Think about the lyrics to his song "Man In Black": " I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down/Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town". He doesn't stop there either as he goes on to say that although we think we're doing good, with all our fancy stuff, we need to be reminded of the ones worse off then us; "Up front there ought to be a Man In Black". Punk rockers have continued that tradition since they first started back in the seventies. They have been the men and women "in black" in spirit and attitude for thirty years now. It didn't come as any surprise to me how easily they identify with Cash's music.
Some people might think that the punks would have a hard time with Johnny's Christianity, but if you look at most of his songs, he talks about Christ and his teachings in a way that few others do. Instead of just blithering selfishly about how Christ saved him, he talks about the Jesus who preached we must love each other and treat everybody with compassion. It's a Christ who doesn't seem to come in up in conversation very often anymore, you know, the guy who said something about ridding yourself of material possessions if you wanted to get into heaven.
If you had any doubts as to how well the punks were going to be able to handle the music of Johnny Cash they're dispelled from the first song as far as I'm concerned. Now I'm not familiar with the punk scene anymore so none of the band's names meant anything to me, but I'd lay odds that all of them captured the true spirit of Johnny's music better than most of today's so called country music singers could. While The Bouncing Souls opened the disc with a great version of "Man In Black", complete with the traditional punk guitar attack, what surprised me most about the disc was how many bands chose to use acoustic guitars for their songs.
Yet even though they went that route, there was no way you're going to mistake this for being anything other than a punk album. Energy crackles from each track on this disc like sparks from someone standing on the third rail of a subway line. Even songs like "There You Go" (performed by The Sainte Catherines) become statements of defiance and real anguish. I'd only ever heard insipid covers of that song before and never really liked it, but after hearing these folks do it, I've gained a far better appreciation for the depths of the feeling expressed in it.
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