Happy Birthday to the Man in Black
Johnny Cash would have been 80 years old on Sunday if he hadn't have left this world nine years ago to join his siren wife, June Carter Cash, in the next.
To celebrate his birthday, B. B. King's, a legendary New York City blues club in the heart of Times Square, hosted a Johnny Cash tribute band last Friday night, which I had the pleasure of seeing with my boyfriend and my younger brother. A real crowd pleaser, the Ring of Fire Band's lead singer, Michael Patrick, covered all the favorites--Man in Black, Jackson, Folsom Prison Blues, A Boy Named Sue--with an impressive likeness to Cash. And the middle aged crowd, hooting and hollering all night long, was as fun and rowdy as the guys on stage. It was a good time all around. My favorite part of the night was singing along to the soulful Daddy Sang Bass.
Here are the lyrics, which ring with hope and joy:
I remember when I was a lad,
times were hard and things were bad.
But there's a silver lining behind every cloud.
Just poor people, that's all we were.
Trying to make a living out of black land dirt.
We'd get together in a family circle singing loud.Daddy sang bass,
Mama sang tenor.
Me and little brother would join right in there.
Singing seems to help a troubled soul.
One of these days and it won't be long.
I'll rejoin them in a song.
I'm gonna join the family circle at the Throne.
No, the circle won't be broken.
By and by, Lord, by and by.Daddy sang bass,
Mama sang tenor.
Me and little brother would join right in there.
In the sky, Lord, in the sky.Now I remember after work,
Mama would call in all of us.
You could hear us singing for a country mile.
Now little brother has done gone on.
But, I'll rejoin him in a song.
We'll be together again up yonder in a little while.
As you can see, you can't listen to Cash's songs without noticing the religiosity of their simple, yet brutally sincere, words. Cocaine Blues, Delia's Gone, Folson Prison Blues, A Boy Named Sue, and Jackson are all about sin and suffering. Man in Black, Daddy Sang Bass, and If I Were a Carpenter are full of redemption. And his entire 2002 album, When the Man Comes Around, released the year before he died, booms with the haunted finality of the Book of Revelation.
Anyhow, listening to all of this Cash inspired me to dig up some of his thoughts on his faith, and unsurprisingly, they are every bit as honest and forthright as his songs are:
"I don't compromise my religion," Cash once declared. "If I'm with someone who doesn't want to talk about it, I don't talk about it. I don't impose myself on anybody in any way, including religion. When you're imposing you're offending, I feel. Although I am evangelical, and I'll give the message to anyone that wants to hear it, or anybody that is willing to listen. But if they let me know that they don't want to hear it, they ain't never going to hear it from me. If I think they don't want to hear it, then I will not bring it up. "
In short, "telling others is part of our faith all right, but the way we live it speaks louder than we can say it," Cash said. "The gospel of Christ must always be an open door with a welcome sign for all. "
"There's nothing hypocritical about it," Cash told Rolling Stone scribe Anthony DeCurtis. "There is a spiritual side to me that goes real deep, but I confess right up front that I'm the biggest sinner of them all." To Cash, even his near deadly bout with drug addiction contained a crucial spiritual element. "I used drugs to escape, and they worked pretty well when I was younger. But they devastated me physically and emotionally—and spiritually ... [they put me] in such a low state that I couldn't communicate with God. There's no lonelier place to be. I was separated from God, and I wasn't even trying to call on Him. I knew that there was no line of communication. But He came back. And I came back."
And while his body suffered under the strain wrought by years of abuse, Cash's mind stayed strong ... and his spirit stayed stronger.
"Being a Christian isn't for sissies," Cash said once. "It takes a real man to live for God---a lot more man than to live for the devil, you know? If you really want to live right these days, you gotta be tough." What's more, he's intimately aware of the hard truths about living God's way: "If you're going to be a Christian, you're going to change. You're going to lose some old friends, not because you want to, but because you need to."
"Being a Christian isn't for sissies." Can you imagine a pop star saying that today in our metrosexual culture? Which brings me to another point: just as Cash's spirituality is starkly present in his songs, so is his smoldering manliness---two qualities that could stand to make a comeback among our popular singers and songwriters today.
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Comments:
Jun '10
Re: Happy Birthday to the Man in Black
...and the last chapter of his life was just as rich as the others.
Johnny Cash: Hurt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clq01TXQR0s
Re: Happy Birthday to the Man in Black
Yep. Hurt is my favorite Cash song too. I think he's the greatest interpreter who ever lived - better even than Sinatra. You think of his covers of U2's One Love, Nick Cave's Mercy Seat, Neil Diamond's Solitary Man - every one of them is better than the originals. It's a cliche but true - the man was an Old Testament prophet.
Oct '11
Re: Happy Birthday to the Man in Black
Thanks Emily. There is a lot to think about in what you say. You also provide an appropriate occasion to revisit the piece written shortly after his death by my friend Peter Candler, which is still the best tribute that I have seen. So good, in fact, that I've always sort of wished I had written it myself.
http://www.firstthings.com/print.php?type=article&year=2007&month=01&title_link=johnny-of-the-cross-44
Feb '12
Re: Happy Birthday to the Man in Black
I guarantee you that Johnny Cash never uptalked.
