the theology of Johnny Cash

Some years ago (more than I care to count, really), I read Tex Sample's book, White Soul:  Country Music, the Church and Americans, in which he laid out a theology and spirituality of lament for the poor that is country music.  That book had a deep impact on my theological thinking about country music.  I must admit that I've only ever really listened to "classical" country -- dating from before about the mid 80s.  But one of the significant voices from that era who's had a lasting impact on my theology has been Johnny Cash.

Cash got his big break in 1954 when he walked into Sam Phillips's Sun Records in Memphis, TN.  Phillips was just starting out and his big client at the time was the young Elvis Presley.  Cash would eventually be the second great star of Sun Records, followed by the signings of Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison, helping Sam Phillips carve out and shape the sound of early Rock 'N Roll.

"I Walk the Line" was one of Johnny Cash's earliest Sun Records hits.  The song was recorded in 1956.

Cash grew up loving gospel music but Sam Phillips insisted there was no market for it.  Phillips pushed Cash for pop songs along the lines of what Elvis was putting out.  In fact, when he heard the song Phillips didn't like the the tempo of Cash's preferred version of "I Walk the Line".  Cash wanted the song to be a ballad.  But Phillips asked Cash, at the end of the recording session, to do one uptempo version of the song.  Just for fun.  Cash reluctantly agreed.

Soon after Cash was shocked when he heard "I Walk the Line" on the radio.  Phillips had sneakily released the uptempo version.  But Cash couldn't object too much.  The song became a hit.

The song was inspired by Vivian Cash's worries about her husband being faithful to her on the road.  Cash wrote the song to reassure her of his love.  "I Walk the Line" is a song of love and fidelity.

Take a listen to the song again, from the link. 

Later in life, Cash began to appreciate the song for its spiritual themes, too.  

"I Walk the Line" is a song of both marital and spiritual fidelity.  And in both cases Cash struggled mightily.  Again, "I Walk the Line" was written for Vivian Cash, Johnny's first wife.  Vivian and Johnny eventually divorced and Cash later married June Carter.  And their relationship, while difficult at times, did end up being a wonderful marriage and partnership.  Still, it's hard to look back on "I Walk the Line" and not think of the broken promises to Vivian in light of the lyrics of the song.

Which brings us to the spiritual side of the song.  If "I Walk the Line" was a covert expression of spiritual fidelity to God Cash struggled here as well.  Cash's decades long struggles with addiction are well-documented -- just think the darkness of Cash's addiction and the toll it took on his family and friends.

Consequently, in my estimation "I Walk the Line", with its dual pledge of loyalty and the way Cash struggled to live up to those pledges, is the perfect crucible for coming to grips with the theology of Johnny Cash.  Here was a person and an artist who tried to stay faithful but failed over and over.

He ultimately never was able to walk the line.  But he kept trying.  He kept singing.  

Martin Luther's famous formulationwas simul justus et peccator.  We are simultaneously both sinner and saint.  We are sinners but we are also righteous in that we are saved by grace.

I think Cash's theology begins and ends as an expression of Luther's theology. 

In 2000 Cash put out a 3-album compilation of hand-picked songs looking back over his career.  The compilation was entitled Love God Murder.  (A fourth album Life as added later.)  Few recording artists could have produced such stark juxtapositions looking back over their career.

From the beginning, Cash produced lots of gospel songs, like those captured on God.  The Murder album features lots of song about, well, murder.  And it's this dark impulse that's there from the very beginning as well. 

The second big hit recorded by Cash with Sun Records (the first was "Hey, Porter") in 1955 was "Folsom Prison Blues".  The second verse of the song contains the chilling, sociopathic lines:

When I was just a baby my mama told me.  Son,
Always be a good boy, don't ever play with guns.
But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.  

I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.  When they recorded the song in 1955 Cash and Sam Phillips weren't sure if radio stations would play the song because of that line.  But the song did get played and became one of Cash's biggest hits.

Such are the songs on the Murder album.  Songs like the traditional murder ballad "Delia's Gone", a song Cash originally recorded in 1962 but one he revisited late in his career in 1994 on the first album he did with Rick Rubin, American Recordings.  "Delia's Gone" tells the story of a man shooting his girlfriend and later being haunted by her ghost in prison.  That's a dark, dark song. 

Saints and sinners.  Suffering in trying to walk the line.  Those are the heart and soul of Cash's music. 

Beyond how Johnny Cash's music speaks to both saints and sinners -- more specifically to the saint and the sinner in each of us -- the other prominent theme in Johnny Cash's music is that of solidarity.  Cash's music always tried to speak with and for the marginalized, forgotten, oppressed, broken and criminal.  Cash's music often came from the margins.  Cash tried to speak for people who had no voice.

And as a sign of this solidarity with those on the margins in the early '70s Cash took to wearing all black clothing during his concerts, in sharp contrast to the flashy fringes and rhinestones of his Nashville contemporaries.  Johnny Cash dressed like he was going to a funeral.  Dressing in black was a sign of grief and mourning, especially during Vietnam as the war wore on and the death toll ticked up.

Cash summarized the symbolism of his clothing in his famous song "The Man in Black":

Well, you wonder why I always dress in black,
Why you never see bright colors on my back,
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone.
Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on.

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he's a victim of the times.

I wear the black for those who never read,
Or listened to the words that Jesus said,
About the road to happiness through love and charity,
Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and me.

Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose,
In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes,
But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back,
Up front there ought 'a be a Man In Black.

I wear it for the sick and lonely old,
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold,
I wear the black in mournin' for the lives that could have been,
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men.

And, I wear it for the thousands who have died,
Believen' that the Lord was on their side,
I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died,
Believen' that we all were on their side.

Well, there's things that never will be right I know,
And things need changin' everywhere you go,
But 'til we start to make a move to make a few things right,
You'll never see me wear a suit of white.

Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day,
And tell the world that everything's OK,
But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,
'Till things are brighter, I'm the Man In Black. 

Personally, "The Man in Black" isn't my favorite song that expresses Cash's solidary with the downtrodden.  I love the theology of the song.  I don't like the rhyme or music all that much.

My all-time favorite Cash song is "All God's People Ain't Free".  You'd think it was a Negro Spiritual. 

This theme of solidarity -- grieving alongside and for the hungry, the addicted, the criminal, the poor, the old, the beaten down, the dead -- is the other great theological theme in Cash's music.  And there's not much more to add, theologically, beyond Cash's own lyrics in "The Man in Black".

That's why I want, over coming days, to explore a few of the areas of that solidarity.  For example, with Native Americans.  To which I'll turn next.