Forever Words: The Unknown Poems
Author: Johnny Cash
Date: 2016-11-16T16:08:30+00:00
Keywords: Non-Fiction; Poetry; Music; Biography; Short Stories; History; Anthology; Adult
Description: Forever Words A collection of never-before-published poems by Johnny Cash, edited and introduced by Pulitzer-prize winning poet Paul Muldoon with a foreword by John Carter Cash. Illustrated with facsimile reproductions of Cash's own handwritten pages. Since his first recordings in 1955, Johnny Cash was an icon in the music world. In this collection of poems and song lyrics that have never been published before, we see the world through his eyes and view his reflection on his own interior reality, his frailties and his strengths alike. In his hallmark voice, he pens verses about love, pain, fre
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

375 Hudson Street

New York, New York 10014

Copyright © 2016 by John R. Cash Revocable Trust Introduction copyright © 2016 by Paul Muldoon Foreword copyright © 2016 by John Carter Cash RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT BY JOHN CARTER CASH AND STEVE BERKOWITZ

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

Blue Rider Press is a registered trademark and its colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC

Ebook ISBN: 9780399575143

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Cash, Johnny, author. | Muldoon, Paul, editor. | Cash, John Carter, writer of foreword.

Title: Forever words : the unknown poems / Johnny Cash ; edited by Paul Muldoon.

Description: New York : Blue Rider Press, 2016

Identifiers: LCCN 2016026668 | ISBN 9780399575136 (hardcover) Subjects: LCSH: Country music—Texts.

Classification: LCC ML54.6.C29 L97 2016 | DDC 782.421642026/8—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016026668
p. cm.

Version_1

CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright

Foreword: Redemptions by John Carter Cash

Introduction by Paul Muldoon

Ballad of Johnny Capman

Big-Hearted Girl

Body on Body

California Poem

The Captain’s Daughter

Chinky Pin Hill

Crowley’s Ridge

Dark and Bloody Ground

Does Anybody Out There Love Me?

The Dogs Are in the Woods

Don’t Make a Movie About Me

Don’t Take Your Gun to Town

Forever

Going, Going, Gone (version 2)

Gold All Over the Ground

Gold in Alaska

He Bore It All for Me

Hey, Baby, Wake Up

I Have Been Around (version 2)

I Heard on the News

I Wish You a Merry Christmas

If You Love Me

I’ll Still Love You

I’m Comin’, Honey

Jellico Coal Man

Job

Let’s Put It to Music

Lost My Money in a Buffalo Track

Muscadine Wine

My Song

Room 1702

Silk and Denim

Slumgullion

Spirit Rider

Tecumseh

Tenderfoot from the City

The Things We’re Frightened At

The Walking Wounded

What Would I Dreamer Do

Who’s Gonna Grease My Skillet?

You Never Knew My Mind

Acknowledgments

About the Author

FOREWORD: REDEMPTIONS

My father had many faces. There was much that made up the man. If you think you “know” John R Cash, think again. There are many layers, so much beneath the surface.

First, I knew him to be fun. Within the first six years of my life, if asked what Dad was to me I would have emphatically responded: “Dad is fun!” This was my simple foundation for my enduring relationship with my father.

This is the man he was. He never lost this.

To those who knew him well—family, friends, coworkers alike—the one essential thing that was blazingly evident was the light and laughter within my father’s heart. Typically, though his common image may be otherwise, he was not heavy and dark, but loving and full of color.

Yet there was so much more . . .

For one thing—he was brilliant. He was a scholar, learned in ancient texts, including those of Flavius Josephus and unquestionably of the Bible. He was an ordained minister and could easily hold his own with any theologian. His books on ancient history, such as Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, were annotated, read, reread, and worn, his very soul deeply ingrained into their threadbare pages. I still have some of these books. When I hold them, when I touch the pages, I can sense my father in some ways even more profoundly than in his music.

My father was an entertainer. This is, of course, one of the most marked and enduring manifestations. There are thousands upon thousands of new Johnny Cash fans every year, inspired by the music, talent, and—I believe hugely—by the mystery of the man.

My dad was a poet. He saw the world through unique glasses, with simplicity, spirituality, and humor. He loved a good story and was quick to find comedy, even in bleak circumstances. This is evident in one of the last songs he wrote within his lifetime, “Like the 309”: It should be a while before I see Dr. Death So it would sure be nice if I could get my breath Well, I’m not the crying nor the whining kind Till I hear the whistle of the 309

Of the 309, of the 309

Put me in my box on the 309.

Take me to the depot, put me to bed Blow an electric fan on my gnarly old head Everybody take a look, see I’m doing fine Then load my box on the 309

On the 309, on the 309

Put me in my box on the 309.

Dad was asthmatic and had great difficulty breathing during the last months of his life. On top of all this, he suffered with recurring bouts of pneumonia. Still, through the gift of laughter, he found the strength to face these infirmities. This recording is steeped in irony, although made mere days before his passing. His voice is weak, yet the mirth in his soul rings true.

Dad was many things, yes. He was tortured throughout his life by sadness and addiction. His tragic youth was marked by the loss of his best friend and brother Jack, who died as the result of a horrible accident when John R was only twelve. Jack was a deeply spiritual young man, kind and protective of his two-years-younger brother. Perhaps it was this sadness and mourning that partly defined my father’s poetry and songs throughout his life. He was likewise defined at the end of his life by the loss of my mother, June Carter. When she passed, their love was more beautiful than ever before: unconditional and kind.

Still, it could not be said that any of this—darkness, love, sadness, music, joy, addiction—wholly defined the man. He was all of these things and none of them. Complicated, but what could be said that speaks the essential truth? What prevails? The music, of course . . . but also . . . the words.

All that made up my father is to be found in this book, within these “forever words.”

When my parents died, they left behind a monstrous amassment of “stuff.” They just didn’t throw anything away. Each and every thing was a treasure, but none more than my father’s handwritten letters, poems, and documents, ranging through the entirety of his life. There was a huge amount of paper—his studies of the book of Job, his handwritten autobiography Man in Black, his letters to my mother, and those to his first wife, Vivian, from the 1950s. Dad was a writer, and he never ceased. His writings ranged through every stage of his life: from the poems of a naive yet undeniably brilliant sixteen-year-old to later comprehensive studies on the life of the Apostle Paul. The more I have looked, the more I have understood of the man.

When I hold these papers, I feel his presence within the handwriting; it brings him back to me. I remember how he held his pen, how his hand shook a bit, but how careful and proud he was of his penmanship—and how determined and courageous he was. Some of these pages are stained with coffee, perhaps the ink smudged. When I read these pages, I feel the love he carried in those hands. I once again feel the closeness of my father, how he cared so deeply for the creative endeavor; how he cared for his loved ones.

