Ezra Carter, 1962

COMMITTED TO PARKVIEW

1975

There’s a man across the hall

Who sits staring at the floor

And he thinks he’s Hank Williams

Hear him singing through the door

There’s a girl in 202

Who stops by to visit me

And she talks about her songs

And the star that she should be

There’s a lot of real fine talent

Staying in or passing through

And for one thing or another

They’re committed to Parkview

There’s a girl in 207

Coming down on Thorazine

And a superstar’s ex-drummer

Trying to kick Benzedrine

There’s a real fine country singer

Who has tried and tried and tried

They just brought him in this morning

An attempted suicide

There are those who never made it

Those who did and now are through

Some came of their own good choosing

Some committed to Parkview

There’s a girl who cries above me

Loud enough to wake the dead

They don’t know what she has taken

That has scrambled up her head

There’s a boy just down below me

Who’s the son of some well-known

He was brought in by his mother

’Cause his daddy’s always gone

There’s a bum from down on Broadway

And a few quite well-to-do

Who have withdrawn from the rat race

And committed to Parkview

They wake me about six thirty

Just before the morning meal

While they’re taking my blood pressure

They ask me how I feel

And I always say, “Fantastic!”

There ain’t nothing wrong with me

And then they give me my injection

And I go right back to sleep

And my days are kinda foggy

And my nights are dreamy, too

For they’re taking good care of me

While committed to Parkview

One of Johnny’s bleakest songs came out of real-life trauma. He wrote COMMITTED TO PARKVIEW based on the experience of Porter Wagoner. Porter was a touring partner when they were both young and starting out who experienced a stay in Nashville’s Parkview psychiatric facility in 1966. (Forty years later, Porter recorded this song shortly before his death.)

Of course, Johnny was personally familiar with the kind of hell and heartbreak that brought people to Parkview. And as the characters in the song attest, the scourges of mental illness and addiction do not discriminate. He supported mental health awareness programs and performed benefits for psychiatric hospitals around Tennessee, believing that keeping the problem hidden in the shadows did no one any good.

“Committed to Parkview” was included on Johnny’s 1976 number two album, One Piece at a Time.

Johnny’s hospital wristband (using a pseudonym), gifted to John Carter, 1983

MICHIGAN CITY HOWDY DO

1975

Well, Johnson Van Dyke Grigsby

Was paroled at eighty-nine

He never walked on a carpet

Never tasted dinner wine

His old eyes were slowly fading

As he walked out of the gate

And he breathed the first free air

He’d breathed since 1908

Howdy do, Michigan City, you’re sure a pretty sight

But I know there’s bigger cities and more exciting nights

But I think your girls are pretty and I love your children, too

Michigan City, Indiana, howdy do

Michigan City, Indiana, howdy do

Filled with the joy of freedom

He didn’t know that he was old

’Cause time don’t really matter

When it’s bubbling in your soul

Well I don’t think he was bitter

’Cause he sure had a smile

And down the streets of Michigan City

He walked his first free mile

Howdy do, Michigan City, you’re sure a pretty sight

But I know there’s bigger cities and more exciting nights

But I think your girls are pretty and I love your children, too

Michigan City, Indiana, howdy do

Michigan City, Indiana, howdy do

Van Grigsby was not a fictional character. It might seem that a tale of an eighty-nine-year-old man who was paroled after being incarcerated since 1908 had to have sprung from deep in Johnny’s sometimes loony imagination. But it was a true, if bizarre, story. Sent to prison at age twenty-three for a saloon fight killing, Grigsby would be the longest-serving inmate in the United States when he was released from Indiana State Prison in 1974. He had been a model prisoner for sixty-six years but had been turned down for parole thirty-three times.

Johnson Van Dyke Grigsby, 1970s

Johnny’s song imagines the elation the poor man might have felt when they finally let him out, but there is even more strangeness. After his parole, “Van” was out for only two weeks when he decided that out was not where he belonged, and he requested to be let back into Indiana State. He stayed in those familiar surroundings for over a year before finally getting out for good. He then lived quietly until age 102.

MICHIGAN CITY HOWDY DO — Michigan City is the location of Johnson Van Dyke Grigsby’s not-so-cozy government-run housing facility — is found on One Piece at a Time.

Wabash River, Indiana

IF IT WASN’T FOR THE WABASH RIVER

1976

Fish ain’t biting but I don’t really care

I’m in no hurry

Like that Wabash River there

I’d be drinking

Or laying dead somewhere

If it wasn’t for the Wabash River

If it wasn’t for the Wabash River

And this willow tree and my pole and a line

I’d be going crazy as an Indiana cyclone

Drowning memories of her and crying crying crying

If it wasn’t for the Wabash River

I’d be going out of my mind

It’s so peaceful sitting here beneath my tree

Lord I need her

Like she often needed me

Life ain’t worth it

Just as far as I can see

If it wasn’t for the Wabash River

If it wasn’t for the Wabash River

And this willow tree and my pole and a line

I’d be going crazy as an Indiana cyclone

Drowning memories of her and crying crying crying

If it wasn’t for the Wabash River

I’d be going out of my mind

Oh, Gene Ford. Johnny was a human travel atlas. He knew of the most obscure and remote and utterly fascinating places, and seemed to have been to nearly all of them. His curiosity had no limits. If there was a historic locale, or a story, or a secret room, Johnny wanted to see it, feel it, experience it. Then his unquenchable thirst for knowledge and the need to connect with people had him back at it again. He just couldn’t sit still for long. The tour bus was his portal into these lands. Like the fictional train of his historical sagas, the bus would stop and deposit him at seemingly innocuous locations, and by the time he had packed up to hit the road and go again, he had another “home.”

One day around 1976, as Johnny hurtled along Interstate 65 through Indiana, he got the sudden urge to go fishing. Who knows what provoked this inspiration, as he apparently wasn’t near any known fishin’ holes? But he ended up on the banks of the Wabash River, near Lafayette. As luck — or fate, or Saint Andrew (the patron saint of both fishermen and singers) — would have it, he ran into a fellow angler by the name of Gene Ford, and in no time at all, Gene and Johnny were fast, if fleeting, friends.

Gene had a compelling story of lost love, and Johnny was already writing a song even before he got back on the bus. Over the years, many have tried to locate ole Gene, to no avail. The local newspaper sent out search parties. Phone books and court records were scoured. No one could ever find him. Whether he was real or imaginary, or Johnny didn’t quite catch his name correctly, he gave us a good song.

In Alaska, 1980s

In the woods, Bon Aqua, 1982

Mother Maybelle Carter, 1960s

MOUNTAIN LADY

1976

Mountain lady, do you sit on your front porch in the cool of the day?

Mountain lady, did you think your kids would ever come back to stay?

Mountain lady, does the columbine still twine around your door?

And did you ever get a rug

To cover the cracks where my diaper drug

On your wooden floor?

Oh you Appalachian lady

Once I was your little baby

And you rocked me in your homemade rocking chair

Since I heard the wild goose calling

I have done a lot of falling

Mountain lady, someday I’ll come to you there

Mountain lady, does the country church bell ring on Sunday morn?

Mountain lady, do you still wear that old apron ragged and torn?

Mountain lady, on winter nights before our old fireplace

As you look into the flame

Do you ever call my name?

And do you see my face?

Oh you Appalachian lady

Once I was your little baby

And you rocked me in your homemade rocking chair

Since I heard the wild goose calling

I have done a lot of falling

Mountain lady, someday I’ll come to you there

Was there ever a MOUNTAIN LADY as talented and wondrous as Maybelle Carter? June’s mother loved driving very fast in big cars and spending hours on end beneath the neon glow of casinos. She sewed the buttons back on Elvis’s shirts after the women ripped them off, and got an invitation to every one of his Las Vegas openings. When Louis Armstrong came on The Johnny Cash Show, Mother Maybelle made ham and biscuits and served him backstage at the Opry House (this was after she was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame). As a pregnant teenager, she hopped out of Eck’s broken-down car on the way to audition for Mr. Ralph Peer in 1927, helped push it across a creek bed, and afterward fixed a tire; only then did she, A.P., and Sara drive on to Bristol to define country music for generations. By that time, Maybelle had already perfected a style of picking a guitar, the Carter scratch, that not only was named for her but remains a dominant method of playing that instrument to this day. Johnny idolized her. They were fishing buddies and pickin’ partners.

“Mountain Lady” was part of the stellar One Piece at a Time collection.

Maybelle Carter, 1940s

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Sara and Maybelle, 1940s; the Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle with the Virginia Boys: (from left) Doc Addington, Carl McConnell, Maybelle, June, Helen, and Anita, WRNL radio, Richmond, mid-1940s; Helen, June, and Maybelle, early 1960s; Helen, Anita, Maybelle, and June, 1970s; Anita, Helen, June, and Maybelle, 1950s

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Maybelle, Anita, and Helen, 1960s; the Carters in concert; Mother Maybelle, 1970s; fishing buddies: Johnny and Maybelle, late 1960s; with the Carters: (from left) Anita, June, Maybelle, and Helen, 1966

Onstage, Knoxville, Tennessee, 1975

CALILOU

1977

Well I’m finally goin’ back to Louisiana

Runnin’ and thumbin’ all the way

That started out way out in California

I been makin’ ’bout five hundred miles a day

I covered all the beaches on the West Coast

From Mexico to Crescent City Bay

But Calilou was not in California

That’s where her daddy came from, by the way

And by the way, her mother was a Cajun

She came from New Orleans, I’ve heard her say

And it’s just like a girl to wanna see her mama

So I might find her there along the way

Calilou, Calilou

Well they should have called you restless

And they should have called you drifter

Yeah, they should have called you trouble instead of Calilou

I recall the first time that I saw her

I picked her up near Phoenix in my car

Just another beauty seekin’ fame and fortune

And I told her she should be a movie star

The next time I saw her was Tucumcari

She served my bowl of chili with a smile

I said, “It’s been a year since I last saw you

Wonder how’d you like to share a few good miles?”

Well, the justice of the peace was very sleepy

I held her in my arms the whole night long

I whispered words like “settle down” and “family”

And when I woke up, my Calilou was gone

Calilou, Calilou

Well, they should have called you restless

And they should have called you drifter

Yeah, they should have called you trouble instead of Calilou

We think that CALILOU — her daddy came from California, her mama from Louisiana — is simply an invented figure, a fictional free spirit whom the rambler encounters, loves, and loses, all in the space of a song. But who knows? Her image comes alive in our minds in vibrant color through a tale spun by melody, yearning, loss, and mystery. She might have been based on an actual somebody, or maybe she was the product of a bad dream. In any case, she was probably not someone we would want to know very long, even if she hung around.

