The thing about bone deep faith is it doesn’t keep you from sorrow.
Four months after his wife died and four months before he would die Johnny Cash made his final recordings with Rick Rubin.
And despite a question mark like “I Can’t help But Wonder Where I’m Bound”, Cash is seeped in the knowledge he will be returning to June soon but it doesn’t stop him from missing her. It doesn’t stop him from the sadness, the loneliness, that permeates the joy and it is the mixing of the two which make it more interesting than a thanatolgical head bashing with a Bible.
Because the point is, when someone was in your life and then is out of your life, even if they are happy where they are, it doesn’t stop your pain at all.
Cash’s last songs are songs of faith though not necessarily Hymns. The standard, “Satisfied Mind”, is both plain and deep (and true as well). Carnegie said it is obscene to leave this world with any money, “Satisfied Mind” says something similar about the nature of what satisfies us.
Followed by “I Don’t Hurt Anymore”, “Cool Water”, and “Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream” leading to “Aloha Oe”, the album becomes an extended farewell in the middle of two sides of pitch blackness which only through his faith can he manage to peer through.
But before we reach their we have to suffer through three bad stumbles, a bad song well sung which includes his most direct reference to his wife, a pretty but irrelevant pop standard and a psalm that sounds like a nursery rhyme.
Cash is in good voice considering and he croaks a lot less than Dylan does on his Santa album, the music is plain and strong: rugged, if you will. The rock of faith.
“Ain’t No Grave” -the first song which sure sounds like the last song too these ears, is a shaft of light shining in your eyes. It is a stark and beautiful thing. “There ain’t no grave can hold my body down” Cash sings and you might be forgiven for believing him.
And on this song and all the way to “Aloha Ao” the power of faith is weighted by the pain of loss and the pain of loss is lifted by power of faith.
And then he dies.
Four months after his wife died and four months before he would die Johnny Cash made his final recordings with Rick Rubin.
And despite a question mark like “I Can’t help But Wonder Where I’m Bound”, Cash is seeped in the knowledge he will be returning to June soon but it doesn’t stop him from missing her. It doesn’t stop him from the sadness, the loneliness, that permeates the joy and it is the mixing of the two which make it more interesting than a thanatolgical head bashing with a Bible.
Because the point is, when someone was in your life and then is out of your life, even if they are happy where they are, it doesn’t stop your pain at all.
Cash’s last songs are songs of faith though not necessarily Hymns. The standard, “Satisfied Mind”, is both plain and deep (and true as well). Carnegie said it is obscene to leave this world with any money, “Satisfied Mind” says something similar about the nature of what satisfies us.
Followed by “I Don’t Hurt Anymore”, “Cool Water”, and “Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream” leading to “Aloha Oe”, the album becomes an extended farewell in the middle of two sides of pitch blackness which only through his faith can he manage to peer through.
But before we reach their we have to suffer through three bad stumbles, a bad song well sung which includes his most direct reference to his wife, a pretty but irrelevant pop standard and a psalm that sounds like a nursery rhyme.
Cash is in good voice considering and he croaks a lot less than Dylan does on his Santa album, the music is plain and strong: rugged, if you will. The rock of faith.
“Ain’t No Grave” -the first song which sure sounds like the last song too these ears, is a shaft of light shining in your eyes. It is a stark and beautiful thing. “There ain’t no grave can hold my body down” Cash sings and you might be forgiven for believing him.
And on this song and all the way to “Aloha Ao” the power of faith is weighted by the pain of loss and the pain of loss is lifted by power of faith.
And then he dies.