Now that Johnny Cash is once again the subject of mass hype

[UnforgettableLemon]

I've decided to prepare a compilation to introduce some of my friends to his music... both the classic and the recent. It is difficult to distill the classic era into one disc, but I did that because I think the American Recordings almost sound like an entirely different Johnny Cash. So I just gave these discs to the guy two doors down from me who came in asking if I had "Burning Ring of Fire" (It's hard for me not to throttle people who get titles wrong, but I didn't and burned him these CDs instead). I realize there are major tracks missing here and there, but I tried to collect the most obvious and my favorites. I had to put "The Wanderer" because the guy is a big U2 fan, and I put it with the classic songs... sue me. So here is my attempt at dissuading legions of poseur Johnny Cash fans from rising from my school.

Disc One - The Classic Years
1 Folsom Prison Blues
2 Cocaine Blues
3 I Got Stripes
4 Ring of Fire
5 Hey Porter
6 Jackson
7 Walk the Line
8 Get Rhythm
9 Daddy Sang Bass
10 I Still Miss Someone
11 Man in Black
12 It Ain't Me, Babe
13 Cry, Cry, Cry
14 Understand Your Man
15 Don't Take Your Guns to Town
16 A Boy Named Sue
17 Sunday Morning Coming Down
18 One Piece at a Time
19 Big River
20 (Ghost) Riders in the Sky
21 Five Feet High and Rising
22 Ballad of a Teenage Queen
23 Orange Blossom Special
24 If I Were a Carpenter
25 The Rebel, Johnny Yuma
26 Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
27 Highwayman
28 The Wanderer

Disc Two - The American Years
1 Delia's Gone
2 Long Black Veil
3 Hung My Head
4 Rusty Cage
5 Rowboat
6 I Won't Back Down
7 The Mercy Seat
8 I've Been Everywhere
9 Thirteen
10 One
11 In My Life
12 Bird on a Wire
13 Kneeling Drunkard's Plea
14 Redemption Song (w/ Joe Strummer)
15 Why Me Lord?
16 Sea of Heartbreak
17 Heart of Gold
18 Personal Jesus
19 Redemption
20 Southern Accents
21 Solitary Man
22 Unchained
23 The Man Comes Around
24 Hurt
25 I'll Fly Away

 

[elevation2u]

no Cat's in the Cradle, I'm on Fire, or Bridge Over Troubled Water??

 

[UnforgettableLemon]

I despise his version of Bridge Over Troubled Water. Solo it would not be bad. Fiona Apple solo would be good. The two DO NOT work well together on this song. The Cat Stevens song they did together on the Unearthed box set, "Father and Son" was one I thought of putting on, but it got cut. I had to make A LOT of cuts.

 

[yertle-the-turtle]

Every song there is gold, of course, but if I were to shout for an omission it would be his lovely duet with Will Oldham on 'I See A Darkness'.

 

[IWasBored]

very nice.

 

[UnforgettableLemon]

It does make me wish I was in a band right now... the name thing comes in handy. I would die happy if I could go onstage and say, "Hello... I'm Jason Cash" and break into Folsom Prison Blues or something.

 

[Lila64]

did you see the new movie yet? I caught it on Friday evening - liked it! Can't say I know a lot of Cash songs, and never realized June Carter wrote Ring Of Fire, made famous by Cash and others (Wall Of Voodoo, Social Distortion,...)

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

As soon as I saw the movie I just wanted to listen to every Johnny Cash song ever recorded..yesterday I was listening to Unearthed, that Redemption Song is just brilliant

I cried listening to all of it

 

[MrBrau1]

That's a nice list.

Here are some of my favs:

Wreck of Old 97
I've Been Working On The Railroad
Highway Patrolman (Springsteen Cover)
My Old Faded Rose
Long Black Veil
While I've Got It On My Mind
Hardin Wouldn't Run
25 Minutes To Go
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
Happiness Is You
Nobody

 

[Joshua_Tree_Hugger]

"Hurt" is unbelievable! I know it's a modern Cash song so it may not really fit with this compilation, but it's one of my favourite tracks at the moment.

 

[UnforgettableLemon]

"Hurt" is unbelievable! I know it's a modern Cash song so it may not really fit with this compilation, but it's one of my favourite tracks at the moment.

It's on there. The second disc is devoted to the American Recordings years.

 

[IWasBored]

It does make me wish I was in a band right now... the name thing comes in handy. I would die happy if I could go onstage and say, "Hello... I'm Jason Cash" and break into Folsom Prison Blues or something.

i'm the kind of person who would think that was the most hilarious thing in the world, and i'd be the psycho rolling around in the aisle laughing their ass off

 

[IWasBored]

did you see the new movie yet? I caught it on Friday evening - liked it! Can't say I know a lot of Cash songs, and never realized June Carter wrote Ring Of Fire, made famous by Cash and others (Wall Of Voodoo, Social Distortion,...)

social d's cover of that song is so great. along similar lines (songs made famous by johnny cash/covered by social d or ness solo), mike ness' cover of "long black veil" is excellent.

 

[elevation2u]

meh, personally I never did like Social D's cover, it has always made me cringe. At the time I didnt even know it was a cover until when I saw the movie U-Turn and "Ring of Fire" is played that I realized Cash sang it and I loved it...I think its cool how Phoenix is in that movie as well

 

[UnforgettableLemon]

social d's cover of that song is so great. along similar lines (songs made famous by johnny cash/covered by social d or ness solo), mike ness' cover of "long black veil" is excellent.

There are days I like "Long Black Veil" and others I don't. I think the song is more suited to sparse intsrumentation, the drums and steel guitar on Mike Ness' version sort of make me go "meh." The solo re-recording by Cash on Unearthed is by far my favorite. Ness has a great voice for country, but I don't like the instrumentation much.

 

[IWasBored]

i tend to see mike ness as being just as great as johnny cash or joe strummer, and anything he does tends to appeal to me.

wait. i take that back. the "death or glory" cover was musically criminal. i keep listening to it because i'm sickeningly fascinated by it. it's terrible. it's an extremely lackluster and bored-sounding cover of what's possibly one of my all-time favorite songs. it's a bit easier to sing along to, though...

 

[Sparkysgrrrl]

How could you omit
Dirty Old Egg-Suckin' Dog

Always a crowd pleaser, I always put that on discs for people just to make them go