“Calilou” came to life in 1977 on The Rambler.

Dyess town limits sign and water tower, by Joseph Cash, present day

WHO’S GENE AUTRY?

1977

Whoopee ti yi yo, rockin’ to and fro

Back in the saddle again

My little boy said, “Daddy, who’s Gene Autry?”

His old movie was coming on TV

And I said, “Let me tell you about him, son.”

And I took him upon my knee

Why, when I was a little boy about your size

And just about every Saturday night

When I could scrape up a dime for the movies

And when my daddy said all right

I’d be right downtown at the picture show

Like everybody else that could

To see a handsome man

On a big fine stallion, going about, doing good

Singing, “Whoopee ti yi yo, rockin’ to and fro.”

Put him back in the saddle again

Whoopee ti yi yay, let him go on his way

Back in the saddle again

Why, he could ride his horse and play his guitar

And sing all at the same time

And I was riding right along there beside him

On that broomstick pony of mine

And you know, his pistol never ran out of bullets

When the bad guys had to be stopped

And somehow, his bullets never drew any blood

But the bad guys dropped when he shot

Yeah, ole Gene was an image of justice

And goodness and purity

And in the eyes of a poor little country boy

He made the world look better to me

Singing, “Whoopee ti yi yo, rockin’ to and fro.”

Put him back in the saddle again

Whoopee ti yi yay, let him go on his way

Back in the saddle again

And you know the way

He rescued the rancher’s daughter

It sent a thrill right up the aisle

And the ending would always send us home

With a good, victorious smile

Now you ask me, “Who’s Gene Autry?”

Well, son, go ahead and watch the show

And then ride off into the sunset with him

Like I did forty years ago

Gene Autry’s Hotel Continental, the “Riot House,” Hollywood, 1969

There was no greater hero to a little boy in the 1930s than the Singing Cowboy, Gene Autry. He was the ultimate good guy, the man in the white hat who rode a stallion and always caught the bad men. Gene’s movies were not only inspiring to kids at the Dyess Theatre in the midst of the Great Depression; when World War II broke out, he put his career aside and enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps, making him a hero to the whole population. He was a TV star and one of the most important figures in extending the popularity of country-and-Western music into the mainstream.

By the time Johnny Cash made it out to California, Autry was a business mogul, eventually amassing an empire of television and radio stations and hotels, not to mention the California Angels baseball team. For a good few years, the only hotel Johnny would stay at while in Los Angeles was Autry’s notorious Hotel Continental (now the Andaz West Hollywood) on Sunset Boulevard. It was at this hotel that members of the Rolling Stones famously threw a television out an upper-floor window, where the Doors’ Jim Morrison swung from a high balcony, and where, in 1968, Johnny Cash signed the contract to do his TV show.

In 1994, Johnny narrated Gene Autry, Melody of the West, a tribute to his childhood idol. Autry died in 1998, but not before Johnny asked him to sign his prized custom black Martin D-35 guitar, which he played in the “Hurt” music video in 2002. In 2001, the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum honored Johnny with its Western Heritage Award.

If anyone needed to ask WHO’S GENE AUTRY?, Johnny answered on his 1978 album I Would Like to See You Again, which peaked at number twenty-three.

Restored Dyess Theater, by Joseph Cash, present day

Johnny’s black 1970 Martin D-35 guitar, signed by Gene Autry

Gene Autry, the “Singing Cowboy,” 1940s

ABNER BROWN

1977

Every town has its town bum, I guess

Ours had one, here’s a song about him

I remember him fondly well

His name was Abner Brown

I knew an old drunk named Abner Brown

And nobody knew when he came to town

But he spread good will to his fellow men

And they let him sleep in the cotton gin

He could drink more brew than an army could

But he had more friends and he did more good

Than a lot of fine fancy people in our town

So they tolerated Abner Brown

And all us kids were on his side

’Cause he told us tales ’til our eyes grew wide

And he made us feel ’bout ten feet tall

’Cause he had no kids but he claimed us all

And after school and on weekends

You could find me down at the cotton gin

The truest friend that I ever found

Was a good old drunk named Abner Brown

Abner Brown, I wish that I could see you once again

I believe that you’d stack up with all the mighty men

I’ve met and known in all the low

And higher places that I’ve been

Thinking of you picks me up when I’m feeling down

I thank the Lord for making Abner Brown

Lord, take me back to the cotton land

To Arkansas, take me home again

Let me be the boy that I once have been

Let me walk that road to the cotton gin

He’s probably dead many years ago

And gone the way that old drunks go

But I’d still like to sit me down

Talk to my old friend, Abner Brown

“Cotton Cumulus,” by Joseph Cash, Dyess, 2023

ABNER BROWN had troubles. Don’t we all? He drank a little too much and he probably was homeless. He also was a pied piper of sorts. In the eyes of the town’s kids, he could do no wrong. They followed him around and were entranced by his tall tales; even the adults indulged his foibles. Abner was a genuinely good guy. This is a sweet, nostalgic song of an innocent time. We find ourselves wishing, Let me be the boy that I once have been — and if that is all there is to it, Johnny more than hits the mark. But there is quiet instruction along with the memories. There was more to Abner Brown than being the town drunk. His adoring followers didn’t see faults; they saw into his heart. He sat with them, talked, and listened. And left them better people for it. He was a hero. We all miss our heroes. Johnny knew that.

“The Work Ahead,” by Joseph Cash, Dyess, 2023

SHE SANG “SWEET BABY JAMES”

1992

She had a heart full of love

For her baby, for life and James Taylor

She nursed her baby and she closed her eyes

She was a cowgirl, truck driver and sailor

In her mind, she wasn’t abandoned

Though the baby was all that she had

She was lonely at night when the babe was asleep

But when singing, it wasn’t so bad

And she sang “Sweet Baby James”

And she flew o’er the turnpikes, the mountains and sea

And she looked to the skies, where heaven should be

Said, “Could it be there’s no heaven for me?

The only difference in my life and hell are the flames.”

So she sang “Sweet Baby James”

She had to work for a living

And her mom kept the babe every day

The drive-in paid minimum wages to all

And with so little carry-home pay

But she’d take her own flights of fancy

Each time she found herself alone

She’d get on her dreamsong and she’d sail away

With her baby, to find that new home

And she sang “Sweet Baby James”

And she flew o’er the turnpikes, the mountains and sea

And she looked to the skies, where heaven should be

Said, “Could it be there’s no heaven for me?

The only difference in my life and hell are the flames.”

So she sang “Sweet Baby James”

The late-life triumph of Johnny’s American recordings with Rick Rubin was unprecedented. That era now dominates so much of Johnny’s legacy that it might seem to some that the first forty years of musical monuments were merely a warm-up for the final ten. Truth be told, though, the messages and morals that so captivated his new followers were nothing new from Johnny Cash. He hadn’t changed; it was the world that realized he did not belong in the wilderness. The bell was tolling.

Rubin gave Johnny the platform and microphone so we could hear. If we had been hearing him all along, maybe we would have learned something. But the period just before that final, great awakening was especially intense. It did seem that time was running out, and that Johnny was setting out his last lessons. “Drive On” came from this time, as did one of his most heartrending compositions, SHE SANG “SWEET BABY JAMES.” The emotional story of a single mother with no options and no hope is about the most painful thing Johnny Cash ever wrote. When the poor woman cries out, The only difference in my life and hell are the flames, the listener is horror-struck, and blood turns to ice. This is a terribly sad story, something that is lived daily by too many. The song is so powerful, its imagery so profound, that it almost demands to be listened to in a dark room, where no one can see the tears. Johnny goes there, connecting the listener through an homage to James Taylor’s epic ballad.

But no one got to listen to “She Sang ‘Sweet Baby James.’” Without a record label to give it flight, there was nowhere to go, and it was never released. Then the bearded man with a golden touch came along. He had other plans.

At June’s funeral, Hendersonville, May 18, 2003

SOME (MORE) SONGS YOU WOULD LIKE TO GET TO KNOW

In addition to being a keen observer and a profound commentator on the human equation, Johnny was a rabid student, eager to learn all there was to know about what guides and powers us as children of life. As a creative being, he absorbed his surroundings and appreciated the many ingredients that go into making a heart beat and a mind soar. What added such depth to his artistry was that he genuinely loved it. He was a fan. Like any devoted fan, he eagerly awaited the latest harvest of other artists, wrote letters of appreciation and encouragement, and shared his enthusiasm with family and friends. (“Did you hear the latest from Dwight Yoakam? He has never sounded better!”) When Johnny first listened to The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, he was so excited that he hunkered down in a hotel room and handwrote an annotation of every song, then sent the page to his future father-in-law, Eck Carter, with the message that this new guy, Dylan, was the greatest thing he had ever heard.

Johnny’s home rarely had his own albums in residence, but visitors were often treated to music from the likes of the Ink Spots, the Delmore Brothers, and Dean Martin. He was particularly attracted to the works of talented contemporary wordsmiths such as Rodney Crowell and Kris Kristofferson. When a song especially spoke to him, he would grab hold of its meaning, its melody, its flow, and “become one with it,” as he said. “Those songs are why we musicians exist.” Johnny Cash “covering” another songwriter’s inspiration was his ultimate tribute.

But having Johnny interpret your song was a double-edged sword. While it was a sign of great respect, Johnny also tended to make a song his own, leaving the original composer a bit out of sorts. Even the great Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails was bewildered when he first heard “Hurt” done by Johnny Cash, equating the experience to “someone kissing your girlfriend,” before allowing, “Having Johnny Cash, one of the greatest singer-songwriters of all time, want to cover your song, that’s something that matters to me… It’s not my song anymore.”

Over the years, scores of songs were defined by the unique, penetrating way Johnny interpreted them. Each one came from a significant, accomplished songwriter who gave the world a piece of themselves. What follows is a sampling of the best compositions that joined with Johnny Cash’s instincts and ear to deliver timeless classics.

