The Mortal Truths of the Man in Black

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The New York Sun

When young men write about death, it is usually somehow romantic. And among pop songwriters, mortality has been approached with a combination of fascination, fear, and fantasy, from “Dead Man’s Curve” to the entire Goth movement.

Johnny Cash, though, never sounded adolescent when he sang about dying. He was 25 when he wrote one of his finest songs, “Big River,” and when he delivered the lines,” The tears I cried for that woman are gonna flood you, big river / And I’m gonna sit right here until I die,” it didn’t seem hyperbolic or stylized – it felt clear-eyed and resolute.

There is probably no other musician who could have made Cash’s new album, “American V: A Hundred Highways” (American Recordings/Lost Highway). These 12 songs were recorded in the year before Cash’s death in September 2003 – a period that also saw the passing of his wife of 35 years, June Carter Cash. He started work on this project the day after he finished its predecessor, “American IV: The Man Comes Around,” and finalized the line-up before he was gone (plans for an “American VI,” also drawn from these final recordings, have already been announced). It is a difficult, powerful document of a man staring down his own imminent demise, the relentless and inevitable conclusion to a historic career capped by a remarkable decade-long creative renaissance.

In recent years, several other artists have had the chance to make one final album as their clocks ran out, most notably George Harrison’s 2002 “Brainwashed” and Warren Zevon’s 2003 “The Wind.” Those discs, though, were the work of relatively young men battling illness. “American V” is an old man’s album; it is hard to think of any recordings that have made less of an attempt to hide frailness and physical pain from the microphone.

The last few installments of the American Recordings series, overseen by the brilliant producer Rick Rubin, revealed Cash’s faltering voice, narrowing range, and shortening breath. On “American V” the listener’s response is to hope that the singer can simply make it through the song. Cash tackles the situation head-on in “Like the 309,” the last song he ever wrote – “asthma coming down like the 309,” he sings.

Johnny Cash had been sick and in pain for the last 10 years or so of his life (botched dental surgery, brittle bones, and a degenerative condition misdiagnosed first as Parkinson’s and then as Shy-Drager Syndrome before being identified as the less-lethal autonomic neuropathy), so the specter of death in formed many of his selections on the American Recordings albums, which began in 1994. “American IV,” from 2002, introduced a sense of rage that wasn’t previously apparent – especially on the album’s centerpiece, a staggering version of the Nine Inch Nails song “Hurt” that became a surprise hit and ended Cash’s public life on a miraculously high note.

There’s nothing here as surprising as “Hurt” or some of the other American Recordings’ left-field choices, which have included covers of Soundgarden or Depeche Mode songs. Instead there is cohesiveness, a single-minded sense of purpose. In the liner notes to “American IV,” Cash wrote, “The fifteen songs in this album … take fifteen different directions”; this time, all roads lead one way, and that path heads straight to the boneyard. Some titles make their intentions obvious (“God’s Gonna Cut You Down,” “I’m Free From the Chain Gang Now”), while other songs assume added meaning; the folksy Ian and Sylvia tune, “Four Strong Winds,” popularized by Neil Young’s version, drills down to one line – “Our good times are all gone / And I’m bound for moving on.”

The biggest surprise is Cash’s rendition of Bruce Springsteen’s “Further On (Up the Road).” A fine if seemingly minor song from “The Rising,” Springsteen’s 2003 response to the attacks of September 11, 2001, Cash imbues it with a snarling death rattle, suddenly making it clear just how far up the road it is when we might meet again. The lone misstep is Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind” – Cash’s voice simply can’t handle the melody, and he seems to have no idea what to do with a muddled line like “I’d walk away like a movie star who gets burned in a three-way script.”

Rick Rubin, who made his name co-founding Def Jam Records and producing such acts as the Beastie Boys, Slay er, and L.L. Cool J, has been on an astonishing creative run lately. Working with artists as diverse as the Dixie Chicks, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Shakira, and Neil Diamond, he has elevated every one of their games. Assembling his usual cast of L.A. rockers and session players – using strings and woodwinds subtly, with a sparse, stately piano as an anchor – Rubin creates a mood that’s serious but not somber, respectful but never precious.

After Johnny Cash died, Bob Dylan wrote that “if we want to know what it means to be mortal, we need look no further than the Man in Black.” Since his passing, Cash has been everywhere – Hollywood, Broadway, best seller lists for books and CDs. Make no mistake: “American V” isn’t for a casual fan. It is one of the least easy-listening albums imaginable. But if it isn’t pretty, it is most certainly the truth. And that’s the one thing that Johnny Cash was always sure to sing.


The New York Sun

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