Tuesday, March 03, 2009

CASH

Johnny Cash has been coming up a lot lately. The first time was on the plane last week debating Shasta about whether country music could be good. Conclusion: Johnny Cash is good. Twangy, nasal singing and steel guitars... bad.

Then my good buddy Dan sent this link to an article about Cash in Touchstone magazine.

One of the things I love about Johnny Cash is how in his later life he started stealing various songs and converting them into vehicles for his own messages. So you have him taking Trent Reznor's (Nine Inch Nails) "Hurt" and transforming it from Reznor's meditation on addiction into a reflection on mortality and, ultimately, faith. Here's Reznor's own thoughts on that process.

And here is the video of Cash's version of the song:

2 comments:

  1. Do you like Uncle Tupelo? He reminds me of Johnny Cash.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I do not know this Uncle Tupelo of whom you speak. I will check it out.

    ReplyDelete