“GUESS THINGS HAPPEN THAT WAY”

JACK CLEMENT

JOHNNY CASH SINGS THE SONGS THAT MADE HIM FAMOUS

“ONE MORE RIDE”

BOB NOLAN

THE FABULOUS JOHNNY CASH

“RING OF FIRE”

JUNE CARTER, MERLE KILGORE

RING OF FIRE: THE BEST OF JOHNNY CASH

“THE BALLAD OF IRA HAYES”

PETER LA FARGE

BITTER TEARS: BALLADS OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN

“IT AIN’T ME, BABE”

BOB DYLAN

ORANGE BLOSSOM SPECIAL

“ORANGE BLOSSOM SPECIAL”

ERVIN T. ROUSE

ORANGE BLOSSOM SPECIAL

“JACKSON”

BILLY EDD WHEELER, JERRY LEIBER

CARRYIN’ ON WITH JOHNNY CASH & JUNE CARTER

“DADDY SANG BASS”

CARL PERKINS

THE HOLY LAND

“A BOY NAMED SUE”

SHEL SILVERSTEIN

JOHNNY CASH AT SAN QUENTIN

“SUNDAY MORNIN’ COMIN’ DOWN”

KRIS KRISTOFFERSON

THE JOHNNY CASH SHOW

“IF I WERE A CARPENTER”

TIM HARDIN

HELLO, I’M JOHNNY CASH

“A THING CALLED LOVE”

JERRY REED HUBBARD

A THING CALLED LOVE

“ANY OLD WIND THAT BLOWS”

DICK FELLER

ANY OLD WIND THAT BLOWS

“ONE PIECE AT A TIME”

WAYNE KEMP

ONE PIECE AT A TIME

“I WOULD LIKE TO SEE YOU AGAIN”

CHARLIE CRAIG, LARRY ATWOOD

I WOULD LIKE TO SEE YOU AGAIN

“(GHOST) RIDERS IN THE SKY”

STAN JONES

SILVER

“HIGHWAY PATROLMAN”

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

JOHNNY 99

“HIGHWAYMAN”

JIMMY WEBB

HIGHWAYMAN

“HERE COMES THAT RAINBOW AGAIN”

KRIS KRISTOFFERSON

RAINBOW

“BIRD ON THE WIRE”

LEONARD COHEN

AMERICAN RECORDINGS

“I WON’T BACK DOWN”

TOM PETTY, JEFF LYNNE

AMERICAN II: UNCHAINED

“I’VE BEEN EVERYWHERE”

GEOFF MACK

AMERICAN II: UNCHAINED

“HURT”

TRENT REZNOR

AMERICAN IV: THE MAN COMES AROUND

“I HUNG MY HEAD”

GORDON MATTHEW SUMNER (STING)

AMERICAN IV: THE MAN COMES AROUND

“GOD’S GONNA CUT YOU DOWN”

TRADITIONAL

AMERICAN V: A HUNDRED HIGHWAYS

JOHNNY CASH WAS still in his twenties when he was styled the Singing Storyteller. By this time, his historical sagas, train songs, boyhood nostalgia, and tales of love gone bad had been firmly entrenched in the Cash canon. He loved a weeper — “Love gone good doesn’t sell as good,” he once chuckled, before being reminded that somebody must have appreciated “I Walk the Line” and “Flesh and Blood.” He was drawn to mournful pieces, like Red Foley’s “Old Doc Brown” and Hank Williams’s “Men with Broken Hearts,” and he loved performing truly dark classics, such as Robert Service’s 1907 poem “The Cremation of Sam McGee.” But his somber image belied eclectic tastes and a legendary laugh. The Man in Black was actually a kaleidoscope.

This is but one of many dualities that were integral to who Cash was, and they are crucial to appreciating his genius, but also what made his contradictions so confounding and the genius impossible to understand. He was seldom able to reconcile the mortal conflicts that raged within him, and that inability propelled him to incredible peaks and calamitous valleys. At its most basic, the turmoil derived from the inconstancy of his youth and the clash between wanting to be a good son and the discord of the family unit. It extended out into nearly every aspect of his life.

“Sometimes I am two people,” he admitted. “Johnny is the nice one. Cash causes all the trouble. They fight.” If only it was that simple. He was a man of God but called himself the “greatest sinner.” He craved acceptance all his life — the validation he sought as a boy but could not get — and then, convinced he did not deserve it, self-immolated to ratify his own doubt. As a Southerner, a poor one, he faced ridicule and disdain. Johnny was either above his raisin’ or a pretender. The one on the right was on the left. He was cursed in his ability — his willingness — to see into the chasm between the poles. But we were blessed for it.

All of this made for pain and brilliance. And the urge — the need — to express all that humanity inside him was overwhelming. Of all the Johnny Cashes, the one he gave most honor to was the Songwriter. He found great joy in writing. He studied languages, looking for commonalities and similarities that might bring hope that hearts might find their own harmony. He wrote, and then would rewrite, simply for the joy and magic. He never gave up on that.

At the end of his life — blind, infirm, and in utter misery — he sought peace in words. Unable to put pen to paper, he imagined, memorized, and repeated them over and over until he internalized them, made them part of his being. Similarly, he returned to the songs of his childhood, the ones that helped form his spirit and his core. The process of creating thrilled him, making him feel like a kid again.

Johnny’s story songs could come from anywhere: a random reference, a road sign — “Battle of Nashville” was inspired by the historical markers posted around the city commemorating the pivotal Civil War event — or his wicked sense of the absurd, never more in evidence than in “Beans for Breakfast” and “City Jail.” He updated the famous Scottish ballad “Barbara Allen” for the present day, giving it a similar unhappy ending, in “Ballad of Barbara.” Then he turns the tables in “I’m Leaving Now.” Get out of my face! “Tears in the Holston River” puts the era-ending deaths of two titanic music figures — and family members — into a somber personal context. And he is downright philosophical in “Farmer’s Almanac.” Each song presents a stop on this crazy journey called life. Nobody told the tales better.

This chapter’s collection of songs was written over a period of a quarter century, and they include themes as diverse as shoe shinin’ and histoplasmosis (look it up), but there is a thread that connects them. It is that duality again: still, always, as Johnny explores the uncertainty of passing love, grapples with life in the fast lane versus the serenity of the front porch, and, of course, considers consequences and reckoning. Again. Still. Always. These are the through lines of his life, and ours. As he says, There’s too much poppin’ and not enough shinin’.

Onstage with John Carter, Bob Wootton, Rosanne, and Anita Carter, early 1970s

Performance shot with Wootton and June, Knoxville, 1975

TEAR STAINED LETTER

1972

I’m going to write a tear stained letter

I’m going to mail it straight to you

I’m going to bring back to your mind

What you said about always being true

About our secret hiding places

Being daily satisfied

I can see you sitting and reading it

While you hang your head and cry

I just hope you’re not so sad

That you’re going to go down suicide

I’m going to write a tear stained letter

Put it special delivery

Because it’s gonna be full of stuff

That’s only known to you and me

About how every time I get turned on

You turn me off and bring me down

It’ll be about the darkest news

That ever did arrive in your hometown

It’ll be about the saddest thing

Your mailman ever did bring around

I’m going to write a tear stained letter

I’m going to tell you one more time

That you still could reconsider

And come back to being mine

And if you think about what I’m saying

It’d be hard to refuse

Just be sure you think a long time

On the answer that you choose

It will be a most important piece

Of personal, private news

I’m going to write a tear stained letter

Mark it “Personal Private News”

And I hope you’ll keep it to yourself

And don’t go around crying the blues

Giving off a bad impression

As to what went really wrong

When what it was was that suddenly

The music was all gone

And this man and woman got cut off

In the middle of our song

I’m going to write a tear stained letter

I’m going to put it to a tune

So I’ll be sending with it

A sweet melody for you

And not some red-hot, upbeat zinger

That’ll set your body on fire

But a hunk of love included

Meant to take you a little higher

And to settle on your sweet, sweet mind

At night when you retire

CITY JAIL

1973

Back when I first came to this town

I was hangin’ round the bus station café there

Mindin’ my own business, like I always do

And I thought I’d check out the action, like I always do

And I gave this waitress a big eye and made a few choice personal comments

About what I thought mine and her possibilities could be for a team

When she called a badge on me

The badge grabbed me by the arm and said

“Hey boy, what are you hanging around here for?”

And I said, “For whatever’s going around.”

City jail, city jail

Like an old scared dog, I tucked my tail

I hung my head and not a careless word I said

I gotta sleep on the floor once more at the city jail

He said, “No, what I mean is

What are you doing saying things like that to that lady?”

And I said, “What’s that lady doing with purple hair?”

And the badge said, “You’re a smart aleck, ain’t you, boy?”

And I said, “No sir, I’m just hungry.”

And he said, “Well you’re acting like a smart aleck.”

And I said, “Well, that’s how I act when I get hungry.”

City jail, city jail

Like an old scared dog, I tucked my tail

I hung my head and not a careless word I said

I gotta sleep on the floor once more at the city jail

Well, he took me outside to a dark corner

And before I could say “hypocrite,” he hit me on the head

And I said, “Don’t hit me on the head

I can’t protect myself with these handcuffs on.”

And he hit me again, and I said

“Please don’t stand on my feet when you hit me

I’ll break my ankles when I fall.”

City jail, city jail

Like an old scared dog, I tucked my tail

I hung my head and not a careless word I said

I gotta sleep on the floor once more at the city jail

Well, about that time they threw me in the wagon

That waitress walked out with a sailor

I said, “Hey you! Not you, sailor. I’m talking to the purple people eater.

You, lady. Quote ‘You’re the cause of it all’ unquote.”

Then she said to the sailor, she said, “Get me away from that horrible man, Harry.”

And as they hauled me away I said, “Everybody have a nice evening.”

City jail, city jail

Like an old scared dog, I tucked my tail

I hung my head and not a careless word I said

I gotta sleep on the floor once more at the city jail

Journal entry, Westbury, Long Island, New York, 1977

BALLAD OF BARBARA

1977

In a Southern town where I was born

That’s where I got my education

I worked in the fields and I walked in the woods

And I wondered at creation

I recall the sun in a sky of blue

And the smell of green things growing

And the seasons changed and I lived each day

By the way the wind was blowing

Then I heard of a cultured city life

Breathtaking lofty steeples

And the day I called myself a man

I left my land and my people

And I rambled north, and I rambled east

And I tested and I tasted

And a girl or two took me round and round

But they always left me wasted

In a world that’s all concrete and steel

With nothing green ever growing

Where the buildings hide the rising sun

And they block the free winds from blowing

Where you sleep all day and you wake all night

To a world of drink and laughter

I met that girl that I was sure would be

The one that I was after

In a soft blue gown and a formal tux

Beneath that lofty steeple

He said, “Do you, Barbara, take this man

Will you be one of his people?”

