Johnny Cash

I saw the movie. That was in 2006 in a hotel room in Toronto. But better, I saw Johnny Cash, the man, perform live. That was when? I don’t remember, late 90s I guess. He played the free Grandstand at the Red River Ex, and I went with my friend Harold. The show wasn’t great though; Cash had his family in tow, June Carter was there, and his son John Jr. who had to be coerced to appear on stage, though Rosanne was nowhere in sight. No it wasn’t a great show; the man seemed tired, there was an absence of energy throughout. But still, I saw Johnny Cash.

This is a real hodgepodge here. The Sun tracks all come from a TV album called Original Golden Hits, probably on the Syndicate label, which was the precursor to K-Tel. Then comes Johnny Cash’s Greatest Hits Volume 1 which I probably picked up at Pyramid. There was a collection of some sort that I found at the WK library, and that has the more recent tracks. And a 20 track collection that I found at Woolco so long ago. That’s where it all started. That was a Columbia special products release that I’ve only ever seen one copy of, and that was my copy. What Is Truth came from a K-Tel album.

And for all that, I’m still missing 20 of his 48 top 100 singles.

---

Johnny Cash:

• Folsom Prison Blues – It was Merle Haggard who sang Freedom Train, but for Johnny Cash every train was a freedom train, and here he sits in his prison cell, “I know I had it comin’, I know I can’t be free.” And train whistle drives him into a kind of madness, “the train keeps on a-movin’ and that’s what tortures me.” The song later came to symbolize Cash’s seemingly symbiotic relationship to the incarcerated; a live remake hit the top 40 in 1968, and it was the title track of one of two live-in-prison albums Cash did, the other being San Quentin. Reached number 4 on the country charts, and that was late in 1955. This was the B side of So Doggone Lonesome.
• Hey Porter – And here he is on the train, the porter being his liaison between the machine and the man, a workingman, it’s not the engineer he sings to. Here the train means home, Tennessee, and he’s gonna “breathe that southern air.” The B side of Cry Cry Cry.
• So Doggone Lonesome – Not just a song of heartbreak, and waiting for her return that will never happen, but he will do it because “I believe that lovin’ you is right.” This is the man who “shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die,” back in Folsom Prison Blues, but there is no contradiction, and the reconciliation is not in the words, it’s in Luther Perkins’ guitar. Just listen. His first top 10 country hit, from late 1955. (I wrote this before I found the video)
• There You Go – “I know you’re gonna be the way you’ve always been” sings Johnny Cash about the girl who is walking out the door. I guess that’s how people are.
• Next In Line – Well he has his sights set on someone, and he says it’s his turn, and it’s an odd way of stating one’s romantic intentions, but Johnny Cash often has odd ways of expressing things.
• Cry Cry Cry – She’s running around. Johnny expends a lot of energy imagining how sad she’ll be when he walks away. Not sure why he is still around… This was his first single to appear on the country charts, and that was in the summer of 1955.
• I Walk The Line – A song of stability and steadfastness. He redid this in the early 60s after he joined Columbia, but it was the Sun version that was his first entry on the top 100, and that was in the fall of 1956.
• Don’t Make Me Go – It ain’t over till it’s over. Not wanting to give up in the face of hopelessness. The B side of Next In Line. Words to remember: “I’m sorry that I never knew, how to show my love to you, I took too much for granted…”
• Train Of Love – Not the Annette song. Here the train is a means to escape, but not for him. The B side of There You Go.
• Home Of The Blues – This lament to heartbreak was on the pop charts in the fall of 1957.
• Get Rhythm – A song about a shoeshine boy. Originally the B side of I Walk The Line, this record was reissued and hit the charts in late 1969.
• I Guess Things Happen That Way – From the summer of 1958. Resigned and philosophical. Someone at Sun thought that a chorus would be a good idea; it sounds a bit weird. “Heaven help me be a man and have the strength to stand alone.”
• Doin’ My Time – Back in prison.
• Blue Train – recorded in 1958, but released in 1962 When Johnny Cash is sad, he’s not just sad, he’s riding a blue train. I can’t say that in a more modern era he’s be flying a blue plane. It’s more than just the means of locomotion. Planes just don’t have that chug a chug rhythm, for one thing…
• Ballad Of A Teenage Queen – From the winter of 1958, could it be that Sun was trying to position Johnny Cash as a teen idle? A sad tale of the girl who went off to Hollywood, left the guy behind, the guy who worked at the candy store. Things didn’t work out for her, and she went back. Nice. The Candy store?
