Lost & found love ("Goodbye Little Darlin'", "Goodnight Irene" and more), cotton harvest ("In Them Old Cottonfields Back Home", "Pick A Bale O' Cotton") and America's natural beauty round out the subject matter of this songbook.
"Song of a Patriot" (with its Sousa march whistle) and the poetry of "This Ragged Old Flag" are glaring omissions here - for whatever reason — and it's a shame.
The sun, river water, love (or at least lust and the other sins), trains are all impenetrable, inevitable forces. All are part of and define Johnny Cash. All I know is that I tuned into the voice early. Like a clap of rolling thunder it smacks and moves you. And you know there's going to be lightning ahead.
No one should forget longtime song producer cowboy Jack Clement who previously told a newspaper reporter: "With Johnny Cash, his voice always intrigued me because it's got so much power in it. It gets on the tape, and you can put symphony orchestras with it or a roomful of banjos or a roomful of horns or whole bunch of rhythm guitars - whatever you want - and it doesn't drown him out. I always called him 'Captain Decibel' for that reason. The loudest recording voice I ever heard. Just thick, full."
We have too many people, too many artists (too many record companies) who force-feed us the positive; we have too few who can sincerely offer up both the lows and highs of life. The ideal of America may be positive. But the "rumble and the roar" journey along the way is anything but. Cash told us this.
*(Another previously unrelased demo found in the House of Cash after both June Carter and Johnny Cash's deaths.)
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