And she said, “I will,” and she said, “I do.”

And the world looked mighty pretty

And we lived in a fancy downtown flat

Because she loved the noisy city

But the days grew cold beneath a yellow sky

And I longed for green things growing

And the thoughts of home and the people there

But she’d not agreed to going

Then her hazel eyes turned away from me

With a look that wasn’t pretty

And she turned into concrete and steel

And she said, “I’ll take the city.”

Now the cars go by on the interstate

And my pack is on my shoulder

But I’m going home, where I belong

Much wiser now and older

PLEASE DON’T LET ME OUT

1974

I’ve been in jail eleven years and parole has just come through

The gates will soon swing open wide but I’m not going through

Jail’s the only home I know or care to know about

Please let me stay where I belong, please don’t let me out

How could I tell those friends of mine they’ve seen the last of me?

Can’t I make you understand I never can be free?

’Cause that’s a big unfriendly world and I don’t know the route

That leads to where I may belong, please don’t let me out

I had to learn to get along without a lot of things

And I had to learn to live with the loneliness confinement brings

And I learned to take no mail from home or whatever came about

Now I’m dug in and I’m happy here, please don’t let me out

How could I tell those friends of mine they’ve seen the last of me?

Can’t I make you understand I never can be free?

’Cause that’s a big unfriendly world and I don’t know the route

That leads to where I may belong, please don’t let me out

WHILE I GOT IT ON MY MIND

1974

Layin ’round home with a ball game on

Feelin’ fairly fine

Blackberry jam is cookin’ in the pan

And the jam and the cook are mine

I like my honey from the hives of home

And berries from my own vine

And I like to get my lovin’

While I got it on my mind

My dog is asleep at my bare feet

It’s a good day for layin’ around

Just her and me and it’s Saturday

Everybody’s gone to town

We’ve been workin’ hard and she gets tired

That puts me in a bind

’Cause I like to get my lovin’

While I got it on my mind

Then she looks at me and I can see

That old familiar look

And the jam is sweet as she lowers the heat

To give it time to cook

Then I lock the door and I cross the floor

To my queen of womankind

Yeah, I like to get my lovin’

While I got it on my mind

Now boys, don’t you be a-ramblin’ free

And leavin’ the girls to cry

’Cause the nights get cold and there ain’t no gold

That’ll ever satisfy

And there ain’t no joy that’ll come to you, boys

Like the kind I’ve known at times

When I go right on in there lovin’ her

While I got it on my mind

Yeah, I like to get my lovin’

While I got it on my mind

“The Way I Feel Today,” by John Carter Cash

LONESOME TO THE BONE

1974

On the park bench I slept on

Raindrops are falling on the newspapers covering me

I hear early morning motors

And I know the world is waking for the dawn

But my mind’s down a dark alley

Somewhere where last night you loved me

And in the early morning chill my arms remember still

But I’m dropping like a stone, lonesome to the bone

The sun is roughly rising on the roofs of stagger town

The time for sweating poison out is just now coming round

The high time of last midnight is over with and gone

Leaving me to be lonesome to the bone

I walk the way the wind blows and any way the wind goes

Will be good enough for me

The streets are loud and crowded

But I walk my weary way lost and alone

Your hot breath and your laughter

Keep flashing through my mind to warm me

But the naked light of day soon makes it fade away

And I’m dropping like a stone, lonesome to the bone

KING OF THE HILL

1974

If you’re gonna be king of the hill

You can’t make it at the cotton mill

Get put on at the Harlan mine

Be the last one out at quitting time

You’re already working when the whistle blew

Never complain about a job to do

When they say “Who can?” you say “I will.”

If you ever gonna be king of the hill

You need a good woman to share your bed

To keep you loved and to keep you fed

To help you to face another day

To get you up and on your way

Where the golden rule don’t rule out true

You do to them before they do to you

Watch out for yourself or nobody will

If you ever gonna be king of the hill

Saturday night you go to Harlan town

You shoot some pool and you fool around

You watch the girls and you drink bootleg

Get starved to death before you beg

You trust in luck ’til your luck is gone

Then jump right in and you hang right on

There may be times you would have to kill

If you ever gonna be king of the hill

When the last of the coals out of every vein

Have long been gone on the northbound train

Walk up to the top and if you’re standing still

You can call yourself king of the hill

But if you fall like a lot have done

By accident or knife or gun

When they lay you high on the mountain still

You can call yourself king of the hill

IT COMES AND GOES

1978

I’ve been up and down and out and I have been around

And I’ve felt good more times than I’ve felt bad

Loving you felt better than I’ve ever known before

Losing you’s the worst pain that I’ve had

But it comes and goes

It’s like a blue wind blows

Yes it goes and comes

But now I’m living some

And today my high didn’t get any lower

And my low didn’t fall anymore

But sometimes when I drop my guard

Everybody knows

’Cause I can’t control the feeling

And there ain’t much sign of healing

’Cause when the pain is there it always shows

But it comes and goes

In my mind I’m holding you and loving you again

I hear you laugh and I feel you cling to me

Although it’s over I’m still holding on a little bit

And there’s a lotta pain in the memories

But it comes and goes

It’s like a blue wind blows

Yes it goes and comes

But now I’m living some

And today my high didn’t get any lower

And my low didn’t fall anymore

But sometimes when I drop my guard

Everybody knows

’Cause I can’t control the feeling

And there ain’t much sign of healing

’Cause when the pain is there it always shows

But it comes and goes

Annual year-end letter to self, December 31, 1976

MY COWBOY’S LAST RIDE

1977

The cowboy’s lady is cryin’ tonight

’Cause the cowboy is out on the range

Runnin’ and ramblin’ and chasin’ some stray

And good cowboys don’t ever change

I tried to hold him in the home corral

But the grasses were greener outside

So I’m gonna sit here in front of this door

And I’ve loaded up my cowboy’s .44

When the smoke clears there’ll be a new brand on his eyes

This is my cowboy’s last ride

Oh, oh, oh, I hate to see him go

But I won’t be stayin’ home cryin’

Aye, aye, aye, I hate to watch him die

But this is my cowboy’s last ride

Cowboy remembers the old trails we rode

And he’s back in the saddle tonight

This time I’m lettin’ the home fires burn out

And I’m leavin’ when I blow out his light

’Cause I still remember good waterin’ holes

And the places that are open and wide

And I have decided he won’t put me down

A filly should be free for horsin’ around

And I will no longer be hobbled and tied

This is my cowboy’s last ride

Oh, oh, oh, I hate to see him go

But I won’t be stayin’ home cryin’

Aye, aye, aye, I hate to watch him die

But this is my cowboy’s last ride

I’LL SAY IT’S TRUE

1979

I’ve never been in prison

I don’t know much about trains

My favorite singer cooks my breakfast

I like her fancy and I like her plain

I love bright and flashing colors

Like hot pink and Dresden blue

But if they ask me if it’s true

That I still love you, I’ll say it’s true

I’d be happy in a mansion

Or in an old run-down shotgun shack

I like the feel of silk and satin

So I don’t know why I wear black

I love New York City

Bet your cowgirl boots I do

But if they ask me if it’s true

That I still love you, I’ll say it’s true

I’ll say it’s true

So don’t let it bother you

Just let them old tales all stay twisted

I will set ’em straight about you

I have not been in the Army

I’m an Indian from years ago

When they ask if I know Waylon

I tell them, “I think so.”

I do not plan on retiring

From anything I do

But if they ask me if it’s true

That I still love you, I’ll say it’s true

I’ll say it’s true

So don’t let it bother you

Just let them old tales all stay twisted

I will set ’em straight on you

I got plans to keep right on singing

And I do know Emmylou

But if they ask me if it’s true

That I still love you, I’ll say it’s true

Notebook entry, 1977

BATTLE OF NASHVILLE

1984

The moon on the Cumberland River

Went down in a cold bloody red

And you lay beside me and trembled

Like I don’t belong in your bed

It’s just like that night on Old Hickory

And the motel way out on West End

You tried but your heart wasn’t in it

Now you’re fighting against it again

And the Battle of Nashville is raging

There’s a troubling deep in my soul

Here’s my swan song for Music City

’Cause my forces are out of control

I have hoped against hope that you love me

And my heart won’t give up the fight

So the Battle of Nashville continues

And I pray you’ll surrender tonight

Many times I’ve regrouped my emotions

And smiled through the struggle and pain

And made believe I’m all together

Just like I’m doing again

But my little defeats keep on coming

’Cause you keep on holding the line

I’m losing ground with you daily

And it’s just a matter of time

And the Battle of Nashville is raging

There’s a troubling deep in my soul

Here’s my swan song for Music City

’Cause my forces are out of control

I have hoped against hope that you’ll love me

And my heart won’t give up the fight

So the Battle of Nashville continues

And I pray you’ll surrender tonight

Knoxville reception, 1975

CALL YOUR MOTHER

1984

When you get a chance, would you please call your mother

And thank her for the good years that we had?

Gently break the news that you don’t love me

And give my best regards to your good old dad

I always liked your family

We got along just splendidly

Though your brother kind of rubbed me the wrong way

I remember that your eyes turned green

When they crowned your sister County Queen

Though she couldn’t hold a candle to your beauty any day

When you get a chance, would you please call your mother

And thank her for the good years that we had?

Gently break the news that you don’t love me

And give my best regards to your good old dad

Back when we could laugh and play

On family reunion day

Didn’t we all look funny in our 1950s clothes?

Your daddy wore that greasy stuff

Your brother drank more than enough

Your mom wore penny loafers with runners in her hose

When you get a chance, would you please call your mother

And thank her for the good years that we had?

Gently break the news that you don’t love me

And give my best regards to your good old dad

Cinnamon Hill porch and yard, Jamaica

I’M GONNA SIT ON THE PORCH AND PICK ON MY OLD GUITAR

1978

I’m gonna sit on the porch and pick on my old guitar

I’m gonna lay on my back and laugh at my lucky star

And then I’m gonna fly away and never come back someday

Unless I thought I would land right close to where you are

Well, if I thought anybody really cared I’d send back word

Strapped to the leg of a transcelestial bird

I wonder if I really ever did leave, how many would there be to grieve?

How would they react to the word?

