JOHNNY CASH - THE LIFE IN LYRICS

Johnny Cash wrote over 600 songs covering everything from love songs to murder ballads, prison songs to those about the working man, American history and the plight of the Indians, humorous songs and gospel. In this new book, Johnny Cash The Life In Lyrics, Cash historian Mark Stielper looks in detail at 125 lyrics written by 'America's Foremost Singing Storyteller'.

Within the 374 pages of this lavishly illustrated, hard-back, coffee table book Johnny Cash's fifty years of song-writing is bought together for the first time. However, it is more than just a book of lyrics as there are stories behind the songs which give the reader an insight into Cash, not only as an artist but also a man who spoke to a nation and the triumphs and challenges he faced in his own life.

Along with the reprinted lyrics and Stielper's insightful background information there are remembrances from John Carter-Cash.

The book is split into eight chapters, each studying a particular period, aspect and genre of Cash's career. Most lyrics in each chapter come from a certain period although there are a few exceptions where songs from a different era are included where the theme is similar. Opening with the chapter Wide Open Road there are lyrics from some of Cash's best Sun Records recordings including Hey Porter, Cry! Cry! Cry!, Folsom Prison Blues, Country Boy and I Walk The Line.

His departure from Sun and move to Columbia is covered in Hollywood Could Offer More which covers many of his hits and album tracks from the early 1960s with All Over Again, I Still Miss Someone, Five Feet High And Rising, Forty Shades Of Green and Tennessee Flat-Top Box just a few of those featured. 

Continuing through the 1960s, A New Light Shining covers the later part of the decade, a period which saw Cash writing more than he had in the previous few years. It was a time of the prison albums, a return to the concept albums and The Johnny Cash Show, and among the lyrics reproduced here are San Quentin, Starkville City Jail, Come Along And Ride This Train, Cisco Clifton's Fillin' Station, The Walls Of A Prison, Another Song To Sing and The Whirl And The Suck, the latter four from his 1968 concept album From Sea To Shining Sea.

Darkness On My Back continues in the 1960s and early 1970s and finds Cash writing about injustice, the environment, patriotism, war and the American Indian with What Is Truth, Don't Go Near The Water, Ragged Old Flag, Singin' In Vietnam Talkin' Blues, Big Foot, Apache Tears and my favourite Cash song, The Man In Black.

Cash's faith provides the theme behind the chapter headed Truth. "I am a Christian" Johnny said, and his journey had its share of detours but he never wavered. "God never gave up on me. Even when I gave up on myself, I always knew he loved me." The lyrics reproduced here cover his career from his early sides with Columbia to material recorded with Rick Rubin at American Records and include, It Was Jesus, Over The Next Hill, When He Comes, Another Wide River To Cross, Man In White and Redemption.

People You Would Like To Get To Know covers those characters Cash either knew, wished he knew and in some cases, those he would have rather not known at all with printed lyrics for Hardin Wouldn't Run, The Ballad Of Annie Palmer, Calilou, Who's Gene Autry, Abner Brown and She Sang 'Sweet Baby James'.

The penultimate chapter, This Song I Sung For Thee, concentrates on passing love, life in the fast lane, consequences and reckoning. Included in this chapter are Tear Stained Letter, Please Don't Let Me Out, It Comes And Go, Call Your Mother, Beans For Breakfast and Tears In The Holsten River.

Closing the book is Hear The Trumpets, a chapter that showed that Cash, in the 1990s and 2000s, was far from considering retirement. Most of the lyrics here come from his time working with Rick Rubin and include The Man Comes Around, Let The Train Blow The Whistle, Like A Soldier, 1 Corinthians 15:55 and the last song he wrote, Like The 309.

While the lyrics are the most important part of the book mention must be made of the photographic content.

There are more than 300 illustrations... photos in both colour and black & white along with sheet music, letters, handwritten lyrics and album sleeves. While many of the these have been seen many times before there are more than enough new images to enjoy throughout the book.

Among my favourite photographic images are those of Cash in the recording studio, various family photos, meeting presidents, fans and the many live images, especially those taken in 1969 performing for the troops in South Vietnam, which were all new to me.

I've always loved looking at memorabilia and this book is full of wonderful images including hand-written lyrics, sheet music, letters, especially those he wrote to himself at the end of the year, Cash's own artwork, posters and adverts. Of special interest were the notes for the Johnny Cash in the Holy Land and The Gospel Road projects, manuscript pages for his novel Man In White and a written list of his own personal evaluation of his early recordings with Rick Rubin.

I really enjoyed this book and it sits alongside the rest of my Johnny Cash library and I am certain will be referred to many times as and when I write about Johnny Cash here on this blog.

Highly recommended and a big thank you to Mark Stielper for putting this book together.  

With thanks to Aoife Datta at Orion Books for providing a review copy of the book.