Posted on 08/15/2004 8:54:29 AM PDT by PinnedAndRecessed
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Sick and consumed by grief after his wife's death, Johnny Cash struggled to record his last songs and spoke regularly with the Rev. Billy Graham for comfort, according to a new family authorized biography.
"He would look at me, a couple of times with tears in his eyes, and he would say, 'I can hardly wait to see heaven, to see the Lord and to see our family,"' Cash's sister Joanne Yates tells author Steve Turner in his book, "The Man Called Cash: The Life, Love and Faith of an American Legend," set for release Sept. 13.
Cash, country music's "Man in Black," died Sept. 12, 2003, of complications from diabetes, four months after the death of his wife, June Carter Cash, herself a member of a legendary musical family. He was 71, and she 73.
Several projects commemorating Cash and his music are in the works including the movie "Walk the Line" starring Joaquin Phoenix as Cash and Reese Witherspoon as June Carter. It's planned for release next spring or summer.
Singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson, a longtime Cash friend, wrote the foreword to Turner's book, and Cash's family and manager were involved as well.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
The first song I heard by Johnny Cash was " I walk the Line".
I still think it was his best.
His best performance ever was his cover of Nine Inch Nails "Hurt". I almost cried when I saw it.
His early work on Sun records was eerie, like the voice of a ghost or someone haunted. I still have a couple of these old gems.
Love that cover and the video was one of the most powerful pieces of film I have ever seen. But I till love Folsom Prison Blues. How can you beat a line like "I shot a man in Reno, Just to watch him die."
what was that last video that Cash and Carter did together a few years back. It was so haunting, because it talked about dying and meeting on the other side. Does anyone remember the name of that song?
I don't know of a video but you might be thinking of "Meet me in heaven" from his album Unchained.
Men who love their wives seldom live long after the wife dies. We women for some reason bear our grief differently.
Excerpt:
Though Cash battled drug addiction for much of his life, he held strong Christian beliefs and often quoted the Bible. (search) He was deeply sympathetic to the downtrodden -- whether American Indians or convicts -- and gave them voice in his songs.
His faith seemed to grow stronger as his body grew weaker, Turner wrote. In his final months, he had a light box that projected pages of the Bible onto a screen so he could read it. He also spoke regularly with Graham, "someone whom he'd always relied on as a rock to lean on in times of trouble," Turner wrote.
"I think that's the only way he made it," his niece Kelly Hancock said. "I think he had the utmost faith in God and he looked to God for his faith and direction."
As late as Aug. 14, he was in the studio working on a humorous song called "Asthma Coming Down Like the 309" and another song called "1 Corinthians 15:55" (Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?).
His last song, "Engine 143," was recorded Aug. 21 about an engineer rushing to get to the station on time. He crashes the train and dies, and the song ends with the words, "And the very last words poor Georgie said were, 'Nearer my God to thee."'
I think my favorite of them all was "Rock Island Line."
blasphemy
Wars have been started over this stuff, that's why I'm usually reluctant to say it. But those are my beliefs.
Aw hell. I thought you were responding to a post I made on a religion thread. I didn't bother to check the thread title. You got me.
That's because you usually don't really love the greasy nasty piggish brute.
I hope you're just making a bad joke. Of course, women who lose their husbands after many years of marriage do suffer very deeply. We love our men intensely, the more so because often we have the physical care of them--feeding them, cleaning up after them, caring for their clothes and other physical needs--and so the nurturant aspects of our emotions are engaged as well as the romantic/sexual portions.
I hope you're just making a bad joke.
I'm not so much making a bad joke, as I am expressing some of my pain and psychic wounding.
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