Well, I wouldn’t want to hurt a solitary soul

I have still got all six foot two in control

But when my obligation’s load is a greasy uphill road

And pleasin’ everybody but me is my first goal

Oh, I want to sit on my porch and pick on my old guitar

And just hope you’re hangin’ loose wherever you are

And for the joy you brought to me, this song I sung for thee

While I sit on my porch and pick on my old guitar

At home in California, 1959

I’M LEAVING NOW

1985

Hold on, honey, I’d like to say

I’m busting out and breaking away

I’m letting you go like a hot horseshoe

I can’t take another heartache from you

Think about how it’s gonna be

When you start back to needing me

When your dancing shoes have lost their shine

I’m gonna be gone in mine

I’m leaving now

I’m leaving now

Get out of my face

Get out of my place

I’m leaving now, adios

I’m leaving now

The time may come that you have to trim the fat

Feed kitchen scraps to your front seat cat

Bye-bye, baby, when the bills come due

You may have to give up a jewel or two

Eat your heart out anyway

It’s hard as your head and cold as clay

It’s all over now you won’t have me

For your sugar daddy and your money tree

I’m leaving now

I’m leaving now

Get out of my space

Get out of my face

I’m leaving now, arrivederci

I’m leaving now

Turn up the collar on my traveling coat

Sell that miserable pleasure boat

I wouldn’t give a dime for another buck

I’m living on muscle, guts and luck

If anybody asks where did I go

Tell ’em I went where the wild goose goes

I won’t even have an area code

Ain’t no number on Freedom Road

I’m leaving now

I’m leaving now

Get out of my face

Get out of my space

I’m leaving now, tallyho

I’m leaving now

Exterior of Cash Cabin, Hendersonville, by Joseph Cash, present day

BEANS FOR BREAKFAST

1990

I couldn’t hear you for the TV

I didn’t know you said goodbye

I saw your canceled check for the airfare

Didn’t know flying got so high

Beans for breakfast once again

Hard to eat them from the can

I’ve run out of clean utensils

I’m a hungry, nasty, lonesome man

I heard the crows outside my window

Guess it’s me they are talking about

The fire you lit has burnt to cinders

Every good thing’s fizzled out

Beans for breakfast once again

Hard to eat them from the can

Wish you’d come back and wash the dishes

I’m a hungry, nasty, lonesome man

Caught a cold with the windows open

Crow droppings on my windowsill

Probably got histoplasmosis

Got no gun or I would kill… them crows

Beans for breakfast once again

Hard to eat them from the can

Plastic forks are a dime a dozen

I’m a hungry, nasty, lonesome man

Finally made it to the mailbox

Felt so bad I thought I’d die

All I got was a bill from my doctor

Well, I guess flying ain’t so high

Beans for breakfast once again

Hard to eat them from the can

Blue tick mattress cold and greasy

I’m a hungry, nasty, lonesome man

The house burned down from the fire that I built

In your closet by mistake

After I took all them pills

But I got out safe in my duck head overalls

Beans for breakfast once again

I’m a hungry, nasty, lonesome man

Drawings by Cash over the years

Johnny’s photography

FARMER’S ALMANAC

1989

Well, the farmer prayed for a better year

And the crops were good like the Lord did hear

But his barn burned down with winter near

The answer came in white and black

In the farmer’s almanac, it says:

“If a man could have half his wishes, he could double his trouble.”

A sweet old lady was eighty-four

When her kinfolks came for a month or more

Now from overwork she’s on the other shore

Much too late was y’all come back

And it says in the farmer’s almanac, it says:

“Visitors and fish smell after three days.”

Our leader was a silver-tongued man

He deceived the people of the land

And when he got caught he couldn’t stand

It’s a little offbeat and a little offtrack

But it says in the farmer’s almanac, it says:

“In rivers and bad government, the lightest things flow to the top.”

Rod said, “I don’t believe in God.”

Rod died and lies beneath the sod

For God did not believe in Rod

Life is a troubled and a weary track

But it says in the farmer’s almanac, it says:

“Feed your faith and your doubts will starve to death.”

The little boy followed the honeybee

And it flew straight to the honey tree

He got stung but got the honey free

Consolation for the things you lack

Is in the farmer’s almanac, it says:

“God gives us the darkness so we can see the stars.”

He came home three hours late from work

Said, “I had a flat and fell in the dirt.”

She said, “You got lipstick on your shirt.”

Well it turned out like Jill and Jack

And it says in the farmer’s almanac, it says:

“Lies have to be covered up, truth can run around naked.”

He said, “Honey, you know I’m true

I just look at other women, that’s all I do.”

Then she caught him with her best friend, Peggy Sue

Sometimes some women will look back

And it says in the farmer’s almanac, it says:

“There’s a lot of difference in window-shoppin’ and shopliftin’.”

I sat down at a shoeshine stand

I had a real slow shoeshine man

I said, “You don’t pop that rag like some of ’em can.”

He looked at me and then he sat right back

It says in the farmer’s almanac, it says:

“The trouble with the world today is

There’s too much poppin’ and not enough shinin’.”

TEARS IN THE HOLSTON RIVER

2002

On October 23rd, 1978

I lost a loved one, and I confess, I cried

In the joyous celebration

Of the lady and her music

There were tears in the Holston River

When Maybelle Carter died

Then walking down that river road

I saw crystal tear-shaped droplets

Silver beads of love

Sparkling on the riverside

And I’ll just bet they turn to diamonds

For the love that was behind them

There were tears in the Holston River

When Mother Maybelle died

Then, on January 8th, 1979

We lost Sara Carter

And the pain was multiplied

Down below that old Clinch Mountain

We laid her at Mount Vernon

There were tears in the Holston River

When Sara Carter died

Then walking down that river road

I saw crystal tear-shaped droplets

Silver beads of love

Sparkling in the riverside

And I’ll just bet they turn to diamonds

For the love that was behind them

There were tears in the Holston River

When Maybelle and Sara died

Sara and Maybelle, 1960s

Maybelle and Sara, Carter Family Fold, Virginia, 1977

Johnny’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame statue, 1992

(Left) MTV Video Music Award, 2003, (right) Grammy for “Hurt” video, 2003

AMERICAN RECORDINGS INTERRUPTED a perfectly good retirement. Of course, no one really expected Johnny Cash to withdraw to Bon Aqua or Cinnamon Hill, never to be heard from again. But forty years is a long time, and the entertainment business is still that young man’s game. All that thinking was upended, though, and new rules were written, with Johnny’s 1994 “comeback” classic. Was it his third? Fourth? With all these comebacks, maybe the man hadn’t really gone away at all.

The Viper Room nightclub, West Hollywood, California

All four American albums released in Johnny’s lifetime — plus a fifth — produced Grammys (he would receive thirteen in his career, plus another twenty-two nominations). The revalidation of his craft, after the era of invisibility, was more gratifying to him than the commercial successes. The records brought Johnny to new audiences and new generations. While that thrilled him, it also terrified him. The man who was in nearly every hall of fame imaginable — Country Music, Rock & Roll, Rockabilly, Songwriters… why, he even was an honorary member of the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame — was still, after all these years, the insecure boy who didn’t fit in. That was how he felt, at least, especially when he was asked to get up and perform in front of people who did not know him. “What if they don’t accept me?” he wondered.

He needn’t have wondered.

At an early nineties Cash-renaissance show, in Johnny Depp’s hip Hollywood club The Viper Room, the young crowd was, in fact, quite appreciative of the new music. But when Johnny turned to his older hits, like “I Walk the Line” and “Ring of Fire,” the response was delirious and deafening. They sang along to every song. “They knew every word,” he marveled. No, the man hadn’t really gone away at all.

He was a man in a hurry, though. At sixty-one, he was on fire. And his astonishing eclecticism, faith, and indomitable will empowered him to the end. In the 1990s alone, his itinerary would have staggered men half his age. Carnegie Hall. A Nashville street fair… with an orchestra. From the House of Blues and Hard Rock Café to the Carter Family Fold, he kept up a feverish pace. As always, he made the Billy Graham crusades and caught the flights for the international tours. He performed a duet with John Mellencamp at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. He went back and visited San Quentin, because he was one of them. And the International Society of Poets convention, because he was one of them. He was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Songwriters, for his mastery of the creation of words and song (which is why you are reading this book). And the Living Legend medal by the Library of Congress, because, well, you know.

By the time the Kennedy Center Honor came around, in 1996, surely he had said enough, done enough, taught enough, in his full, complicated, purposeful, monumental life, that it was time to rest. Not quite. As he sang two decades earlier, “There are still a few things yet I didn’t do,” so he proceeded to do them, too.

Letter from John Mellencamp, 1995

Collection of Grammy Awards

The National Medal of Arts is the highest honor that the United States government bestows on artists, given to those “deserving of special recognition by reason of their outstanding contributions to the excellence, growth, support and availability of the arts in the United States.”

On April 22, 2002, in Washington, D.C., the president placed the bronze medal on John R. Cash of Kingsland, Dyess, Heaven, and the World.

The citation read:

JOHNNY CASH

FOR HIS CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE MUSIC AND ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY

FOR HIS REMARKABLE MUSIC INNOVATIONS, THAT DREW FROM FOLK, COUNTRY, AND ROCK AND ROLL STYLES

AND PRESENTING AN EXTRAORDINARY STANDARD IN AMERICAN MUSIC

There were no dry eyes in Constitution Hall that day. Forty-eight years after he first camped out on the curb outside Sun Records, John R. Cash, who dared to dream, was ready for his Promised Land.

Johnny’s Horatio Alger Award, presented in 1977

I LOVE YOU TONIGHT

1992

It sure has been a party, hasn’t it, Baby?

We’ve really been down that road a time or two

We checked into the best hotels from San Francisco to Paris

And lived like royalty, me and you

But remember years ago in that church in Ottawa

We told God of our love and asked for His care

And so He made us happen and He blessed us

So if we were in the fold or out, He was always there

And I love you tonight

Even more than I loved you in the sixties

And I know that we are right

Even more than I knew it in the seventies

Oh, Baby, ain’t we a sight?

Can you believe we made it through the eighties?

And will we make the millennium? Well, we might

I love you tonight

It’s funny how we never settle down

Though we love our home and sitting by the fire

But we can’t be at home three days ’til we get itchy feet

And people always ask, “When are you going to retire?”

