You Wonder Why I Always Dress In Black

Jesse Walker | September 12, 2003

Everybody loved Johnny Cash. I don't care how much someone swears he hates country music, how long he rants against cowboy hats and checkered shirts and the Grand Old Opry and Goo Goo Clusters. Just wait till he pauses to catch his breath, and then say, "What about Johnny Cash?"

"Oh," he'll tell you. "Johnny Cash is all right."

Cash was one of the great figures of modern popular music, but as I spend the day cycling through the dozen-plus albums of his that I've accumulated over the years, I'm thinking about more than how much I like his records. I'm pondering his iconic stature: his status as the one American that everybody loved. Once I saw a band from Zimbabwe play a concert, and we all laughed when they announced that they were going to play a song "written for us by Johnny Cash." But then they broke into an Afropop version of "Ring of Fire," and everyone looked kind of nonplussed for about a second -- and then we all started dancing. Because everybody loves that song. Everybody loves Johnny Cash.

It's part of the Cash legend that he "came out against the Vietnam War." That he did, but the way he did it is telling. The song in question, "Singing in Vietnam Talking Blues," relates how he and June Carter Cash went to play for the boys overseas, and how much they liked the soliders, and how rough things are over there; it ends with the declaration that they sure hope the boys can come home soon, "in peace." Even Ann Coulter would feel mighty churlish calling a man a traitor for that, or for this little speech he gave at a concert in 1969, right after singing a tribute to the men who died at the Alamo:

Everywhere we go these days, it seems like, all of a sudden, reporters and people will ask us questions -- ask us questions about things that they didn't use to ask. It seems like everyone's concerned about our national problems, about the war in Vietnam -- as we have long been. And they say things like, "How do you feel about the Vietnam situation, the war in Vietnam?"

I'll tell you exactly how I feel about it. This past January we took our entire show, along with my wife June, we went to Long Bien Air Force Base near Saigon. And--

(loud cheering from the crowd)

And a reporter friend of mine asked, said, "That makes you a hawk, doesn't it?" And I said, "No, that don't make me a hawk. No. No, that don't make me a hawk."

(more cheering, not as loud)

But I said, "If you watch the helicopters bring in the wounded boys, then you go into the wards and sing for 'em and try to do your best to cheer them up so that they can get back home, it might make you a dove with claws."

(wild cheering)

And then he sings a peacenik folk song, "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream."

I saw Cash play just once in my life. It was 1995, and he was riding high from the success of his American Recordings album; the concert was in Seattle, and he had just recorded a track with some local rockers, including Krist Novoselic of Nirvana and Sean Kinney of Alice in Chains. The crowd was a mosaic of the city: grunge kids and grandmas, hippies and cowboys, Christians and drunks.

Everybody seemed to love the show. Because everybody loves Johnny Cash.

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|9.12.03 @ 1:08AM|#

Having been a fan since the '50's when my Dad would play his Sun records, I expected to be devastated when he passed. I saw him back back in 1997 or so and he was in fine form. I was impressed with the sincerity and depth of his faith and his love for his wife. He packed so much livin' into his life, he came from the country and went in so many directions musically and culturally. His albums for American never let us down, even as they revealed his age and illness. June Carter Cash passed away a while back, and all things added up, I'm somber and saddened, but not devastated. R.I.P., John.

|9.12.03 @ 1:30AM|#

Frank Zappa also covered "Ring of Fire" during his last tour in 1988 and put his version on one of his albums. On introducing the song, he announced that he'd tapped the Man in Black to join him on stage to sing it, but JC had to bow out on short notice.

Jayson Gilligan|9.12.03 @ 2:12AM|#

He wasn't the foundation of country music...he came too late for that. He was more like the oxygen of country music, because any fan or person involved in the industry breathes him in.

Happily we still have Dwight Yoakam and a few others to write & play like he did as refuge from the crossovers.

|9.12.03 @ 2:41AM|#

I love the way the politicians always embraced Cash. You think they ever heard him sing his gleeful rendition of "Cocaine Blues."