There are some of these I feel he would have wanted to be shared, some whose genius and brilliance simply demanded to be heard. I hope and believe the ones chosen within this book are those he would want read by the world.

Finally, it is not only the strength of his poetic voice that speaks to me, it is his very life enduring and coming anew with these writings. It is in these words my father sings a new song, in ways he has never done before. Now, all these years past, the words tell a full tale; with their release, he is with us again, speaking to our hearts, making us laugh, and making us cry.

The music will endure, this is true. But also, the words. It is ultimately evident within these words that the sins and sadnesses have failed, that goodness commands and triumphs. To me, this book is a redemption, a cherished healing. Forever.

John Carter Cash

35,000 feet above western Arkansas, flying east . . .

INTRODUCTION

I.

The great artist has a finger on the pulse of his time; he also quickens that pulse. In the case of Johnny Cash, his music seems to well up directly from the poverty and deprivation of country life in the Great Depression, through the uncertainty of World War II, the Cold War, Korea, and Vietnam, to the victories of adulation and the vicissitudes of addiction. We might guess, even if we didn’t know, that Cash’s classic “Five Feet High and Rising” is an account of the flooding with which he was all too familiar from his 1930s childhood in the cotton fields of Arkansas: How high’s the water, mama?

Five feet high and risin’

How high’s the water, papa?

Five feet high and risin’

His song “Man in Black” is a deft and dexterous comment on Vietnam, a subject on which so many others were heavy-handed: And I wear it for the thousands who have died, Believin’ that the Lord was on their side I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died, Believin’ that we all were on their side The relationship between the amphitheater and amphetamines, meanwhile, is rather neatly delineated in a piece collected here called “Going, Going, Gone”: Liquid, tablet, capsule, powder Fumes and smoke and vapor

The payoff is the same in the end

Liquid, tablet, capsule, powder

Fumes and smoke and vapor

Convenient ways to get the poison in So ingrained in our collective unconscious is the voice of Johnny Cash that we can all but hear the boom-chicka boom-chicka of his guitar accompaniment, at once reassuring and disquieting in its very familiarity.

The defining characteristic of an effective lyric—even the greatest of them—is that it doesn’t quite hold up to the scrutiny we might bring to bear on a poem, that only something along the lines of that missing boom-chicka will allow it to be completely what it most may be. In the case of work that is previously unpublished, or hitherto overlooked, this intrinsic lack is thrown into even greater relief. Is it possible that Cash himself chose not to round out, never mind record, some or all of these pieces? Are we doing him and his memory a disservice in allowing them out of the attic and into the wider world? Writers of the stature of Elizabeth Bishop, T. S. Eliot, and Philip Larkin are among those whose reputations have suffered at least a dent from the indiscriminate publication of their second-or third-rate efforts. And the fact is that even great artists not only nod, like Homer, but also produce nonstarters and no-nos.

Such considerations weighed heavily on the team—John Carter Cash and Steve Berkowitz—most immediately involved in the collection and collation of the copious raw material from which I was able to make this selection. It was with an initial sense of relief, then an increasingly rapturous glee, that I realized there is so much here that will indeed broaden and deepen our perception of Johnny Cash and his legacy.

II.

Before thinking about Johnny Cash’s legacy, though, I’d like to appeal to a passage from T. S. Eliot’s “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” which I continue to find particularly instructive in this matter: No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead. I mean this as a principle of aesthetic, not merely historical, criticism. The necessity that he shall conform, that he shall cohere, is not one-sided; what happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it.

The veracity of Eliot’s last profound observation may be seen in a piece like “The Dogs Are in the Woods”: The dogs are in the woods

And the huntin’s lookin’ good

And the raccoons on the hill

I can hear them trailing still These dogs are calling out to some of their not-too-distant relatives, the hunting hounds poisoned by Lord Randall’s dissed girlfriend, as reported by Lord Randall to his mother in the traditional Scotch-Irish folksong “Lord Randall”: “What became of your bloodhounds, Lord Randall my son?

What became of your bloodhounds, my handsome young man?”

“O they swelled and they died: mother, make my bed soon, for I’m weary wi’ hunting, and fain wald lie down.”

We’ve already seen the dialogue format of the “Lord Randall” ballad repurposed in “Five Feet High and Rising.” The “Muscadine Wine” we find in this collection is an offshoot of the same vine that gave us the blood-red wine in the Scottish standard “The Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens”: The King sits in Dunfermline town, Drinking the blood-red wine;

“O where shall I get a skeely skipper

To sail this ship or mine?”

Then up and spake an eldern knight, Sat at the King’s right knee:

“Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor

That ever sailed the sea.”

The King has written a broad letter, And sealed it with his hand,

And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens,

Was walking on the strand.

It’s no accident that the tradition of the Scots ballad, along with its transmogrified versions in North America, is one in which Johnny Cash should be so at ease, given that the first recorded instance of the name Cash—that of Roger Cass—is found in, of all things, the Registrum de Dunfermelyn. The entry is dated 1130, during the reign of King David I of Scotland (r. 1124–1153). “The Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens” is set in Dunfermline a mere hundred sixty years later, in 1290.

We may also see the influence of the Scotch-Irish tradition in the use of the tag phrase at the end of each verse (a device we’ve come to associate with the work of Bob Dylan), in a piece like “Slumgullion”: Every day’s a brand-new mountain Don’t drink long at any fountain

You’ll be turned into slumgullion “Slumgullion” is a word that means several things, including a watery stew, the watery waste left after the rendering of whale blubber, and the slurry associated with a mine. It is generally believed to be derived from “slum,” an old word for “slime,” and “gullion,” an English dialect term for “mud” or “cesspool.” “Gullion” may actually be a corruption of the Gaelic word góilín, “pit” or “pool.” The earliest recorded usage of “slumgullion,” in Mark Twain’s Roughing It (1872), refers to a drink: Then he poured for us a beverage which he called “Slum gullion,” and it is hard to think he was not inspired when he named it. It really pretended to be tea, but there was too much dish-rag, and sand, and old bacon-rind in it to deceive the intelligent traveler.

