Johnny Cash:
“Everything I have and everything I do is now given completely to Jesus Christ.”
“Why me, Lord? What have I ever done to deserve even one of the blessings I’ve known?
Why me, Lord? What did I ever do that was worth the love from you and the kindness you’ve shown?
Cash became “the Man in Black” by accident. It was the only colour shirt he and his two bandmates had in common when they were singing gospel songs at an evening church service in Memphis, Tennessee, so it became their “uniform” for the night:
“Black is better for church,” Cash said. Later, he’d go further, singing,
“I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
including those who’ve never read
or listened to the words that Jesus said,
about the road to happiness, through love and charity.”
Gospel music changed Cash’s career, and the gospel of Jesus’ death and resurrection changed his eternal life. He said:
“Help me, Jesus. I know what I am.
Now that I know that I’ve needed you so, help me, Jesus.
My soul’s in your hand.
Lord, help me, Jesus, I’ve wasted it so.”
Johnny grew up going to church three times a week: Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday evening. His church was in Arkansas, near the Mississippi River, where, during the week, he’d sing hymns in the cotton fields.
He said of Paul:
“Well, I take great comfort in the words of the apostle Paul who said, ‘What I will to do, that I do not practice. But what I hate, that I do.’”
But,
“It is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells within me. But who,’ he asks, ‘will deliver me from this body of death?’ And he answers for himself and for me, ‘Through Jesus Christ the Lord.’”
His grandfather was a “circuit preacher”, but it was Johhny’s mum, Carrie, who taught her seven kids to love the Lord. Cash later recorded an acoustic album in her honour;
“My Mother’s Hymn Book.” It is filled with the spirituals of his childhood, like “Softly and Tenderly” and “Where We’ll Never Grow Old”. He swore it was his favourite record.
For decades, Johnny’s mum begged him to record himself reading the Bible, and when he finally did, he read the whole of the New Testament—nearly nineteen hours of the KJV, released in 2004 by Thomas Nelson.
I’m told that his familiarity with scripture and deep conviction that it is The Living Word is one of the reasons his audio recording of the Bible is wonderful. Cash sounds joyful, even a little eager, as if he is reading a letter from home that he can’t wait to get to the end of, just so he can read it all over again.
In his delivery, the New Testament really DOES sound like GOOD news. It can be rare to hear chapter after chapter of God’s Word unfolded in order – even for Christians. And it is the basis of Biblical Theology. Sometimes, we believers can go for long stretches only to hear scripture read in the choppy clips of pericopes.
So it is a great joy to hear them Biblically chronologically in Cash’s sprawling, subterranean voice. Listening to him, you remember that these stories, letters, prophecies, and revelations (and Hebrews) are every bit as complicated as Cash was;
It’s a little reassuring to hear him trip at times on Paul’s long, meandering sentences (like anyone else who reads in church). Or scare himself with the word “demon,” or catch his breath in the apophatic pauses between the crucifixion and the resurrection.
Cash said he tried to bring “fear, respect, awe, and reverence” to the recording, but he also insisted he’d performed the task “with a great deal of joy, because I love the Word.” You can hear that tension in the audio and see it across Cash’s long life;
He felt humble love for and fear of the One and only God whom he revered and disappointed, sought out, and felt separated from. (He had been unfaithful to his first wife with June Carter, and later married her. Fellow Country artist and friend Kris Kristopher called them “The First Family of Country Music”).
But the LORD certainly understood, loved and forgave him. He humbly felt he might never be able to understand that, and I would like to take a leaf out of his book.
A commentator had joked that all of Johnny’s songs are about murder, trains, and Jesus.
But on his liner notes for the later album, 96’s “Unchained”, Johnny includes a stranger, more comprehensive and beautiful list:
“I love songs about horses, railroads, land, Judgment Day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison,
… rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humour (sic), piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak, and love. And Mother. And God.”
A lot of country musicians make their careers off nouns, like “girlfriends”, “dogs”, and “pickups”, but Cash studiously avoided these. He homed in on the darker, funner stuff in the jumbled list above. And there is no “systematic theology” in the results. It just rambles its way delightfully, squeezing many topics effortlessly through the filter of scriptural thought as it goes.