"I can't believe the day I shot that bad bitch down"

Warren|9.12.03 @ 4:57AM|#

The thing I remember most about Cash was not his music. It was that he was the man in black. As a child I couldn't understand why anyone would want to honor a bunch of criminals like that. As an adult, I support putting violent criminals in prison, but I'm saddened at the suffering that prison brings. Yes, even the suffering of criminals. My angst over the torment of these forgotten men was likely impacted by JC. At any rate whenever I saw him, I always had a thought for his wardrobe and it's significance.

|9.12.03 @ 5:01AM|#

I was just listening to an NPR story from a while back - www.npr.org/display_pages/features/feature_1428871.html - and I learned two interesting things. One, Johnny Cash loves the movie Dr. Strangelove, and two, Hank Williams once almost shot his future wife. He was aiming at his wife Audrey, missed, and almost shot June.

Sean|9.12.03 @ 5:27AM|#

As for Cash cover, Social Distortion's "Ring of Fire" is my favorite.

With regards to Cash's song subject matter, it served me well in several respects. My favorite was an argument with some ass at a dinner party a few years ago. After stating that country music was the only "real music," he went on a tirade about rap music glorifying drugs and guns. After he finished and some polite heads stopped bobbing, I brought up "Cocaine" and "Folsom Prison Blues." We didn't have to listen to a peep from the guy on the subject of music the rest of the night.

Favorite song: "Sunday Morning, Coming Down." Sweet Jesus.

Jesse Walker|9.12.03 @ 5:43AM|#

I like Social Distortion's cover of "Ring of Fire," but to my taste the best remake of that song is the one by Ray Charles. I guess he'll be dying pretty soon, too. Crap.

"Sunday Morning Coming Down" is up there in my personal pantheon as well. It's probably the best song Kris Kristofferson ever wrote, and Cash's version is my favorite that's out there.

Favorite obscure Cash track: "Michigan City." It's on the One Piece at a Time album (whose title track may be my favorite Cash song of all time). Well worth the hunt.

|9.12.03 @ 8:22AM|#

I saw him in Portland on that same tour on a beatiful summer evening, outdoors. I cherish the memory.

pops|9.12.03 @ 10:27AM|#

This morning when I heard that Johnny Cash had died I immediately flashed on about 6 legendary stories I'd heard about him. (Like there were any other kind.)

My favorite was when Merle haggard told Johnny how much he liked JC's show at San Quentin in 1958. Cash said to him, "I don't remember you on the bill."

Merle said, "I wasn't, I was in the crowd."

Rex Stetson|9.12.03 @ 11:38AM|#

At least with Johnny Cash you kinda knew it was coming, and could prepare yourself. Cash was cool and stayed really new and popular to the end, but you can kind of brace yourself for it- he was old and sick and lived a hard life. Everyone had the obits ready to go, like Bob Hope or something.

I am truly much more saddened today by the less-telegraphed, wholly unexpected death of John Ritter, Three's Company's "Jack Tripper". Reminds me of when Jim Henson died so suddenly. Very disturbing for a child of the '80's...

Ritter is eulogized on my blog, but not here since it's pretty Off Topic.

|9.12.03 @ 11:53AM|#

Nitpicking: June wrote "Ring Of Fire" with Merle Kilgore.

Jesse Walker|9.12.03 @ 11:57AM|#

I know that, actually. But the Zimbabwean fellow apparently did not.

clark|9.12.03 @ 11:58AM|#

How come you didn't make a red/blue America remark? Don't you read the Corner?

|9.12.03 @ 12:02PM|#

One of the many great things about Johnny Cash is the way his songs sweep the landscape of popular music. Yes, he was absolutely a country singer, but he also played folk, blues, gospel, and rock. I don't think anybody did it better. RIP.

|9.12.03 @ 12:24PM|#

As a testament to his broad appeal, I was impressed to learn that he's in both the Country Hall of Fame as well as the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame (as well as the Songwriter's Hall of Fame).

|9.12.03 @ 12:25PM|#

Not everybody loved Cash. In 95 I remember screeching feminists protesting the AR song Delia's Gone ("..if I hadn't shot poor Delia, I'd have had her for my wife...")

|9.12.03 @ 12:33PM|#

Hello Lord, I'm Johnny Cash

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