May '10
Re: Happy Birthday to the Man in Black
Emily Esfahani Smith:
"Being a Christian isn't for sissies." Can you imagine a pop star saying that today in our metrosexual culture? Which brings me to another point: just as Cash's spirituality is starkly present in his songs, so is his smoldering manliness---two qualities that could stand to make a comeback among our popular singers and songwriters today.
Well said.
Johnny Cash was a great songwriter; and interpreter, as James said. "Solitary Man" is one of my favorites. "Rusty Cage" is another.
It's remarkable that his love of music and humility was such that he looked to modern rock bands (Trent Reznor, of all people!) for songs to cover.
May '10
Re: Happy Birthday to the Man in Black
Thanks for this. It makes me want to pack up and move back home to Nashville. I think the country-western tradition that Cash contributed to had and still has a big dose of spirituality and smoldering manliness. I think it began to lose favor in the late 80's and 90's to a more pop-country, over-produced style, i.e. Garth Brooks. I think the country music industry wanted to broaden its appeal (make more money) by making it more sophisticated (losing the rhinestones, Hee Haw) and accessible (less emphasis on its gospel roots). It lost its way for a while, but one of Cash's last gifts was to remind the industry country-western music could still have mainstream appeal.
Nov '10
Re: Happy Birthday to the Man in Black
Wonderful Emily, Thanks very much!
Apr '11
Re: Happy Birthday to the Man in Black
I love Johnny Cash! He only got better with age, musically...my Favorite Songs of his are the ballads because I like songs that tell a story...Wanted Man, Tennessee Stud, John Henry, and my friend Hung My Head...he truly was a great musician.
Dec '10
Re: Happy Birthday to the Man in Black
Emily,
If you didn't love Johnny Cash there just wasn't any blood running through your veins.
Because you're mine. I walk the line.
Regards,
Jim
Re: Happy Birthday to the Man in Black
Emily, glad to see you have good taste. My family does not share my appreciation for the man in black, though my youngest does like Ring of Fire. In general I repair to my basement workshop, light a cigar, and crank up the Johnny Cash -- and then find that neither my wife nor my daughters will venture downstairs.
PS, Though I love Johnny Cash, I do find the actual song "Man in Black" somewhat pandering.
Mar '11
Re: Happy Birthday to the Man in Black
There was never a voice quite like that. I hear songs on the radio occasionally that I had no idea that he recorded, and the recognition of those pipes is instantaneous. And the ones that I have heard before, still incredible.
Five Feet High and Rising, Folsom Prison Blues, The Blues Keep Gettin' Bluer, I'm Ragged But I'm Right...
Dec '10
Re: Happy Birthday to the Man in Black
For my money, this was the piece de resistance of Johnny Cash's oeuvre.
Re: Happy Birthday to the Man in Black
Let me recommend without reservation Cash’s unbelievably touching My Mother’s Hymn Book, off of which this track, “I’ll Fly Away” is just one of bunch of songs that sing with a sincere joy and a clear-eyed knowledge of the trials of this vale of tears.
I got the link from this page, which is worth visiting as it’s got several other tracks from the album cued up for you. They describe it as, “from the haunted heart of American low-church Protestantism.” That’s about right, if you understand it’s haunted by God, rather like Tarwater in “The Violent Bear It Away.”
Just wonderful stuff. Enjoy.
Nov '10
Re: Happy Birthday to the Man in Black
We all have our Johnny Cash favorites. This is mine.
May '10
Re: Happy Birthday to the Man in Black
The first Johnny Cash song I remember hearing is Boy Named Sue on the local radio. It sure wasn't the Herman's Hermits and Monkees fare I was used to.
Hurt is my absolute favorite of Johnny's recordings. I had a bit of a different takeaway than the FirstThings commentary mentioned by Michael. I felt Johnny was singing about the emptiness of chasing the baubles and heights of this life, the aching loss of those you love to these temporal bodies we inhabit and the pain of his own failing body and finally, perhaps, deep regret believing he had failed his Saviour. But, I guess that's the nature of art, we all interpret it subjectively. My "low country Protestantism" is kicking in here.
Bill, funny you should mention Tarwater... I've always thought of Johnny Cash as a Flannery O'Connor character in the flesh.
Aug '10
Re: Happy Birthday to the Man in Black
Way back in the days before everything was portable, Franklin Electronics put out a handheld electronic version of the King James Bible. It was searchable, supported bookmarks, had an integrated index and dictionary... and a daily devotional program with Scripture passages read by the great Johnny Cash.
Now I have 10 versions of the Bible in a free iOS app, and Google lets me search everything. But I still keep my Bookman Bible (and 4 AAA batteries) on my desk, occasionally switching it on to hear Cash read the Word for the day.
(The original device seems to be way out of production; the plasticky version I found on Amazon added the NIV translation, but dropped the Cash audio. However, there seems to have been a full recording of Johnny Cash reading the entire New Testament. If it's anything like the devotionals he recorded for Franklin, that would be one incredible bit of audio.)
Edited on February 29, 2012 at 2:19am