But your people have always been my people

And you have always gone wherever I go

And when it’s all over I hope we will go together

I don’t want you to be alone, you know

I love you tonight

Valentine’s Day card to June, 1991

As the millennium approached, Johnny and June had settled into “happy after everything.” They were more in love than ever, and if it all ended tomorrow, they were ready. The prospect found Johnny looking inward. They had run their race. It had been “Johnny and June” for twenty-five years, and contemplating a world where that did not exist was bewildering. For their silver anniversary — spent, fittingly, on the road — he gave her the most unique and perfect gift he could: a song. I LOVE YOU TONIGHT looked back on their epic story with nostalgia and a growing sense of finality.

And when it’s all over I hope we will go together. I don’t want you to be alone, you know.

JOHN CARTER CASH

HOW IS A fairy tale built? Certainly, in word, spoken tale, and rumor, but perhaps the greatest tales are told through melody. Such was my parents’ love.

Not long ago, I received a very sincere question from a girl of perhaps fifteen outside the Johnny Cash Museum in Nashville. She walked up to me, and after all these years, I could tell she recognized me and was about to ask one of those questions I often get about my parents. But this time, she gave me something different.

“What’s it like being the product of the greatest love affair ever?” she asked, in complete seriousness.

I tried not to, but she caught me so off guard. I laughed out loud in response.

Their love was a fairy tale. He had fallen in love with my mother after hearing her sing on the radio. He had dreamed of what she looked like before he saw a picture of her, and she looked the same as in his imagined dreams. Their relationship nearly ended, more than once. But they stayed together.

The remaining fact is that no matter what hell he endured in life, Dad’s love for Mom was greater than it had ever been when she passed, and just as surely as Ray and Carrie Cash believed they would meet their lost son Jack someday in heaven, so did my father, my mother. He wrote her love letters daily after she passed. Each tear-soaked letter counts for a thousand written in the throes of young love. He missed her. He cherished every memory of her.

My mother was a high-class pack rat. She knew taste and style. She was enduringly “en vogue,” though she surrounded herself with a diverse scattering of “Klediments” (a word of her creation, meaning things and people she gathered in her life and cherished). Dad was simpler and organized (in a brilliant, Southern-charmed, and disheveled way). Not a month after her death, he began to sell off the furniture that crowded their home. He didn’t need as many of the eighty-plus beds, couches, dressers, crystal-ware cases, dining tables, sewing tables, and sideboards. He began to write to her. The letters were sad, but they kept him going. The music of his life was gone, the purest melody. His eyesight failed him and he began to go blind. In response to this crushing, forlorn, and broken hand life had given him, he did not go quietly. Through the recoveries from various bouts with pneumonia, asthma, and the frustration of dealing with the effects of type 2 diabetes, he kept singing. He had always loved to read and had to put down books since he could not see the pages. But he never put down his pen.

Johnny and June, 1967

POOR VALLEY GIRL

1992

She never could give up the homestead on the farm

Where they handed off tobacco in the big tobacco barn

And the long straight rows that ran

From the house down to the road

That went to A.P. Carter’s store

On the logging truck she rode

She’d sit and she’d gaze at the foggy mountaintop

As the swift hawk circled round the Clinch Mountain rocks

At the school down in Hiltons she would read about the world

Created to be conquered by this Poor Valley girl

Her mother was an Addington, from over Copper Creek

Her father was of sturdy stock, she was royal but meek

Her laughter was infectious, her music was pure joy

She’d win the hearts of many men as she had many a boy

Her mother became famous, Maybelle and her guitar

With sisters, Helen and Anita, the family was four star

She gave the world two daughters

And a son with auburn curls

And I thank God that he gave me

This sweet Poor Valley girl

June Carter Cash was an enigma. She was a talented musician — she played guitar, Autoharp, mandolin, banjo, and piano — accomplished (and fearless) actor, comedian, and writer. Yet she will forever be known, foremost, as Mrs. Johnny Cash. It was a role — she described herself as her husband’s “holder upper” — that frequently relegated her to the shadows, which was not a place that a woman who had lived her entire life, childhood and adult, on a stage belonged. But she did it, willingly and happily (though not without heartache and pain). The cowriter of “Ring of Fire,” a song about a love so intense that it scorched her soul, defined herself as “just a mother.” There was no “just” about that, as she took that responsibility seriously, not “just” for her actual children but also for the sundry folk in and out of the music business whom she looked after. When someone stumbled, June was ready with a prayer. “We will have to lift them up” was her creed.

It could not have been easy being Maybelle Carter’s daughter (and Johnny Cash’s wife), but June “pressed on.” Her dear friend and spiritual ally was Ruth Bell Graham, who was herself familiar with holding up a great man. But she also maintained her closeness with her sisters and kept high school friendships all her life. Closest of all was her cousin, Fern Salyer, with whom she had played in the same crib. It was foolish to underestimate her. She played along with the country bumpkin persona foisted on her as part of the family act (“I couldn’t sing like Anita, or play like Helen, or ever live up to Mama in any way, so they stuck me far away from the microphone and trotted me out to yuck it up,” she remembered), but crossing June was not for the faint of heart. She had a spine of steel and was ferocious in support of her family. It was said that her priorities were “Jesus and Johnny.”

It took much work and patience to be “Johnny and June.” The pressures were enormous. But there will be songs written about their love forever. Such is the storied legacy of the POOR VALLEY GIRL.

Home of Ezra and Maybelle Carter, Poor Valley, Virginia, c. 1940s

June, 1980s

June, 1950s

Helen, Anita, Maybelle, and June, 1960s

LET THE TRAIN BLOW THE WHISTLE

1993

I don’t want no aggravation

When my train has left the station

If you’re there or not, I may not even know

Have a round and remember

Things we did that weren’t so tender

Let the train blow the whistle when I go

On my old guitar sell tickets

So someone can finally pick it

And tell the girls down at the Ritz I said hello

Tell the gossipers and liars

I will see them in the fire

Let the train blow the whistle when I go

Let her blow, let her blow

Long and loud and hard and happy

Let her blow

No regrets, all my debts

Will be paid when I get laid

Let her blow, let her blow, let her blow

You’ll be left without excuses

For the evils and abuses

Down to the day from years and years ago

And have yourself another toke

From my basket full of smoke

And let the train blow the whistle when I go

Let her blow, let her blow

Long and loud and hard and happy

Let her blow

No regrets, all my debts

Will be paid when I get laid

Let her blow, let her blow, let her blow

American Recordings included four Cash originals. LET THE TRAIN BLOW THE WHISTLE was the first of Johnny’s new generation of recordings to address what would soon become the elephant in every room: his mortality. This whimsical take on a fellow’s last wishes contained familiar Cash flourishes (“Have yourself another toke / From my basket full of smoke,” “All my debts / Will be paid when I get laid”) that made him everybody’s favorite cool grandpa and had new acolytes clamoring for a seat at his table. His concerts became fantastical studies in cross-generational interbreeding, as youthful (and not-so-youthful) Goths with blue hair, wearing leather, joined with Johnny’s “original” fans, sporting similar bottled shades of coiffure, producing delirium when the man came around. In the center of this maelstrom was, all seemed to agree, the only person who could legitimately pull off such a feat.

Cash fans attend premiere / release party, London, 2006

BEFORE MY TIME

1998

I know that hearts were loving

Long before I was here

And I’m not the first to ever cry

In my bed or in my beer

There were songs before there was radio

Of love that stays and love that goes

They were writing melancholy tunes

And tearful words that rhyme

Before my time

Before my time

There were songs in old dusty books

Of love that’s always been

Sweet lovers in their glory

Who are now gone with the wind

Old-fashioned love words spoken then

Keep coming back around again

Nothing’s changed except the names

Their love burns just like mine

Before my time

Before my time

And in the dim of yesterday

I can clearly see

That flesh and blood cried out to someone

As it does in me

And there was some old song that said

I’ll love you ’til I die

Before my time

Before my time

But what the old-time masters had

Is what I feel for you

Love is love and doesn’t change

In a century or two

If some way they had seen and knew

How it would be for me and you

They’d wish for love like yours

And they would wish for love like mine

Before my time

Before my time

Frailties turned into infirmities. The decline in John’s health as he turned sixty-five was more than just alarming. After he’d gone through more lives than could be counted, the fear was he had finally run out of road. Mobility issues, declining vision, respiratory problems, and unremitting pain ganged up on him, none of them giving quarter, in a vicious conspiracy of calamity and debilitation. He received the Kennedy Center Honor with a jaw swollen to twice its normal size, virtually unable to see or speak. Finally, in September 1997, before a show at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., he and June told their people that time was up, and they would be going home for good at the end of the tour. He didn’t last that long.

Johnny and June attend the Kennedy Center Honors, Washington, DC, December 8, 1996

The torment affected his creative output, but not the ardor. He was only able to contribute one original composition to 1996’s American II: Unchained and to American III: Solitary Man in 2000, but they were gems. “Meet Me in Heaven” brought Jack’s death full circle, half a century later. And BEFORE MY TIME was yet another reminder that the Man in Black’s love for June transcended adversity and, really, this temporal life itself. It is one of John’s most piercing creations.

Song in development: evolving, working lyrics to “Like a Soldier”

LIKE A SOLDIER

1992

With the twilight colors falling

And the evening laying shadows

Hidden memories come stealing from my mind

As I feel my own heart beating out

The life that’s precious to me

I wonder how I ever was that kind

But the wild road that I rambled

Always seemed to be there calling

And they said a hundred times I should have died

But now my present miracle

Is that you’re here beside me

So I believe that they were roads I had to ride

I’m like a soldier getting over the war

I’m like a young man getting over his crazy days

Like a bandit getting over his lawless ways

But every day is better than the day before

I’m like a soldier

Getting over the war

There were nights that I don’t remember

And there’s pain that I’ve forgotten

And I did some things I choose not to recall

There are faces that come to me

In my darkest secret memories

Faces that I wish would not come back at all

In my dream’s parade of people

From the other times and places

There’s not one that matters now, no matter who

I’m just thankful for the journey

And that I’ve survived the battles

And that my spoils of victory is you

I’m like a soldier getting over the war

I’m like a young man getting over his crazy days

Like a bandit getting over his lawless ways

But every day is better than the day before

I’m like a soldier

Getting over the war

Johnny Cash wrote two autobiographies — Man in Black in 1975 and Cash: The Autobiography in 1997 — and is the subject of too many books, accounts, profiles, and tall tales to keep score of, but make no mistake, LIKE A SOLDIER is the story of his life. Written in the quiet, reflective period just before American Recordings — and rendered here with the original lyrics — the song is of a piece with “I Love You Tonight” as the end page of a chapter; for all John knew at that moment, it was the very last verse of a personal story song. He had been around a time or two, fallen more than a time or three. He hurt in ways that defied the human ability to withstand. But each morning he would wake and seek hope until he could find it. Nothing else mattered.