The Scotch-Irish song tradition has a strong humorous component that may be detected in “Jellico Coal Man,” a song about life in a Tennessee mining town that could easily have been called Slumgullion had it not already been named after the wild angelica (Angelica sylvestris) that grows there in abundance: It will warm your baby in the winter time It comes direct from the Jellico mine When the sun comes up that’s the time I start You will see me comin’ with my two-wheel cart There’s a not too-far-from-the-surface eroticism about this coal-mining man that straddles not only the ballad tradition but also the bawdiness of certain old blues songs. We recognize it in “Hey, Baby, Wake Up,” with its assertion that “I need my biscuit buttered, Babe.” We have detected it in “Who’s Gonna Grease My Skillet?” when he says “Who’s gonna squeeze my juice if you should go,” with a nod and wink in the direction of Robert Johnson’s “Squeeze my lemon.”

In addition to conjuring up the naughty nickname attached to, say, Jelly Roll Morton, “Jellico Coal Man” brings to mind the city of Jericho, the walls of which succumbed to the power of music when the Israelite priests sounded their ram’s-horn trumpets. (In one of those fascinating coincidences that many of us enjoy, Jellico was the childhood home of Homer Rodeheaver, the famous evangelist and trombonist.) The iconography of the Bible is a constant in Johnny Cash’s work, rarely so powerful as in a piece like “Job,” with its recalibration of Job as cattle baron: Job was a wealthy man

He had a lot of kids and a lot of land He had cattle on a thousand hills

He lived every day to do God’s will On a technical note, there exist a number of versions of the “Job” text in Cash’s hand. As with several other pieces included here, I drew on these multiple manuscript sources to make a plausible “finished” version. An attentive reader may therefore remark on discrepancies and disconnects, variations and vagaries, between the printed texts and the facsimile material with which they’re so artfully interspersed. That reader may also notice the rationalization of stanza breaks and the generally normative tendencies of grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Cash’s occasional misspellings need be perpetuated no more than Yeats’s, and that includes the humorous humdinger “Caddilac.”

There’s another humorous strand running through a number of these lyrics that draws on the cowboy tradition, be it the Lone Ranger mounted on Silver, referred to in “Spirit Rider” (“I will mount my Hi-Yo and I will ride off, ma’am”), or the singing cowboy Roy Rogers in “Hey, Baby, Wake Up”: Hey, Baby, wake up

Did you hear the latest news

The man said Roy and Dale split up And Dale got Trigger, too

Yeah, I hear your sweet feet on the floor I knew that’d get through to you That humor extends to the litany of exhortations in “Don’t Make a Movie About Me” that reflect Cash’s own ambivalence about celebrity and the associated tabloid slobbering: Don’t let ’em drag old Hickory Lake For my telephones and bottles and roller skates . . .

Out a hundred yards from my lakeside house Weighted down with a rock is a skirt and blouse A dozen pair of boots that made a dozen corns Trombones, trumpets, harmonicas and horns And the tapes that I threw from the lakeside door Silverstein, and Kristofferson from years before This was the selfsame Shel Silverstein who won the Grammy Award for Best Country Song of 1969 for “A Boy Named Sue.” He was friendly with David Allan Coe, also mentioned in “Don’t Make a Movie About Me,” who had the distinction of embarking on his music career in Nashville while living in a hearse parked outside Ryman Auditorium, a macabre touch that would surely have appealed to Cash. The song continues: If they’re hot on a book called Man in Black

Tell ’em I’ve got the rights and won’t give back If you don’t know my tune you can’t get it right I don’t talk about me in Man in White

As it turns out, Man in White is the title of Cash’s historical novel about the life of Saint Paul before and after his conversion. We’re reminded, of course, that Johnny Cash as the “Man in Black” is less gunslinger than psalm-singing preacher, the unapologetic nature of his Christian faith shining through in “He Bore It All for Me,” a piece that takes as its text Matthew 11:28, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” A faith in the sense that there is a world beyond this one must at least partly inform the sentiments of “Forever”: But the trees that I planted Still are young

The songs I sang

Will still be sung

III.

In addition to the sense that it functions within time, the great work of art brings with it a profound sense of timelessness. There’s a sense of immortality and inevitability that suggests (1) that it has always existed and (2) that it was always meant to exist in this form and this form only. Johnny Cash’s quiet insistence that his songs “will still be sung” might easily be read as self-regarding but is more accurately perceived as a manifestation of the humility that is an absolute prerequisite in art-making: it has less to do with his name and fame being bruited about in Dubai or Decatur or Dunfermline itself than with his achieving a kind of beautiful anonymity. It’s a claim to deathlessness that may be made only by someone who has taken into account that, like “The Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens,” Johnny Cash’s brilliant “California Poem” was written by everyone and no one: The lights are on past midnite The curtains closed all day

There’s trouble on the mountain

The valley people say

Paul Muldoon

BALLAD OF JOHNNY CAPMAN

1970s

Johnny Capman said To his wife one day I’m sorry, my dear But I just can’t stay My country calls

And I’m on my way His wife said to him You must stay

We are in trouble And you can’t go away The war has come And the growing is hard The soil is tough As our front yard If you leave me What can we eat

We have no clothes Or shoes on our feet Johnny Capman said To his wife again There’s a war to fight I will join the men The days went by Not a word was said For fear that he

Would come back dead About a week from then A letter came

She tried to find Her Johnny’s name But it was not from him And the letter said We regret to tell you Your Johnny’s dead

BIG-HEARTED GIRL

Undated

You’ve done every dirty thing That a woman shouldn’t do

You’re polished in the ways of the world But when you run your velvet fingers Through the troubles in my head I’m glad you’re a big-hearted girl Big-hearted girl, spread yourself around But remember me when you get back to town You’ve broken every rule That a lover shouldn’t break And I really hate to share you with the world But when you come to me crying And clinging on to me

I’m glad you are a big-hearted girl Big-hearted girl, you know I understand Remember me when you really want a man There’s a high price you’ll pay For giving yourself away

The gossip’s gonna throw you for a whirl But if the truth was known

They’re wishing they were you They’d like to be a big-hearted girl Big-hearted girl, I won’t tie you down But let me know when you’ll be back around

BODY ON BODY

1980s

You wonder how (where) true love goes No one can say—cause nobody knows Like rain on a rock—like a leaf in the air No way to tell but it’s going somewhere You wonder what—true love knows No one can say—cause nobody knows It don’t make sense—like a midnite sun And one and one—is only one

Heart on heart—and soul on soul Body on body is how it goes

Heart on heart and soul on soul Body on body—is all it knows

CALIFORNIA POEM

1966

There’s trouble on the mountain

And the valley’s full of smoke

There’s crying on the mountain

And again the same heart broke

The lights are on past midnite

The curtains closed all day

There’s trouble on the mountain

The valley people say

THE CAPTAIN’S DAUGHTER

Undated (1950s/1960s)