“Trains, Jesus, and Murder” definitely make their way through the central ideas that animated Cash’s life. They gave his music meaning, pausing along the way to tell stories from his career. He also released a record of protest songs about the plight of Native Americans.
The famous and wildly popular album “Folsom Prison Blues” begins with his first prison concert in ‘59, and ends with him recording the live album “At Folsom Prison”.
In Folsom, a Chaplain passed him a copy of a song by a prisoner, Glen Sherley. It was a simple melody with plaintive words about a prison chapel and the bars that can imprison anyone’s soul. Cash surprised Sherley by performing the song live during one of his prison concerts.
He introduced the track by saying, “This next song was written by a man right here in Folsom. . . . This song was written by our friend Glen Sherley. Hope we do your song justice, Glen, we’re going to do our best.”
Cash spent three years lobbying to get Sherley paroled through direct appeals and by enlisting Billy Graham in the cause. He also had Ronald Reagan, then Californian Governor, make a call.
Sherley was finally paroled in ‘71, and Cash moved him to Nashville and set him up writing songs and performing with his band. In ‘73, the pair testified before a Senate subcommittee to advocate for prison reform.
When Mr Dylan (who idolised and worshipped him) met Cash, he walked all around him, looking up at him like he was an enormous tree. After that, they became dear friends, sang together, and probably influenced American country music more than any other two people.
He said of Bob,
“I knew Bob Dylan was searching for the truth and had been for years. And anyone who Really wants the truth ends up at Jesus.”
But what of fear and forgiveness in Johnny’s life? He once said: “Jesus will not fail me, I shall not be moved.”
However, some have raised questions about his solidarity and patriotism, as well as the complexities of his simultaneously conservative and countercultural appeal.
That’s a familiar bind for country music artists, to which the recent Taylor Swift documentary “Miss Americana,” and the Dixie Chicks’ career testify. And there is a long litany of actions and notable inactions by other artists as well.
One commentator said “The song ‘The Man Comes Around’ gathers up verses of the gospels and bits of The Revelation, like a mother bird over-anxiously lining its nest, preparing for its chicks.”
Scripture was Cash’s currency, so I imagine he was tempted to try and find every reference and identify every echo in his lyrics. A phrase in one song was inspired by Jesus’ words, “why do you kick against the pricks” (CSB “the goads”) to Paul on the road to Damascus, in Acts of the Apostles chapter 27 vs 14.
Some suggest the song’s lyric;“measured hundred weight and penny pound” is an allusion to St John the Divine’s “Two pounds of wheat for a day’s wages”. Others to God’s judgment of King Belshazzar in the Bible as having “been weighed in the balance, and found wanting.”
So why ARE Johnny’s lyrics littered all over, pregnant, and dripping with Bible verses? Almost exploding with them?
Perhaps because he is the country star who went to Israel to make a movie about the life of Jesus (“Gospel Road,” very much worth viewing), and wrote a (tricky to read) novel about Paul the Apostle’s life, “Man in White”.
He also denounced the devil on the (nationally aired) “The Johnny Cash Show”:
“I think we’ve made the devil pretty mad because on our show we’ve been mentioning God’s name. Well, this probably made the devil pretty mad alright, and he may be coming after me again, but I’ll be ready for him.”
So, “All about “Trains, Jesus, and Murder” is ultimately a wildly inadequate description of his song topics. He is actually one of (probably the most) outspoken Biblical Christians in the music industry ever. I look forward to chatting with The Man in Black (and The Bobster) in the Heavenly City- with bells on. Can’t wait.
Prayers
Our gracious God and loving Heavenly Father,
Thank You for giving me a new beating soft heart of flesh towards You through the death of Your only Child, Jesus, in place of me.
For the glory of His eternal name,
Amen
Dear God,
Please forgive me for my hard heart towards You. And please perform Your life-giving surgery on my friends and family who don’t yet know You,
In Jesus’ powerful name,
Amen
Dear Heavenly Father,
Your grace is amazing. It is a sweet sound to my ears and heart. And it has saved me, wretch, that I am. Thank You, that having been lost ,You have now found me. And having been blind, You have given me 20/20 vision about You.
For the glory of Your name,
Amen
Image: Johnny Cash, 1970. Image credit: Dillan Stradlin, Wikimedia