Hurt

With just over a week to go before I set off on the ‘Tracks of the Deep South’ Tour and I’m getting myself in the mind set with Dusk-to-Dawn Country, Blues, Cajun, Zydeco & Jazz loaded on the iPhone and streaming from room to room.

I keep returning to one song. Despite all his previous excellent work, especially at Folsom Prison, there is something about his final single release that haunts. Cash was 71 and a dying man when he recorded the song, originally written by Trent Reznor and dealing with Heroin addiction. Johnny Cash turned it into something else –  a reflection on the sweetness, sorrow and something darker of a life reviewed in retrospect. The song includes video of his second wife June and film excerpts from his life. June Carter Cash died 3 months after the recording and her husband finally closed his piano four months later.