It is the most strangely marvelous, wonderful, gothic, mysterious, Christian thing that only God and Johnny Cash could create together.

— MARTY STUART

THE MAN COMES AROUND

2000

There’s a man going round, taking names

And he decides who to free and who to blame

Everybody won’t be treated all the same

There will be a golden ladder reaching down

When the man comes around

The hairs on your arm will stand up

At the terror in each sip and in each sup

Will you partake of that last offered cup?

Or disappear into the potter’s ground

When the man comes around?

Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers

One hundred million angels singing

Multitudes are marching to the big kettledrum

Voices calling, voices crying

Some are born and some are dying

It’s Alpha and Omega’s kingdom come

And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree

The virgins are all trimming their wicks

The whirlwind is in the thorn tree

It’s hard for thee to kick against the pricks

’Til Armageddon, no shalam, no shalom

Then the father hen will call his chickens home

The wise men will bow down before the throne

And at his feet, they’ll cast their golden crowns

When the man comes around

Whoever is unjust, let him be unjust still

Whoever is righteous, let him be righteous still

Whoever is filthy, let him be filthy still

Listen to the words long written down

When the man comes around

Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers

One hundred million angels singing

Multitudes are marching to the big kettledrum

Voices calling, voices crying

Some are born and some are dying

It’s Alpha and Omega’s kingdom come

And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree

The virgins are all trimming their wicks

The whirlwind is in the thorn tree

It’s hard for thee to kick against the pricks

In measured hundred weight and penny pound

When the man comes around

Album notes for The Man Comes Around, 2001

Marking June’s birthday, Carter Family Fold, Hiltons, Virginia, June 21, 2003

Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.

— REVELATION 21:5

The fulfillment of God’s plan for the farmer’s son was realized in this late-life crowning achievement, written as John waited for the angels to take him home. The pneumonia had wreaked its vengeance on his lungs too many times for him not to know how this story ended, but he was confident — certain — of the plotline with every fiber of his being. Other songs are said to be John Cash’s “parting message,” but he composed THE MAN COMES AROUND while staring into Heaven itself. To him, and perhaps to history, it is his greatest, ultimately defining, and most important work.

He penned an original lyric, then followed up to complete numerous rewrites, additional verses and versions, as if he knew this would be a parting message. Indeed, it is his magnum opus. “The Man” was inspired by a dream, in which he was talking to Queen Elizabeth — whose 1953 coronation he personally witnessed while on leave from the Air Force. She said to him, “Johnny Cash, you’re like a thorn tree in a whirlwind.” The song is filled with biblical allusions and spectacular, visionary glimpses of the End Times. He was a student of life, history, and the Bible, and his scholarship is evidenced throughout. With references to the New Testament’s books of Revelation, John, and Matthew, as well as those of Daniel, Jeremiah, and Genesis in the Old Testament, he painted his vision of the second coming. And, as he had done ever since Billy Joe made his unwise and fateful decision all those years ago, John reminds us one more time, in chilling terms, that choices lead to consequences.

In the face of death, John Cash showed us the face of God.

American IV: The Man Comes Around was the final album released during John’s lifetime, ten months before he died. The title cut was the only new Cash composition (although a magnificent last take on “Give My Love to Rose” won a Grammy for Best Male Country Vocal Performance). The collection included his triumphant swan song, Trent Reznor’s harrowing and revealing epic tale of confronting the demons in life at eternity’s gates, “Hurt.” John’s cover became a sensation, lifting the album to number two on the country charts and twenty-two on the pop charts.

Notebook entry, July 11, 2003

1 CORINTHIANS 15:55

2002

Oh Death, where is thy sting?

Oh Grave, where is thy victory?

Oh Life, you are a shining path

And hope springs eternal

Just over the rise

When I see my Redeemer beckoning me

Oh, row my ship over the waves of your sea

Let me find a safe port, now and then

Don’t let the dark one in your sanctuary

Until it’s time to pack it in

Oh, row, row my ship

With the fire of your breath

And don’t lay a broadside on your ship as yet

Blow ye warm winds

When it’s chilly and wet

And don’t come too soon

For collecting my debt

Oh Death, where is thy sting?

Oh Grave, where is thy victory?

Oh Life, you are a shining path

And hope springs eternal

Just over the rise

When I see my Redeemer beckoning me

Oh, let me sail on

With my ship to the east

And keep my eye on the North Star

When the journey is no good

For man or for beast

I’ll be safe wherever you are

Just let me sail into your harbor of lights

And there and forever

To cast out my night

Give me my task

And let me do it right

And do it with all of my might

Oh Death, where is thy sting?

Oh Grave, where is thy victory?

Oh Life, you are a shining path

And hope springs eternal

Just over the rise

When I see my Redeemer beckoning me

Johnny and June, Cash Cabin, Hendersonville, November 1998

John and June spent Christmas 2002 at their beloved Cinnamon Hill, but his pain and disease were unrelenting, and they would be forced to return to the U.S. before year’s end. Neither would see their Jamaica home again. Before that final departure, John penned 1 CORINTHIANS 15:55, based on the Epistle of Saint Paul. The apostle’s message, that sin and death have been overcome by Christ and the certainty of resurrection to new life, resounded with him. John personally did not like simply setting Scripture to music and then merely singing the sacred words to a tune. Here, he takes Paul’s elated call, “O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory?” and makes it his own declaration in his own words with his own heart. This is one of the last songs that John wrote, ever eloquent, ever defiant. Writing had always brought him joy. He never gave up on that joy, and considered “O Death” to be a statement of complete triumph.

“1 Corinthians 15:55” would be part of American VI: Ain’t No Grave. The posthumous album reached number two country and number three pop in 2010.

Now almost completely blind and wheelchair bound, he still could celebrate and share happy moments with June, family, and close friends. A video for “Hurt” was released in January 2003, and the response was overwhelming. The stark images of a young Johnny, contrasted with the gaunt, frail old man shown sitting alone at an elaborate dining table, reflecting on “What I have become,” were stunning and distressing. June, for one, was apoplectic at the scenes. But John, ever the artist, was positively gleeful at how the mind-numbing video, filmed by acclaimed auteur Mark Romanek, turned out. “This is so great!” he exclaimed.

The next month brought the Grammy for “Give My Love to Rose.” Then Country Music Television named John the Greatest Man in Country, a recognition previously exclusively reserved for Hank Williams. June, who had known Hank, was delighted. But the elation was illusory.

In May, while all eyes were focused on the Great Cash, fate delivered its cruelest blow, when June suddenly died of heart failure. Everything turned upside down. The loss was devastating. John had never conceived of a world with him in it and not June. “We were supposed to go together!” he cried at her grave. The pain was more crippling than even his worst physical ailments. His heart was broken, never to heal in this life.

Johnny’s personal Bible and cross

“Over Old Hickory,” by Joseph Cash, present day

LIKE THE 309

2003

It should be a while before I see Doctor Death

So, it would sure be nice if I could get my breath

Well, I’m not the crying, nor the whining kind

’Til I hear the whistle of the 309

Of the 309, of the 309

Put me in my box on the 309

Take me to the depot, put me to bed

Blow an electric fan on my gnarly ole head

Everybody take a look, see, I’m doing fine

Then load my box on the 309

On the 309, on the 309

Put me in my box on the 309

Hey, sweet baby, kiss me hard

Draw my bath water, sweep my yard

Give a drink of my wine to my Jersey cow

I wouldn’t give a hoot-and-nail for my journey now

On the 309, on the 309

I hear the sound of a railroad train

The whistle blows and I’m gone again

Hitman, take me higher than a Georgia pine

Stand back children, it’s the 309

It’s the 309, it’s the 309

Put me in my box on the 309

A chicken in the pot and turkey in the corn

Ain’t felt this good since Jubilee morn

Talk about luck, well, I got mine

Asthma coming down, like the 309

Write me a letter, sing me a song

Tell me all about it, what I did wrong

Meanwhile, I will be doing fine

Then load my box on the 309

On the 309, on the 309

Gonna get outta here on the 309

John had always known that life was brief, and how it could end quickly and with cruel finality. Yet he had great gratitude in having been able to love June. He found solace in music. In the four months after her death, he returned to the studio over and over. The process propelled him and sustained him. And he wrote. The old Cash cleverness never left. The last song he wrote was the sly ditty LIKE THE 309. Of course, the setting is a train depot. Secure in where he was headed, John laughed in the face of death again. “Hey, Porter!” had brought him home fifty years before; the 309 would take him away. With humor and grace, he was ready to go.

“Like the 309” is found on American V: A Hundred Highways. Released in 2006, that album went to the very top of both the country and pop charts.

Four days after June died, John recorded “I Found You Among the Roses,” an early-twentieth-century lullaby recorded by the Carter Family in 1940. It could have been written for her. This treasure remains unreleased.

Once again, dear, it’s June time, it’s rose time

All the flowers they bloom as of you

And the robin’s sweet song is singing

As I walk here to greet you once more

A year has passed here since I came here

This old love of ours to renew

And I found you among the roses

The day I come back to you

— George B. Pitman, 1916

His last recording was one more train-wreck tune, “Engine 143,” which he had first recorded in the 1960s. Poignantly, it was the first song June ever performed with her family on border radio at age ten. Then, finished saying what he had somehow willed himself to live and say, he quietly took his leave.

John Cash’s life affirmed what it is to live on humanity’s plane. He faced everything that we mortals hope to experience, and all that we fear possible. He told our story right along with his own. He encountered the worst, but never stopped believing in the best. The man wrote of us and for us, gifting a formidable legacy. These songs, the words, the music, and this life: they continue to inspire, and they will endure.

JOHN CARTER CASH

MY FATHER HATED no one. He lived by the motto “Choose Love.” I never saw him in rage, never saw him act out of anger. I saw him choose to forgive. His life was not a tragedy; it was a life fully lived. There were storms, and there were raging winds that shook the branches of the thorn tree. He watched the greatest loves he ever knew taken from him, yet he endured. He did not curse God. The frailty in his voice, evident in his last recordings, begs us to hear the words, and when we listen to the weathered old man, we smile. He makes us laugh, incites us to anger and revenge, and then leads us to the cross. It is in his written words that we better learn ourselves, and find meaning in life we would have otherwise missed.

I remember hearing “Flesh and Blood” when I was a boy. I misunderstood one of the lyrics.

