Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

The Man in Black

I wasn't surprised to hear that Johnny Cash died, but I was sorry to hear it. I brought a tape to listen to in the car on my way in to work. (I don't have a CD player in the car, and most of my Johnny Cash is actually on vinyl. I'm pretty old, or so my friends say.) It was a cheap tape, the kind you can buy at a truck stop, a compilation of live cuts.

One was If I Were A Carpenter with June Carter Cash. That was one reason I wasn't surprised to hear he'd died...when his wife passed in May I figured he wasn't going to be around much longer.

Some obituaries, like the one from Reuters, mentioned the "plaintive tales" of his songs. I do love a sad country song, I admit, and Live at San Quentin might be my favorite of his albums. But I was chuckling when I got to work today, because my tape ended with One Piece at a Time, the song about the GM assembly line worker who sneaks a Cadillac out in his lunch box.

I hadn't heard (or seen) Hurt, though. You can watch it on County Music Television's page, as I just did...

Damn.