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Title: American Recordings
By: Johnny Cash
Released by: Sony/Columbia
Released on: 1994
Rating (out of 10): 10
Date: 07/03/2001

The Beast In Me

I grew up hating country music. Living an hour outside of Boston, my exposure came mainly through my parents playing Kenny Rogers and the Urban Cowboy soundtrack over and over when I was a kid. When I was in college, I met people who were into Garth Brooks and Reba McIntire. After I moved from upstate New York to Texas, I gradually became exposed to non-mainstream country music and found out what I had been missing. Lyle Lovett, Steve Earle, and The Jayhawks entered regular rotation in my CD player.

I was at my public library one day and noticed they had some Johnny Cash cd’s. My prejudices started creeping back in. There had always been something about Johnny that bothered me, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. My first real exposure to him was on U2’s Zooropa. He sang on the final track, “The Wanderer.” It didn’t do much for me, and I had no problem dropping the track when making a cassette copy of the cd—minus that one track, it fits perfectly onto a forty-five minute side.

One of the Cash discs at the library was American Recordings, the album that revived his career and made him popular with the ‘alternative’ set. The album’s title has a double meaning. One, it refers to the music itself; the stark country sound is a deeply American form—rural, southern, and Appalachian. The second reference is to the fact that it was his debut on Rick Rubin’s American Recordings label.

Rick Rubin? Wait...didn’t he co-found the Def Jam rap label? Didn’t he produce the Beastie Boys’ Licensed To Ill and Public Enemy’s Yo! Bum Rush The Show? How could his vision mesh with Cash’s?

Well, apparently Rubin kept his hands off. He set Cash up in his living room and, over the course of a few days, recorded somewhere around one hundred songs, thirteen of which appear here (two songs were recorded live at the Viper Room). The song choices are interesting; there are several Cash originals as well as several covers. Many of the cover choices are obvious—Nick Lowe, Kris Kristofferson, Tom Waits (hell, everyone covers him), and Leonard Cohen. The choice of Loudon Wainwright (for you kids, he’s Rufus’ dad) is a little odd. Wainwright is definitely a songwriter, but his material is not something I would associate with Cash. Then there’s Danzig. Yup, Glen Danzig. O.K., I was definitely intrigued.

The disc opens with the Cash original, “Delia’s Gone.” I had no idea that Cash could be so wonderfully morbid. The song is a southern gothic murder ballad:
Delia, Oh Delia, Delia all my life
If I hadn’t have shot poor Delia
I’d have had her for my wife
Delias gone, one more round, Delias gone
I went up to Memphis and I met Delia there
Found her in her parlor and I tied her to her chair
Delias gone, one more round, Delias gone
She was low down and trifling, and she was cold and mean
Kind of evil make me want to grab my sub-machine
Delias gone, one more round, Delias gone
First time I shot her, I shot her in the side
Hard to watch her suffer, but with a second shot she died
Delias gone, one more round, Delias gone
But jailor oh jailor I can’t sleep
Cause’ all around the bedside I hear the patter of Delia’s feet
Delias gone, one more round, Delias gone
So if your woman’s devilish you can let her run
Or you can bring her down like Delia got done
Delias gone, one more round, Delias gone.
Hearing this with just Cash’s guitar strumming and his rich baritone gives me the chills every time.

Nick Lowe’s “The Beast In Me” is a journey through darkness. The music is somber, just a slow strummed guitar and Cash’s somewhat subdued vocals. The lyrics are pure pain:
The beast in me, is caged by frail and fragile bars
restless by day and by night rants and rages at the stars
God help the beast in me.
The beast in me, has had to live with pain
And how to shelter from the rain
And in the twinkling of an eye
Might have to be restrained
God help the best in me.
“Drive On” is another song full of pain. Cash’s voice is a little more strident than on “The Beast In Me” and musically, the track is a little more upbeat as well. The song is a first person narrative from a Vietnam veteran:
Well I got a friend named Whiskey Sam
He was my boony rat buddy for a year in Nam
He said I think my country got a little off track
Took them twenty-five years to welcome me back
But it’s better than not coming back at all
Many a good man I saw fall
And even now every time I dream
I hear the men and the monkeys in the jungle scream.
The vet goes on to tell of the horrors he encountered in Vietnam, and how his children love him but don’t understand what he has gone through. The starkness of Cash alone with his guitar amplifies the sense of alienation.

It might seem an odd pairing, Johnny Cash singing a Glen Danzig song. After hearing the track however, it makes perfect sense. On “Thirteen,” (like many of the other tracks on the album) the desolation of the lyrics is only further brought home by the musical restraint:
Bad luck, wind, blowin at my back
I was born to bring trouble to wherever I’m at
Got the number 13 tattooed to my neck
When the ink starts to itch, then the black will turn to red
I was born in the soul of misery
Never had me a name
They just gave me the number when I was young.
Got a long line of heartache, I carry it well
The list of lives I’ve broken reach from here to hell.
On the cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Bird On A Wire," Cash’s voice shines. The baritone is so rich and deep that it mesmerizes. The same is true on “Tennessee Stud,” recorded live at the Viper Room. Just hearing Cash perform a live track here makes me sad that he may never do a large-scale tour again. I’ve never had the chance to see him live, and I may never have that chance now.

The other song from the Viper Room is a cover of Loudon Wainwright’s “The Man Who Couldn’t Cry,” the final track on the album. Wainwright has always relied heavily on humor in his songwriting, and that's the case in this song. With all the somber music on this album, I didn’t think that Cash would be able to pull off such a humorous track, but he does so with wonderful self-possession. It’s a great way to end album on an upbeat note.

American Recordings is a return to top form of one of America’s greatest songwriters. Twenty-five years from now it (and its two sequels) will be seen as essential American music, as necessary as Presley’s '50s masters or Hendrix’s oeuvre.



© Copyright CultureDose.com 07/03/2001

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