• Sugartime – The McGuire Sisters’ hit, honest. Ok, released by Sun in 1961, this doesn’t really work.
• Wreck Of The Old ’97 – From an album released in 1957, the fragility of life, portrayed as a train wreck.
• I Could Never Be Ashamed Of You – Johnny Cash sings Hank Williams. One can’t imagine two more different country styles. It sounds totally Johnny Cash.
• Rock Island Line – From the Leadbelly catalogue, and a hit in ’56 by Lonnie Donegan, Cash obviously could not resist another train tale. Not the best version I’ve ever heard. A reissue of this single crept into the charts in early 1970.
• Come In Stranger – There is a version of this by Ian & Sylvia. About a reunion.
• Big River – The B side of Ballad Of A Teenage Queen, and a lot more authentic. Another song of heartbreak.
• You’re The Nearest Thing To Heaven – The B side of The Ways Of A Woman In Love, this is from the fall of 1958.
• Ways Of A Woman In Love – From the summer of 1958. It hurts to watch your woman fall for someone else.
• I Heard That Lonesome Whistle – Another Hank Williams song. Perfect for Cash though; he sings again from a prison cell. This is kind of Folsom Prison in the test tube. .
• I’d Still Be There – Not my choice, he says, to have ended things. A song about how little control we have over the most important things in our lives.
• What Do I Care – We are into the Columbia period now. This is from the fall of 1958.
• I Still Miss Someone
• Were You There – In-your-face religion. Not to get theological here or anything, but I wonder what the significance of having been there is. Chronologically, obviously nobody listening to this was there, not even anyone back in the early 60s when this was done (!). Perhaps it is speaking of spiritual heritage. I wonder.
• Bonanza! – Theme song from the TV show with Lorne Green etc. Al Caiola put this on the chart in its instrumental incarnation, which is how it was heard on TV, but here are the words. From the fall of 1962.
• The Big Battle – The battle ain’t over till it’s over. This is more or less literal, but also not literal. Every shot fired has an echo…
• Remember The Alamo – Another war song, this one about Davy Crockatt. Donovan covered this.
• Tennessee Flat Top Box – Autobiography? Though Cash strummed rhythm, I don’t think guitar was his forte per se. Maybe this was about Luther Perkins. From late 1961.
• (There’ll Be) Peace In The Valley (For Me) – Another spiritual. Elvis actually put this one on the charts.
• It Ain’t Me Babe – Oh yeah, I gave her my heart, but she wanted my soul. Bob Dylan put this at the end of Another Side Of Bob Dylan, in 1964. Cash’s version made the pop charts a full year before The Turtles’, that was in the fall of ’64. It was the first Dylan cover by a country artist. The mariachi sounding trumpets are a bit out of place. Apart from that, Cash totally got Dylan.
• The Ballad Of Ira Hayes – How our heroes are vulnerable. He was a hero in the marines, but at home he a victim of poverty. His actual biography suggests that he was a victim of post traumatic stress disorder, and alcoholism. Dylan covered this and it turned up on Dylan. Stick to Cash’s version, though.
• The Rebel – He was known to have said that he didn’t “cotton much to hippahs” but Johnny Cash was as much a rebel as the freakiest Haight-Ashbury hippie. The rebel he was singing about here, though, was Johnny Yuma – and this was from the TV show. Like Bonanza, Cash sang the words that nobody knew from watching TV.
• A Boy Named Sue – A song by Shel Silverstein, recorded live at San Quentin, put Johnny Cash in the mainstream. I remember this one, it’s from the summer of 1969.
• What Is Truth – I remember this one too, I remember thinking that it mighty profound. The truth is that it’s a bit clichéd, but Cash pulls it off, and the folky guitar and the subtle strings don’t hurt either. From the spring of 1970.
• Ring Of Fire – The trumpet in here is a bit strange. Otherwise this tale of love as fire is, well, not typical Cash actually. From the summer of 1963, there is a psychedelisized cover by Eric Burdon & The Animals.
• If I Were A Carpenter – Johnny Cash & June Carter. From the winter of 1970, but I don’t remember hearing it. It’s by Tim Hardin, and it was a hit first for Bobby Darin, then for The Four Tops, before Mr. and Mrs. Cash had a crack at it. It’s alright, but Cash sounds more like the carpenter he is singing about not being than like the gentleman who is supposedly singing this.
• 40 Shades Of Green – Cash is Irish for this one. I’m not sure what possessed him to do this, but it isn’t exactly convincing.
• Oh What A Dream – This has the corniest chorus. I think this is about being dead.
• Pickin’ Time – A working man’s lament. For the farmer in the song it’s pickin time, for the retail merchant it’s December, for the accountant it’s tax time…
• Seasons Of My Heart
