Johnny Cash made for an interesting political figure. He seemed to be a bit political, or at least highly socially relevant with his prison songs, yet somewhat ambiguous. For being the "man in black" he wasn't making much of a political statement. The lyrics of the song are really more a protest against the human condition than against any particular human malfeasance.
He had opinions, but seemed blessedly reticent about pontificating in public. There's a jaunty song here from 1965, new to me, about a folk group destroying a perfectly good, happy career by getting into politics, "The One on the Right Is On the Left." On the other hand, this didn't stop him from having Pete Seeger and Joan Baez on his short lived network series.
Still though, other than eventually expressing some opposition to Vietnam, I don't know whether he was liberal or conservative or what. Nor, for that matter, do I care.
I care much more about his romance with June, because it resulted in some of his best music. Appreciate the simple one two punch of their courtship anthem, "Jackson" from 1967. They were indeed hotter than pepper sprouts when they married in 1968, before the beautiful, profound and somber public marriage ceremony that was their 1969 recording of "If I Were a Carpenter."
On the other hand, I wonder how many songs Cash sang about killing his woman. There are at least three on this collection. "Delia's Gone" was his most famous such song, but there's also "Goodnight Irene." On top of which, he has the fairly comic 1972 recording of Marty Robbins' "Kate" in which he's on death row bitching to his wife's ghost that it was her fault for making him kill her. It would sound good on a mix disc next to Guns 'n Roses singing "I Used to Love Her."
It ends up on all his compilations now, but his 1983 recording of Springsteen's "Highway Patrolman" still rates special mention, totally selling a song that hadn't particularly impressed me as sung by the author.
His religious material tends to get short shrift from secular rock fans and writer types in his audience, but he was particularly good with expressions of the passion of Christ. This 1962 recording of "Were You There (When They Crucified My Lord)" rates as one of Johnny's best recordings. He's got Mother Maybelle and sisters about. Anita's forlorn cries of "sometimes it makes me tremble" really take me back to church.
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