The poor boy came from the farm land She was the daughter of a sailor man The Captain said, When he begs your hand You better tell him no ho no no no She said, Papa don’t you worry, please The poor boy begs me upon his knees But I’d never leave this life of ease And with a poor boy go ho no no no The Captain kissed her and he went to sea The poor boy said, Go away with me You’re lonely and you shouldn’t be Oh don’t you tell me no ho no no no My daddy owns a clipper ship He brings me pearls on every trip And pink champagne for me to sip

And you’re the poorest boy I know ho ho ho ho He said, I’ve got no pearls for you But I’ve got two arms and a heart that’s true We could start with a dream or two Oh won’t you say you’ll go ho no no no You couldn’t give me anything Except a plain gold wedding ring

You’ve got no presents you could bring My daddy’s rich, you know ho ho ho ho Your daddy’s given you a home But you’ve got nobody when he’s gone I’ll go and leave you all alone

If the answer is still no ho no no no My daddy’s on the churning sea And he would turn me across his knee If he knew you were kissing me

I won’t stay when you go ho no no no no

CHINKY PIN HILL

1970s

Come along with me and we Will get away from it all We’ll go through the mountains past The shining waterfall

The only sound we’ll hear at night Will be the whippoorwill And the chirpin’ of the crickets On Chinky Pin Hill

We’ll stop in Rainbow Valley Where the church is standing still And we’ll be newlywed married On Chinky Pin Hill

The world is so confusing as I go from day to day

And sometimes I get worried That I’ll lose you on the way I looked up at the stars As I leaned on the windowsill I’ve dreamed up a hideaway Called Chinky Pin Hill

CROWLEY’S RIDGE

October 1967

I borrowed me a ridin’ hoss I headed north for Crowley’s Ridge to cross We crossed Little River at Le-Pan-To Never slowed down

Till around Jones-boro Destination: Hardy, Arkansas To take my woman back From her maw and paw

The rich Delta land Was black and flat

But the cotton grows good In ground like that

The sun set slowly And the land turned red On top of Crowley’s Ridge I unrolled my blanket For my bed

I grazed my hoss

Near an elm tree

Then led him down to a spring And let him drink after me Short pine needles

Made a restful bed

And a sack of grass

Was the pillow for my head I drank a can of coffee Then rode on north

The gullies and thickets Turned me back and forth When I reached the north side of Crowley’s Ridge

The river had washed out The WPA bridge

My hoss couldn’t swim it It was swift and deep I hope the water’s down by morning So I hobbled him

And laid me down to sleep The river was down next mornin’ and the pilings was all

[that was] left of the WPA bridge.

I looked on the other side and there sat my woman and I waved my arms at her. She jumped in the river and started swimmin’ toward me.

I met her halfway and swam back with her riding me. Then we wrapped my blanket around us till we stopped shiverin’ from
the cold water.

She said, I’m ready to go home with you now.

I said, You keep livin’ with me and not run back to your folks?

She said, Yes, I belong with you, not in Hardy, Arkansas.

So we double-rode my borrowed hoss Till the land got flat For like the cotton

Love grows good

In ground like that

DARK AND BLOODY GROUND

1960s

I’ve been going like a quarry slave at night All busted down and burning for my bed I’ve been thinking about a woman In a wild Kentucky town

Where the mountains are high near Harlan And the whirlpools twirl on down There my secret can be found In the dark and bloody ground Oh how I’ve missed you Oh how I’ve cried

I’d like to lay you down by my side And love you just once before I die And I would be gentle and I would never hurt you And God might send a moonbeam And lay us down to pleasant dreams Whatsoever things are lovely Whatsoever things are true

Whatsoever things are kind and pure Think you these things

And God might send a moonbeam And lay us down to pleasant dreams Dewey was my best friend he was tall He stood six foot nine against the wall We both loved the same girl But Dewey he went bad

And I guess you could say he made one mad He didn’t have to do all those awful things to you And Dewey made me sick

And I guess it takes two heels to click I took my nine-pound hammer Swung it hard and spun him round Kicked him in the temple watched him falling to the ground

Then my blade found its mark in the dark And that blood flowed in the sand from that tall Kentucky man Hell hath no fury like the blues When a man’s got on his killing shoes In the dark and bloody ground Bloody ground bloody ground In the dark and bloody ground

DOES ANYBODY OUT THERE LOVE ME?

1980s

It’s a cold and cruel world When there’s no one to share the night And it’s a lonely road to travel In the early-morning light Somewhere there’s somebody And a place where you belong So you give yourself a talking-to And slowly move along

It’s a long and endless journey When you’re on the lost pathway Today will not be different Than a hundred yesterdays But maybe there’s a new life Dawning with the morning sun And I’ll be a better man

For where I’ve been and what I’ve done Does anybody out there love me Does anybody out there care Does anybody out there want to share Does anybody out there love me?

THE DOGS ARE IN THE WOODS

1970s

The dogs are in the woods And the huntin’s lookin’ good And the raccoons on the hill I can hear them trailing still Now he’s on the other side And he’ll find a place to hide But the dogs’ll hunt him down And they’ll catch him on the ground But the fur is gonna fly And a hound is gonna cry

And we may not know tonight Who will finally win the fight But the dogs are in the woods And the huntin’ looks good The fire is burning low We wet it down and go

And we make a beeline

To the howling in the pine It’s too far to see But they’re barking up a tree Then we hear them on the run And the night has just begun But the fur is gonna fly And a hound is gonna cry

And we may not know tonight Who will finally win the fight But the dogs are in the woods And the huntin’ looks good

DON’T MAKE A MOVIE ABOUT ME

Christmas 1982

If anybody made a movie out of my life I wouldn’t like it, but I’d watch it twice If they halfway tried to do it right

There’d be forty screenwriters workin’ day and nite They’d need a research team from Uncle Sam And go from David Allan Coe to Billy Graham It would run ten days in the final cut And that would mean leaving out the gossip smut And I do request for my children’s sake Don’t ever let ’em do a new re-make

The thing I’m sayin’ is, don’t you see, Don’t make a movie ’bout me

Even for T.V.

Don’t make a movie ’bout me

Don’t let ’em drag old Hickory Lake For my telephones and bottles and roller skates Down forty feet in the Cumberland mud There’s a rusty old gun that once shed blood Out a hundred yards from my lakeside house Weighted down with a rock is a skirt and blouse A dozen pair of boots that made a dozen corns Trombones, trumpets, harmonicas and horns And the tapes that I threw from the lakeside door Silverstein, and Kristofferson from years before Everything has a story that should be let be So don’t make a movie ’bout me

If they’re hot on a book called Man in Black

Tell ’em I’ve got the rights and won’t give back If you don’t know my tune you can’t get it right I don’t talk about me in Man in White

Truth, said the Master, cannot be hid But he didn’t say slap it in the face of my kids.

