Johny Cash: American

I have been listening to Johnny Cash’s American III the past couple of weeks. Much like volume 4 which I have enjoyed the last couple of years, it is a mix of covers and new songs by Johnny Cash. This album has a less sad and lonely feel than American IV, but is still a raw and honest work. I think it is great that he was still making powerful and enduring work, in fact some of his most powerful work, right up until the end of his life.

At the end of John Wayne’s life he was nominated for a Congressional Medal of Honor for his work promoting a unified United States during the Vietnam War era when our country as its most divided. Congress decided that there were too many things about John Wayne’s life that made him a less than perfect role model and that they could not in good conscious give him their highest honor. Instead they created a medal for him that simply said : “John Wayne. American.”. I think that about summed it up. The good and the bad of his life reflected perfectly the good and bad of what it means to be an “American”.

The story is much the same for Mr. Cash. There are dark clouds over his life, and there is plenty to disagree with or disapprove of the way he lived it, but the mark he left on our collective vision of America is undeniable. He became a man of mythical proportions, and while there are no giant statues of his likeness in any airports, he stands just as tall, and I suspect will remain relevant for longer than Mr. Wayne. It is my humble opinion that for his works that help define America for what it is, both good and bad, we should remember him as : Johnny Cash: American.