Stuff We Like: Johnny Cash’s America

The latest album in Johnny Cash’s America series dropped last week. America VI: Ain’t No Grave is another solid entry in the series of Cash’s late period recordings.

Cash spent the last decade of his life working with Rick Rubin in the studio performing stripped down covers and originals. Later Rubin went back and had some musicians add some texture to the original recordings, but the product is still very rough and ragged, retaining the unpolished charm of Cash’s original recordings.

I’ve never been a country music fan; though I’ve softened a bit in the past few years and learned to appreciate artists like Steve Earle, Ryan Bingham, Hank Williams, Loretta Lynn, Drive by Truckers, etc. Cash’s music transcends genre-based taste and I backed off my (arrogant) blanket dismissal of country music after discovering the America series 4-5 years ago.

As exceptional as some of the music is in this series, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Cash’s voice conveys power and frailty at once; a master at his craft facing his mortality and I swear you can hear that tension in his voice. Listening to his voice sometimes makes me feel like my heart is breaking, emotions well up in my throat and sinuses until there are tears in my eyes and it feels like things are breaking down every which way inside.

He was an artist at the end of the line, facing the abyss, breakdown of old age and the attendant themes of loneliness, heartache, faded glory, death, crime & punishment, faith, regret, love and redemption run through the heart of the series.

Heartache

Cash outlived his wife June Carter and some of the tracks on America VI are from after June’s death and he willed himself to live long enough to finish his final tracks, if the publicity around the latest release is to be believed.

Regret

Cash’s mortality and physical breakdown figure into many of the themes in the series. His interpretation of the NINE INCH NAILS song Hurt made the radio and was up for some posthumous awards. It is a haunting cover, typical of the series. Cash covered a lot of songs by other artists and just made them his – here is his cover of the U2 song One.  Cash’s Hurt is a portrait of a broken down man, weary and worn from a lifetime of wrestling with his personal demons.


Faded Glory

Cash reminisces about old friends that he caroused with in his heyday. No doubt he has outlived many of his former friends and almost looked forward to reuniting with them in death. The song hints at the passions of youth, which fade over time along with your physical capacity to pursue them. Here is an old man left only with faded memories of a bygone era.


Mortality

Cash may have been in physical decline, but his voice remained powerful. Part of what makes this series so compelling is that the majority of musicians quit playing long before they get the stage in life that Cash was in when he made these recordings. Our culture prizes youth and vitality, we rarely hear music from the perspective of an artist with one foot in the grave. Cash coped with sin and mortality with a belief in the afterlife as a possibility for personal redemption and continuance.

Crime and Punishment

Many of the songs in the America series are tales of crime and punishment, with last minute pleas for redemption and forgiveness.


Religious Faith

Perhaps the most dominant theme in the America series is faith. Cash’s faith is a source of redemption for the sinners and criminals, a source of hope in times of despair, a chance to reunite with lost loves, and a small measure of solace in the face of mortal death. The religious songs resonate for this atheist despite my lack fo faith because of the emotion and gravity Cash gave to the lyrics. He sings with passion and honesty and it doesn’t matter to me if I see things the same way. If an artist truly believes in their art and imbues their passion in the product then I don’t care if I agree with the message, I can’t help but be moved by the spirit and vitality of the artist’s expression. Cash’s blast of uncompromising earnestness is refreshing in this modern world where sarcasm, ironic detachment and cynicism are the default positions of most people. Cash comes across as a haunted man in these recordings who finds hope in religion, he has no vanity left and perhaps that is why he doesn’t indulge in a persecution complex or judgment, common expressions of the devout.