A stone is a stone and forever stone

But I’m part good and bad and then I’m gone There is no sin cleaner than the dirtiest So there’s a lot about me that I don’t want missed If it’s days or years or whatever will be Don’t make a movie ’bout me

Aw, I might as well face it cause they will someday So while I can I’ve got a thing to say I don’t know anybody that I said I don’t know And there ain’t anybody anywhere I owe The I.R.S. gets the lion’s share

And what is left goes to my own named heirs Don’t let ’em make it in Hollywood

If they must, tell ’em Arkansas is where they should Here’s a hex on whoever makes it be,

So don’t make a movie ’bout me

For Love or Monee

Don’t make a movie ’bout me

DON’T TAKE YOUR GUN TO TOWN

1980s

A young man of propriety Found life to be a bore

He had studied politics and law Psychology and more

He felt cold and jaded

Overall, and all around

On impulse, he picked up a gun In the sleazy part of town But a lady who understood him said, Don’t let the hammer down, Joe Leave the thing at home, no— Don’t take the gun to town They kissed and he said, Please Don’t underestimate your man I can do and be and dare

As anybody can

Sweetheart, there are people Who need silencing, and so, I shall avenge society of hypocritical Joe, so, Definitely I’ll go, and

Take my gun to town

He named a politician Who had long been on his list A singer and an actor

And others I won’t miss

The preachers with their promises Are plastic bogus clowns

But a kind sweet voice kept haunting him, Joe, don’t take your gun to town Do not draw the gun

Let God’s peace rule the day, then Throw the gun away, Joe

Let this obsession go

The happy cheering crowd unaware Watched the motorcade move on With a change of heart, Joe Stood with his sweetheart alone Then they walked to the river bridge Where midway he sat down

He dropped the gun, and the water Made a laughing sound

The cold blue steel for killing Settled in the mud, deep down And never will be found

Thank God for the woman Who went out into the night And quietly corrected

This great wrong and made it right . . .

With love she turned around A tragedy unsound

And heaven answered down

Don’t take your guns to town

FOREVER

Summer 2003

You tell me that I must perish

Like the flowers that I cherish

Nothing remaining of my name

Nothing remembered of my fame

But the trees that I planted

Still are young

The songs I sang

Will still be sung

GOING, GOING, GONE

(version 2)

Loma Linda

Christmas 1990

Liquid, tablet, capsule, powder Fumes and smoke and vapor

The payoff is the same in the end Liquid, tablet, capsule, powder Fumes and smoke and vapor

Convenient ways to get the poison in Pop the pill and you don’t hear But there’s a great explosion Twenty thousand cells are dead and blind Keep it up and very soon

A cold, dry wind is blowing

Down through the lifeless valleys of your mind Take the tiny crystals now Cause you don’t need the stomach Snort it, shoot it, ain’t you having fun Why can’t the highs get higher And why do the lows get lower?

Hey maybe you should get yourself a gun It isn’t fair you have to suffer For a little pleasure

You must relax, the red capsule will do So nice to sleep a little while But you don’t like this feeling So you lay a line of powder, maybe two You do your inventory

And some of your drugs are missing You know you didn’t do near half that much Turn on the ones who love you Why are they afraid and crying And why do they recoil to your touch?

Lock your door, tie down the blinds And bring the lights down lower You’re only happy now when you’re alone How many downers will it take?

Oh well, it doesn’t matter

You’ve long been going, going; now you’re gone

GOLD ALL OVER THE GROUND

March 1967

If I had you at my mercy There’s no tellin’ what I’d do But I’d make you sit and listen For an hour, maybe two

And then you’d know I need you Every day that rolls around Your feet would walk on velvet With gold all over the ground Your trails would be downhill A soft breeze at your back Your skies full of diamonds Your nights would not be black Yes, you would really love it Then if you’re ever down

I’d give you rows of roses And gold all over the ground I’d pick you up and carry you ’Cross every stream I see I’d bundle you in kindness Until you cling to me

We’d sit beneath strong branches My arms would twine around I’d turn your green to emerald And give you gold all over the ground

GOLD IN ALASKA

Early 1980s

Though it’s cold in Alaska There’s gold in Alaska

There’s nuggets in the rivers And gold dust in the sand

I’ve got a girl in Seward

I ain’t seen in quite a time If she’ll wait until October When my diggin’s done and over I’ll go cashin’ in my stash And we’ll make love through the dark days That winter sun don’t shine When I come back to the Tikchik I’ll leave her a little gold Enough to keep her on the line I went to Alaska

To a river called the Tikchik In the middle of the summer When the salmon make their run And my guide with pick and shovel Every day would stop and vanish Then he’d come back with a handful of it Shinin’ in the sun

HE BORE IT ALL FOR ME

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. —Matthew 11:28

Undated

He bore it all for me He bore it all for me When I was lost

A painful cross

He bore it all for me He took the blame for me He took the blame for me He counted my wrongs As forgotten and gone He took the blame for me He paid the price for me He paid the price for me A price that was high For failure and lies He paid the price for me As he bore the pain for me As he bore the pain for me He spoke not a word Not a cry was heard He bore the pain for me Yes, he bore it all for me Yes, he bore it all for me With nothing required but faith in the Lord Who bore it all for me

HEY, BABY, WAKE UP

Undated

Hey, Baby, wake up If the sky should fall today We could go outside and catch doves And everything will be OK

Shake a leg and come on now I need my biscuit buttered, Babe Hey hey

Hey, Baby, wake up I saw it on Channel 4

The president’s out running Back and forth and to and fro Gonna make some big decisions And he thought you’d need to know Hey hey hey. Ho ho ho

Hey, Baby, wake up Did you hear the latest news The man said Roy and Dale split up And Dale got Trigger, too Yeah, I hear your sweet feet on the floor I knew that’d get through to you Hey hey. Ha ha ha

I HAVE BEEN AROUND

(version 2)

Undated

I have been around I have been on the incoming And the outward bound

I came up from the fields And I’ve been down on my knees I have been visited by angels While demons badgered me And I guess I gave the devil more than his due But I always come back around to you I have been around I have kissed the moonlight On a priceless pearl I found I have been a counselor And I have been a fool

I rode a wild horse

And I rode a Mach 2

I’ve been loved and I’ve been bored and I’ve been blue But I always come back around to you I have been around I have tasted rapture that could not again be found I felt the power filling up And I felt the power gone I’ve been full but hungry And abandoned to the bone In the end I knew one thing to pull me through I always come back around to you

I HEARD ON THE NEWS

Early 1970s

I heard on the news That there is a lull in the fighting In Vietnam

Because so many Vietnamese Are busy planting A rice crop again The report said

That full-scale fighting Is expected to resume Immediately after the planting season I reply:

What kind of animal is man That he would pause In his killing

To go about the business Of preparing for the living Knowing

That he will immediately return To the business of killing?

I WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS

Undated

I wish that you had choked on the glue Of the goodbye letter you wrote I wish that I had been standing by To jam it down your throat

I send you best wishes too

For a long migraine headache

A hysterectomy on Christmas Eve And a bathroom full of snakes But I wish you a Merry Christmas With your friends at Central State I hope you’ll be committed

On the dawn that Christmas breaks You told me don’t come back again So I won’t visit you

I wish you Merry Xmas in a straitjacket It’s been said you went to bed with one of my best friends I hope he told you he’s positive and the end will soon begin Well I must close but you should know that yesterday when I left I sold our House for Cash and kept the money for myself But I wish you a Merry Christmas And I’m sending you a gift

A nice neck brace and crutches, cause your old car won’t shift You’ll know before you get this, that I fixed it up to break I wanted you to know as you go From the hospital to Central State Yes I wish you a Merry Christmas And a very short New Year

IF YOU LOVE ME

October 1983

The fluctuating worth Of this very terminal earth And the satellite that glows at night Above me

Won’t bear upon my mind But concerning humankind I won’t care if you’re there And if you love me

A seed must die, I know Before a plant can grow And so would I

Before I’d let you go Again the sun may rise And burn thru yellow skies But I’ll see it through your blue eyes If you love me

I see it in your eyes If it’s true or if it lies I feel it if it’s real If you love me

Let the cold wind blow Let seasons come and go Let you come to my arms If you love me

I’LL STILL LOVE YOU

Undated

One of these mornings I’m gonna rise up flying One of these mornings I’ll sail away beyond the blue I’ve got a promise

That there’s a better world ahead I want you to know that when I go I’ll still love you One of these mornings When my trouble’s over One of these mornings When all my suffering is through I’ll go out singing It’ll be a day to sing about I guarantee for eternity I’ll still love you I won’t be a stranger When I get to heaven Cause you gave me heaven Right here on earth If I get rewarded

With a mansion on a golden street I want you to know

For what it’s worth I’ll still love you

I’M COMIN’, HONEY

Late 1950s

I was driving in the rain Twenty miles from Bangor, Maine When I realized how much you mean to me So I turned the rig around

Filled her up outside of town Took the shortest route southbound to Tennessee I’m comin’, Honey

Hang out the front door key I’m comin’, Honey

Get ready to pucker up for me I was drivin’ in the sleet Stopped to get a bite to eat Folks in Penn asked me if I’d stay I said, Thank you, anyhow

But I think I’ll make it now I can’t stay away from her another day I’m comin’, Honey

Look out the window and see I’m comin’, Honey

Turn on the front light for me I was drivin’ in the snow On a mountain called Soco

Your picture hanging on my rearview glass I was heavy on the foot

I was blowing out the soot

There was no one alive who’d try to pass I’m comin’, Honey

Put a little coffee in the pot I’m comin’, Honey

Get set to give me all the love you got

JELLICO COAL MAN

Undated

I’ve got a little black ring around my neck And I will sell you coal by the bushel or the peck I will sell you coal by the gallon or the pound And you don’t have to look for me, I’ll be around Yellin’, Jellico coal man Jellico coal man

I’m the Jellico coal man

Coal, coal, coal

There is coal that’s soft and coal that’s hard I will bring it around through your backyard I love chocolate cake and apple pie I believe I will have a piece when I come back by I’m the Jellico coal man Jellico coal man

Jellico coal man

Coal, coal, coal

It will warm your baby in the winter time It comes direct from the Jellico mine When the sun comes up that’s the time I start You will see me comin’ with my two-wheel cart Yellin’, Jellico coal man Jellico coal man

Jellico coal man

Coal, coal, coal

JOB

Early 1990s

Job was a wealthy man

He had a lot of kids and a lot of land He had cattle on a thousand hills He lived every day to do God’s will Satan came with the sons of men The Lord said Satan where you been?

He said I have been around

And to and fro and up and down Working hard for all I’m worth To rule all men upon this earth The Lord said do the worst you can But my servant Job is a faithful man Satan did the worst he could

Job kept right on being good

But he cried out in agony

When he lost his children and his property Satan started laughing and he said again It’s bone for bone and skin for skin Then he looked up to the holy place Said I make him curse you to your face Satan struck Job from his feet to his head With corruption, and Job got out of bed And sat right down in the marketplace With sackcloth and ashes on his face The Lord said you can’t take his life Satan said I’ll work on his wife Job’s wife said curse God and die He’s not going to hear you cry Job Job watch what you say The Lord let Satan have his way Don’t give in and don’t give up The Lord could soon refill your cup Then the best three friends that Job ever had Zophar, Eliphaz and Bildad

Sat down with him for seven days To share his grief without a word to say Job said why does it have to be That the thing I feared has come on me He cried out I deplore my birth Let my birthday perish from the earth His friends said Job you should repent The perfect don’t get punishment Job said I harmed no man

There’s been no violence by my hand As surely as sparks upward fly I was born to trouble and I want to die I want to see God face-to-face And stand right up and argue my case There is no justice I can see God has been unfair to me

I’ve been righteous, I’ve been good And God won’t talk to me like he should Job Job your friends are nice But they gave you some bad advice What’s needed here, it seems to me Is a little thing called humility Then along came a friend named Elihu Said I will speak to God for you And he will bring you from the pit He’ll raise you up from where you sit He will chasten, test, and try But by his grace you didn’t die He purifies you in your pain

And he can make you whole again Then God said who can this be Who challenges my majesty

Who speaks but does not know what to say Where were you on creation day Learn a lesson from the animals and birds Don’t darken my counsel with empty words Show me your wisdom if you can And gird yourself up like a man Job looked up into the firmament And said Lord God I do repent I bow down before your throne My will is yours and yours alone The bounty flowed from heaven’s door And Job was twice as wealthy as before He had a golden chain and a long white robe And the happiest man in the world was Job Job Job watch what you say The Lord let Satan have his way Don’t give in and don’t give up The Lord could soon refill your cup You could make a comeback still with cattle on a thousand hills

LET’S PUT IT TO MUSIC

1960s

How do you feel about me Now that you’ve learned to know me?