“Dad?” I asked. “You wrote this song for my mother? In the song, you say, ‘Mother Nature’s a quiet lady.’ Dad, Mom’s not quiet. She talks a lot!”

He laughed. “I think you have the words wrong, son,” he answered. “I was talking about Mother Nature in that line, not about your mother.”

“Oh!” I said. “I see, then.”

The next day he brought me a handwritten copy of the lyrics. He told me the song was about his love for my mother, and I wouldn’t be here if not for that love. The meaning of the words held a different meaning to me, then. And I know love that much better because of it.

His words mean so much more to me now. He reminds me that I shouldn’t take life too seriously, but that I should walk the line. There are more reasons to wear black than just to look cool, but I keep it in my heart to wear a rainbow every day. I’d say he’s wearing Joseph’s multicolored coat of dreams today.

When my mother died, he was broken and stricken by fatal grief, but he was not angry. He knew this world was not about to relent its assault on him. And so, he laughed in the face of death, with “Like the 309,” which he recorded the morning of his last session. Later that day, he recorded the Carter Family song “Engine 143,” the first song my mother ever performed on border radio, giving homage to her and her legacy in his final breaths.

And so, “Flesh and Blood” reminds me of the changing seasons, that everything of beauty will cease to be so and that what remains will become only a thing of greater beauty tomorrow. I have seen this promise come true all around me. I saw my father’s strength falter, saw him wither, saw him die. But the seeds were planted, and the love is no more evident than in his words, in his faith, and finally, undeniably, in the eyes of my children.

So when the day was ended

I was still not satisfied

For I knew everything I touched

Would wither and would die

And love is all that will remain

And grow from all these seeds

Mother Nature’s quite a lady

But you’re the one I need

Flesh and blood needs flesh and blood

And you’re the one I need

Dyess, by Joseph Cash, present day

Carter Family Fold, June 21, 2003

I TURN AROUND TWICE

2000

I thought you were the greatest thing

That I had ever seen in my life

And who’d have thought we’d make it

Like we made it and I made you my wife

But it happened, as sometimes happens

We raised up a family and home

But I barely look up and there’s now snow in my hair

And I turn around twice and it’s gone

The years and the good times

And our life together

I turn around twice and it’s gone

I have seen your smiling eyes

Sparkling like a star in the sky

And I have seen your pretty face

Twisted down in pain when you’d cry

And the mountains… we climbed many a mountain

And fought and won, just you and I alone

But I barely look up and the sun’s going down

I turn around twice and it’s gone

The good days and sweet nights

And our life together

I turn around twice and it’s gone

I never did believe it

When you told me you’d grow old gracefully

I thought with time, we both would change

And you’d no longer mean the world to me

But what happened was, you became my world

And everything would end if you were gone

But I barely look up and the world’s at an end

I turn around twice and it’s gone

The fire and the youth

And two lives locked together

I turn around twice and it’s gone

PHOTO CREDITS

ABC Photo Archives / © ABC / Getty Images: here, here, here, here

Alfred Music: here (top), here, here, here

Arkansas State Archives, Call #ECD949.001: here

Joel Baldwin, LOOK Magazine Photograph Collection, Library of Congress (P&P): here (LC-L9-68-3986-SS, no. 11), here (LC-L9-68-3986-T, no. 10A), here (bottom left)

George N. Barnard, © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1933 (33.65.397), sourced by Art Resource, NY: here

Bettmann via Getty Images: here, here

George W. Bush Presidential Library, photo by Paul Morse: here

John R. Cash Revocable Trust: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here (by Dan Poush), here, here, here (by Dan Poush), here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here (by Dan Poush), here, here, here, here, here, here, here (by Dan Poush), here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here (by Dan Poush), here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here (inset note), here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here (top, middle, bottom right), here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here (inset), here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here

Joseph Cash: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here

Bob Cato, courtesy of Sony Music Archives: here, here

CBS Photo Archive via Getty Images: here

© Al Clayton, used with permission of Al Clayton Photography, LLC: here, here

Daniel Coston: here, here

Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum: here, here, here, here

Gary Gershoff via Getty Images: here

Bernard Gotryd, Library of Congress (P&P), LC-USZ62-123456: here

Dan Hadani Collection, The Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, The National Library of Israel: here, here, here

Jo Hale via Getty Images: here

HarperCollins Christian Publishing, used by permission. Man in White by Johnny Cash © by John R. Cash: here

Ballard Harris Family: here, here

Carol M. Highsmith’s America Project in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress (P&P): here (LG-DIG-highsm-68187), here (LC-HS503-1533)

Historic Dyess Colony, Johnny Cash Boyhood Home: here (middle)

Don Hunstein © Sony Music Entertainment: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here

Johnson Publishing Company Archive. Courtesy J. Paul Getty Trust and Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Made possible by the Ford Foundation, J. Paul Getty Trust, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Smithsonian Institute: here

Dorthea Lange, Library of Congress (P&P), FSA/OWI Collection, LC-USF34-017128-C, Lot 1643: here

Warren K. Leffler, Library of Congress (P&P): here (LG-UD-31588-B-22A), here (LG-UD-31588-A-13)

Harry Langdon via Getty Images: here

Edwin Locke, USRA. Library of Congress (P&P), FSA/OWI Collection: here (LC-USF33-004181-M2, Lot 1475), here (LC-USF33-004182-M1, Lot 1476)

© Jim Marshall Photography LLC: here, here, here, here

© Alan Messer: here, here

Bill Miller: here

National Archives: here (photo #75-N-PIM-33), here (WHPO 9650-26), here (Harry S. Truman Library)

Newport Festival Foundation via Getty Images: here

Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum: here

Michael Ochs Archives, via Getty Images: here, here, here, here (by Leila Grossman), here, here (by John R. Hamilton), here, here, here, here, here (by James Kriegsmann), here, here (by Jim Steinfeldt)

Pictoral Parade, via Getty Images: here, here

The Sam Phillips Family: here, here, here, here

Carol Pratt: here

Red Cloud Indian School and Marquette University. Holy Rosary Mission–Red Cloud Indian School Records, ID# UA_HRM_RCIS_00061: here, here

Sid Salter, Mississippi State University: here

Rowland Scherman via Getty Images: here

© SCMFT: here

Andrew Shiva / Wikipedia / CC BY-SA 4.0: here

Paul Slade / Paris Match via Getty Images: here

Sony Music Archives, album covers: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here

Mark Stielper: here

Tennessee State Library & Archives: here, here

Union Pacific Railroad Museum: here

UMG / American Recordings: here

U.S. Bureau of Land Management, 1970s: here

John Vachon, Library of Congress (P&P), FSA/OWI, LC-USF34-601742-D, Lot 408: here

Marion Post Wolcott, Library of Congress (P&P) FSA/OWI Collection, LC-USF34-055202-D: here

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to all who made this book possible. Many were essential to gathering lyrics, poems, images, handwritten documents, and artifacts. Thank you to Josh Matas for your determination and guidance through the process, and to Cathy Sullivan and Tiffany Dunn for keeping me on track and on time. Thank you to those who painstakingly gave their time and hearts to scanning, cyphering, and cataloging the lyrics. To name a few: Lauren Moore, Allison McCoury, Joe Cash (for photography and much more), Kenan McGuffey, Forrest Cashion, Lisa Trice, and Sandra Stillwagon.

Eternal gratitude falls to Jason Preston, whom I’ve worked with since the year my father passed, for cataloging, organizing, and finding the hidden gems within what at first may have seemed a random sampling of fan letters, scrapbooks, and photo albums. Jason, you set a high standard and hold the torch high in the dim spaces. A book like this involves the management of a huge amount of details to make it happen. Dr. Brian Dempsey created a visual palette worthy to present Johnny Cash’s work. He identified, sourced, curated, organized, and gorgeously designed the photographs that bring the story to life. I am in awe. And special thanks to my wife, Ana Cristina Cash (who holds a master’s in creative writing and literature from Harvard University), for standing behind me to remind me of, and support my dedication to, creativity through words, and for reading and commenting on much of my humble contributions here.

I don’t know how Trey Call manages all the projects he undertakes with such ability and calm. He makes even the most complex matters seem easy, even when they are definitely not. Thank you, Trey.

With a full and grateful heart, I thank my friend Mark Stielper for writing the body of the text with such authority and grace. Mark, your encyclopedic knowledge of, and devotion to, my parents’ legacy and history is without equal — and thanks for answering the phone those early mornings around 3 a.m. when I’d call with questions such as “What color dress was my mother wearing the night she met my father?” (“Blue, of course.”) and the title of the first song they ever sang on the stage together (“That would be ‘It Ain’t Me, Babe.’ Good night!” — click!).

And thank you to editor Michael Szczerban for being willing to stick with our vision and help secure Dad’s written work in the hands of music lovers and historians of the foundation of recorded music in the twentieth century. Thanks also to his team at Voracious / Little, Brown: Nell Beram, Jessica Chun, Kirin Diemont, Thea Diklich-Newell, Jeffrey Gantz, Paul Kepple, Karen Landry, Katharine Myers, Dianna Stirpe, and Nyamekye Waliyaya. You see that Dad is more than an entertainer and musician; he is a voice of America’s soil and an essential English language literary figure. And I am beyond grateful to those who influenced the formation and evolution of his writing, from William Blake to A.P. Carter and Woody Guthrie, from Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Hank Williams to Hank Snow, and from King David and John Newton to Kris Kristofferson and Bob Dylan — it’s all in there!

— JOHN CARTER CASH

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

JOHNNY CASH (1932–2003) was an American singer and songwriter who continues to be one of the bestselling musical artists of all time. He is best known for blending country, rock, blues, and gospel in his music, ushering in the Countrypolitan and Outlaw country movements. Cash was also a successful actor, writer, and activist. His lifelong support for SOS Children’s Villages, a nonprofit advocating for children in need, led to the creation of the Johnny Cash Memorial Fund to carry on that legacy after his death.

JOHN CARTER CASH is the only son of Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. He has produced five Grammy Award–winning albums and owns and operates the Cash Cabin Studio in Tennessee. He is also the author of House of Cash: The Legacies of My Father, Johnny Cash.

MARK STIELPER has chronicled the life of the Man in Black for nearly forty years, contributing to a dozen Cash biographies, appearing on screen in documentaries, and speaking at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Country Music Hall of Fame, and the Cash museum. Johnny Cash himself called Stielper “my friend, the family historian” and said, “He knows more about me than me.”