• Sunday Morning Coming Down – Cash does Kristofferson. Here he is in his element. Whoever decided to arrange the strings should have decided not to. I remember hearing Ray Stevens’ version, and I had a magazine that had song lyrics, and the magazine identified this as a Johnny Cash record. I didn’t hear it though, until years later. From the fall of 1970.
• Man In Black – Autobiography.
• (Ghost) Riders In The Sky – The first version of this song I actually heard, and I remember hearing when it was on the country station play list in the late 70s, as I was cruising around time in my cab. This is probably the most musically satisfying version, the only real competition being The Sons Of The Pioneers.
• Without Love – Not the Clyde McPhatter song. The song is about lve generally, as a human quality, the quality that makes the difference between man and machine.
• The Baron – The story of a western hero, with all too human flaws.
• Guess Things Happen That Way – The Columbia re-recording, virtually indistinguishable from the original.
• San Quentin – A prison, recorded live at Folsom Prison. He also recorded an album at San Quentin. This is Cash at his best. “I’ll walk out a wiser weaker man” he sings, but there is nothing about his delivery that suggests weakness. “Do you think I’ll be different when you’re through,” he sings a verse or two later, contradicting the earlier pronouncement. That’s it. And really, it’s all there in the fuzz tone lead guitar.
• Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right – It was fitting that Cash did Dylan, because so many people complained that Dylan “couldn’t sing,” and so many people complained that Cash “couldn’t sing.” And what was true of both, either you get it, or you don’t. And once you get it, you know that there is a huge difference between knowing how to sing and having a “good voice.” This was one of the most covered Dylan songs, with versions by Peter, Paul & Mary, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, Joan Baez, The Wonder Who, The T-Bones, Melanie. Cash delivers with his trademark bitterness, giving it a rare degree of authenticity, and making it one of the better covers around.
• Orange Blossom Special – It’s all here, the tick tack train rhythm, the amazing harmonica (I can’t prove that it’s Charlie McCoy, but who else could it be), Cash serving up the song with just the right balance of humour and wistfulness. So many people recorded this one (Jimmie Rogers, Bill Monroe, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Seatrain, Charlie McCoy himself etc.) Another great performance. From the winter of 1965.
• The One On The Right Is On The Left – Cash pokes fun at political expression by musicians, which is odd because he sure had enough political stuff in his music – well ok, not party politics, but surely The Ballad Of Ira Hayes was as political as anything. From the winter of 1966.
• One Piece At Time – “Negatory on the cost of the mochine there Red Ryder.” Johnny works in an automobile factory and comes up with a plan to steal a car over the years “one piece at a time.” And of course in the end the pieces don’t fit and the results are knee-slappingly hilarious. “Something was de-fi-nite-ly wrong.” From the spring of 1976. “It’s a ‘49, ‘50, ‘51, ‘52, ‘53,’54, ‘55, ‘56, ‘57, ‘58, ‘59 automobile; it’s ‘60, ‘61, ‘62, ‘63, ‘64, ‘65, ‘66, ‘67, ‘68, ‘69, ‘70 automobile…”
• A Thing Called Love – A bit of his corny side, doesn’t quite pull this off, for my money. A hit on the UK chart in the spring of 1972.
• Daddy Sang Bass – One of his best known, and a variation of Will The Circle Be Unbroken. It’s about the sanctity and safety of stability of the family unit. And it’s all wonderful, but not borne out much in reality, except I suppose in rare cases. From the winter of 1969.
• Folsom Prison Blues – The live version from 1967, a hit in the winter of ’67 / 68.
• Understand Your Man – Kind of a Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right redux, but more direct and Cash-like. Strikes home like a firing squad. From the winter of 1964. http
• If I Had A Hammer – What was he saying about politics and music not mixing? This was a hit by Peter, Paul & Mary and by Trini Lopez. With June Carter.
• Five Feet High And Rising – The story of a flood, and the human response thereto. From the fall of 1959.
• Danny Boy – Wikipedia lists what looks like about 100 versions of this. I didn’t count them. I listen to Cash sing it, and I can’t decide whether it is really good or really terrible. He is definitely out of his comfort zone, but that could be a good thing or a bad thing, and that’s what it is here, a good thing or a bad thing. It’s from the Orange Blossom Special album, 1965.
• Don’t Take Your Guns To Town – From the winter of 1959. A song about male insecurity, and the tension that a mother’s love produces in the son.
• Jackson – Johnny Cash & June Carter. Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazelwood did it first. I guess this is more country. A great song of marital discord on the outside, and harmony just beneath.