Why don’t we both admit That something is happening And we would feel better if We’d just tell each other No need to keep it to ourselves Let’s put it to music Let’s put it to music Let’s sing about it

Laugh about it

Clap our hands

And shout about it

Let the whole world hear it In a sweet, sweet melody Let’s put it to music, you and me

LOST MY MONEY IN A BUFFALO TRACK

1970s

I lost my money in a buffalo track On the Blue Ridge Mountain Where the road turns back From Philadelphy to the Cumberland Gap There ain’t a maple standin’

That’ll give me sap

The rim ran off of a wheel one night But I keep it watered It’ll be alright

We crossed Clinch River where The skeeters scratch Then we smoked ’em out In a baccer patch

The cornmeal’s weevily And the bacon’s rank But the perch was tasty on Cumberland banks

At a place called French Lick, Tennessee We fought the weather and the Cherokee We fed on deer and buffalo And we tanned their hide Against the winter snow

MUSCADINE WINE

2000s

Right by the porch In the honeysuckle vines I found a jug

Of Muscadine wine So I pulled the plug And I took a little whiff And said I can’t handle This by myself Before you could say Zippety-doo

All my neighbors smelled it, too In comes Casey and Carey And Joe

With a how-de-do And a high-de-ho Ain’t you heard Long as you live It’s whole lot more Blessed to give And we all feel blessed And mighty fine Passing around Muscadine wine

MY SONG

1970s

Well, it’s many a day The road gets weary And it’s many a day That the way is long And I often say,

No more I do it

But I miss the traveling And I miss the songs I was born to sing But not to the wind and space But to people’s hearts And people’s ears

’Tis a gift from God And I pray I’d use it And sing to their hearts And sing to their ears For a song can soar Like the lofty eagle And lift a heart

That has fallen low And a song can shine Like a light in darkness And make the downcast Look up and glow

I wish I owned A great high mountain With people below

Every way I turned I wish they’d look up And ears could hear me And I’d sing my song To the hearts that yearned I would sing it loud I would sing it long Straight from the heart I would sing it true Then I’d come back down From my singing mountains And your life would be better Cause I sang for you

ROOM 1702

Late 1960s

In the hotel room alone I was lying In the night a man was softly crying He grabbed his phone And then he started screaming I covered up my head and said, I’m dreaming

The man said, Send someone I know I’m dying

Come to 1702,

The man was crying In the darkness I reached for the light But my hand couldn’t penetrate the night I left my bed, but didn’t feel the floor Then someone was knocking at my door Thru the bolted door I stepped right thru And we walked out of 1702

SILK AND DENIM

1990s

She wore silk and denim She wore silk and denim

From the top of her red head To her red-painted toes

The way she turned when I called her name Her skirt whirled in circles There were lacy little roses On her red pantyhose

She looked like a fire coming All except her eyes

They were bluer than lazuli And deeper than the skies They were full of love and welcome They were kind and they were smiling And I knew in a heartbeat I would love her till I die She wore lace and denim She wore lace and denim

Lacy decorated bosom

Soft blue denim on her hips I tried not to undress her But my mind could not be passive I fantasized my loving her I kissed her on the lips And the denim buttons opened And the blue cloth fell away She turned her back and held her hair up Smiled a sweet OK

I fumbled with the lace buttons And not one word did we say

SLUMGULLION

1970s

Get a chicken if you can catch it Get a pot if you can steal it Take that bottle from your pocket Let me hold it till I can’t feel it Let me lay down by the fire Let me get a little higher Till my head turns to slumgullion Four a.m. I’m sleeping peaceful Dreaming of that girl in Billings And she’s kissing me and crying And she’s warm and she is willing Then the cold rain and the wind Brings me reality again

Turns my dreams into slumgullion Never laugh at the devil Cause he ain’t to be outsmarted Bout the time you think you whipped him You will find that he’s just started He will run you off the sidin’

Jump right up from where he’s hidin’

Turn your plans into slumgullion When you think you are a winner And a number one all over

Don’t go smilin’ in the mirror Don’t go rollin’ in the clover Every day’s a brand-new mountain Don’t drink long at any fountain You’ll be turned into slumgullion

SPIRIT RIDER

1980s

On a moonbeam there might come a spirit rider Who’ll be watching for a flickering in the gloom He will put a feeler out for love and welcome And he just might cast a shadow ’cross your room I will scent out any evidence of danger I will taste the air around my sugar shack If my heart knows you won’t treat it like a stranger And if the fire is lit

I’ll be ridin’ back

Before you know it you will see a spirit rider Cut me off, babe, and I’ll be gone

I will mount my Hi-Yo and I will ride off, ma’am And I’ll go on (and on and on) and on and on The lies you laid in one ear will blow out the other Let a storm rage round me on my outward tack If I hear bluebirds I won’t go any farther And if the sky gets clear back here

I’ll be ridin’ back

I will ramble, drift and range and you’ll be walkin’

Around imaginary things upon the floor Walkin’ circles round the reasons that have vanished You’ll forget what doesn’t matter anymore You might get a glimpse of me off in the distance If you cry out I might hear you on the wind And if the mountains echo your love to me Wave your heart and

I’ll be ridin’ back again

TECUMSEH

Undated

A baby Indian boy was born one morning In the early-morning dark when no birds fly Born to be a prophet like his brother

And they saw the eye of a panther in the sky A comet with a fierce head came screaming Round and fierce and with a tail of light The day that dawned was known as the day of the panther With the birthday of a baby boy in the morning light Tecumseh go and shout it from the mountains White men are coming from the salty sea They’ll take your hand and steal all your tomorrows All must stand together to be free

Already there are nations gone forever Your people are signing treaties that are lies Listen to the one great Holy Spirit

Then go to every tribe and prophecy

And the Great Spirit said, On a hilltop near the father of the waters

I’ll stamp my foot and strike all hearts with fear At the settlement the white man calls New Madrid You will see it, you will feel it, you will hear Tecumseh mounted up and for twelve moons Went forth and pleased, preached and prophesied He told them that a great earthquake was coming But it wouldn’t be a day for them to hide He said it will be a sign to meet me

In Indiana where we’ll make our stand

The Great Spirit said for me to tell you This we must do if we’re to keep our land Tecumseh go and shout it from the mountains White men are coming from the salty sea They’ll take your hand and steal all your tomorrows All must stand together to be free

The earthquake came in the year 1811

Just as Tecumseh prophesied

He stood upon the banks east of the river And watched as buildings fell and people died He saw the Mississippi running backwards Whirling, muddy death was in the flow

Then he rode the trembling ground fast and northward Where he prayed every Indian would go

But from all the tribes that came from east of the river Just a remnant came to Indian land

