Townsville Bulletin

PLAY MUSIC JOHNNY CASH LYRICS REBORN

- DANIELLE MCGRANE

of the last ever recordings of Chris Cornell can be heard on a new album featuring songs created from the unknown poetry of Johnny Cash.

The song You Never Knew My Mind is based on a break- up poem Cash wrote during his split from his first wife Vivian Liberto in 1967, but the song is strangely poignant in the wake of singer Cornell’s sudden death last year.

Another track, Gold All Over the Ground, performed by American country star Brad Paisley, was written in the same year for Cash’s second wife June Carter.

“He ( Cash) couldn’t sing either of those at the time. He was still married legally to Vivian even though they were separated for a long time, but he was very much in love with my mother and he couldn’t sing about those things publicly,” John Carter Cash, Johnny and June’s son, said in Sydney. About five years ago, Carter Cash started to look through about 2000 pieces of paper left by his father after his death in 2003. With the help of a Cash historian he whittled it down to lyrics and poetry that had never been published or recorded. Carter Cash decided to reach out to artists, including Cornell, Paisley, Kris Kristoffer­son, Willie Nelson, Alison Krauss, Elvis Costello and his sisters Rosanne Cash and Carlene Carter to create songs out of this poetry for the album Johnny Cash: Forever Words. “I met him ( Cornell) backstage in the ’ 90s at a Johnny Cash show and he told me my Dad was one of the greatest influences in his musical life,” he said.

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