And they met the war machines in a terrible battle And they fought and fell in fighting hand to hand Then the white men pushed them north and westward And they safely came to the land of the Cree Tecumseh fell at his last stand in Canada And his people still speak of his prophecy The spirit of Tecumseh is still pleading In all directions as the eagle flies

His mother knew that he was very special The night she saw the panther in the sky

TENDERFOOT FROM THE CITY

1940s

I don’t want to be a gun-totin’ Texan Rather see ’em in the moving picture show And I don’t want to be a singin’ cowboy Rather hear the popular songs on the radio Want a soft, fluffy place to lay my head Don’t want any snakes or cactus beds Rather ride my girl in my Cadillac Than to ride a smelly horse’s back No I won’t get tanned from riding a mule I’ll get my tan in a swimming pool I’m a tenderfoot from the city But I’m livin’ just the same I’m a tenderfoot from the city And I live a life of ease

I wear my silk and satin

And go just where I please

THE THINGS WE’RE FRIGHTENED AT

April 26, 1944

When I was just a little kid And played a lot at night Back in our country village Where we didn’t pay for light Then I could see behind each tree An Indian standing there And say, how I’d shake and holler!

It would fairly raise my hair And when I grew to be a man I knew it more and more That half the fun was knowing not What I was running for And I used to go to town Every night for Paw

I’d go down the road just lickety-split!

Until my feet were raw I had a little cousin (He was scary, too)

He’s worse than I am

He’s scared of ghosts. Are you?

Once I heard my cousin Just outside a-yellin’

He wouldn’t tell me what it was I said there ain’t no telling

THE WALKING WOUNDED

1970s

We’re in the church-house kneeling down We’re in the subways underground We’re in the bars and on the street We drive a truck, we walk a beat We’re in the mills and factories We make the steel, we cut the trees A thousand-yard stare, eyes of glass We will see you when we pass We are the walking wounded

We lost our homes, we lost our dreams All our goals turned into schemes We hurt each other and ourselves We went through long, traumatic spells We cried out from the deepest pit But rise back up each time we’re hit We fell from power and from grace But resurrection’s in our face We are the walking wounded

Just like little girls and boys We played with our grown-up toys We never thought of sink or swim I traded her, she went with him Like a circle round and round Just going up and coming down No shame and no integrity

I hurt her and she left me

We are the walking wounded

We don’t explain or apologize We pull the veil across our eyes We see through your fake and rain But we won’t let you see our pain We don’t ask you to forgive

We demand that you let live

You can’t understand, and so, You don’t really need to know We are the walking wounded

Together, we are legion We are honest with each other Though we stay and though we leave You may see us and not know us There are many more of us than you’d believe

WHAT WOULD I DREAMER DO

Undated

What would I dreamer do The rainbow already has its hue The sea has long been salted down And there are far too many clowns For too many carnivals

Some tell me, Be like me No one should be like you, you see Hide your mysterious secret side While hungry fools have died Unlocking mysteries

I put on a nice, neat suit Hide my straw hat and boots Live the accepted normal life Answer to Mr., how’s your wife?

and your children?

Seems to me to fix up things I should fly on brazen wings Passing by all that conforms Wear no raincoat in storms And to hell with umbrellas Why should I wait in my seat Passing time for a glutton to eat I may know no other task But I won’t wait, so don’t ask I’ll go do something

I don’t recall, if any or what Task or duty fell my lot They say songs are for nothing but to sing Say the never listening—unhearing While the music plays

I don’t have it all figured, I guess Maybe I’m confused as the rest But I won’t live 8 to 5

Are the 8 to 5 alive

Even on weekends?

So, I’ll walk a lot of streets Get up and go, whenever I eat Throw away that business suit Put neat’s-foot oil on my boots And track mud on somebody’s carpet

WHO’S GONNA GREASE MY SKILLET?

Undated

Who’s gonna grease my skillet When you’re gone Who’s gonna grease my skillet When you’re gone Who’s gonna turn the heat on When I’m cold to the bone Who’s gonna grease my skillet When you’re gone?

Who’s gonna squeeze my juice If you should go Who’s gonna squeeze my juice If you should go What you gonna do about it If it drops down too low Who’s gonna squeeze my oranges When you go?

Who’s gonna wipe your juices From my shirt

Who’s gonna wipe your juices From my shirt?

Don’t let anybody touch you It’ll dry up in the dirt Don’t let anybody touch you It’ll dry up in the dirt Who’s gonna grease my skillet When you’re gone Who’s gonna grease my skillet When you’re gone Who’s gonna turn the heat on When I’m cold to the bone Who’s gonna grease my skillet When you’re gone?

YOU NEVER KNEW MY MIND

1967

I know you feel the way I change But you can’t change the way I feel Sometimes I’m a stranger to you—one of a kind I think some way you’ll make it Though you don’t know how to take it You can’t deal with how I’m thinkin’

Cause you never knew my mind

There were times of lots of laughter And you felt you understood me We were carefree, open, honest Loving easy, true and kind

I suppose you never doubted then That we had it all together

Then you say the changes painfully, and knew You never knew my mind

My silence holds the secrets when I answer, but don’t answer

You didn’t see me well enough to recognize the signs You didn’t want to know it’s over You never looked close enough to know You never knew my mind

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Mark Stielper—researcher and Cash historian. Mark was invaluable to the process of making this book a reality. Also to Tom Benck, Jason Preston, and Marty Stuart. Johnny gave the handwritten “Don’t Make a Movie About Me” to Marty years ago, and he was nice enough to allow us access to the original writing/sketch. Thanks to Monique van Dorp, Alison McCoury, and Lauren Moore for added research and dedication to helping with the organization of works. You were invaluable to this process. Ana Cristina Alvarez—soon to be Mrs. John Carter Cash. Thanks for having faith. And to Lou Robin, Karen Robin, Sarah Hochman, David Rosenthal, Sony Legacy, Trey Call, Devik Wiener, David Ferguson, Nadine King, AnnaBelle Cash, Jack Cash, Joseph Cash, Chuck Turner, Bono, Doug Caldwell, T Bone Burnett, Callie Khouri, Cathy Sullivan, Josh Matas, and all at Sandbox Entertainment. Likewise, to Lisa Trice, Tiffany Dunn, Brittany Schaeffer, and everyone at Loeb & Loeb—thank you.

John Carter Cash

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Johnny Cash (1932–2003) was an American icon and country music superstar. He performed everywhere from Folsom State Prison to the White House. In 1980 he became the youngest living person to be chosen for the Country Music Hall of Fame; he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1977, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2010. A recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors as well as the National Medal of Arts, he won nineteen Grammy Awards, four of them posthumously.

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