.
.
it's a strange day...
i'm extremely excited and depressed at the same time... i hate those kinda days...

i'm excited about the isley brothers concert that's tonight... bought a new suit for it and everything... gonna take the lady out to dinner first, then the isley brothers concert, then back home for dessert...

and depressed because the first thing i hear this morning when my alarm clock goes off is "johnny cash dead"... and i'm probably just being over-dramatic, but damn... that hits hard... especially after losing barry white... it's just too much too soon...

i grew up to johnny cash... and when you listen to somebody's music that long, and especially when it's someone who makes music as personal as johnny cash did, you feel a real strong connection...

and i felt like a big dumb-ass, cause i was listening to his last cd, "when the man comes around," in the shower this morning... and during "hurt" (the cover of the Nine Inch Nails song), i wept a little... i always get misty-eyed when i see the video, but i've never wept from listening to the song... really, the whole cd makes ya wanna cry... so much death and depression... song after song has death in it, or sounds like the reminiscing of a man who's about to die...

but johnny cash had a sick sense of humor... he ends the cd with the upbeat "we'll meet again"... and in interviews, he said he didn't know what was so depressing about the cd... he thought it was kinda funny... lol... then again, this is coming from the man who named his boxset "Love God Murder"...

i guess the thing with johnny cash dying is he always seemed invincible, ya know... like, his contemporaries at sun records (elvis, jerry lee, etc)... he stood taller than them, he was more muscular than they were, his voice was more powerful - deeper, comanded more respect... and the look on his face... he looked like he could take on the whole world, all of the demons of hell, and (in the right mood), all of the angels in heaven, and still come out on top... elvis & jerry lee were all skinny and wirey...

and when he was more associated with the country scene... same thing... his contemporaries, like willie nelson and george jones and junk... you figured that they would go first... willie was all runty and scrawny, and george jones was addicted to every substance known to man (drug or drink)... he's like country's ozzy osbourne... LOL...

and when he was associated with the folk scene... dylan was all short and scrawny... and dylan nearly lost it in the motorcycle accident... and he just always looks sick... and neil young was hooked on heroin and god only knows what else... surely, johnny would outlast both of them...

and he made it through the 80s and into the 90s, still standing strong... performing with alice in chains, and nirvana, and the screaming trees... on the same label as danzig, and cypress hill and the red hot chili peppers...

even this month... johnny cash was nominated for 8 VMAs... the only people nominated for more were justin timberlake and missy elliot... that says a lot... and he almost went... and ya know what, when he were to walk in that room, every single person (pop, punk, hip-hop, metal, whatever), they would all have stood up, taken their hats off and shown some respect... ya can't mess with him...

hell, he's even had wyclef jean and ice-t cover his songs... if that ain't some power influence that crosses over all kinds of lines (musical lines, racial lines, generational lines, geographical lines)...

this is a big loss...

it just hit me pretty hard today... and i'm being all selfish like, "why couldn't he have held on one more day" ya know... i can't take this much excitement and depression at the same damn time... it's too much...

oh well... such is life...

I have been ungrateful and I have been unwise
Restless from the cradle but now I realize
It's so hard to see the rainbow through glasses dark as these
Maybe I'll be able from down on my knees

Oh Lord, I am weak
Oh I know I am vain
Take this weight from me
Let my spirit be
Unchained

Old man swearin' at the sidewalk, I am overcome
Seems that we've both forgotten, forgotten to go home
Have I seen an angel or have I seen a ghost
Where's that rock of ages when you need it most

Oh Lord, I am weak
Oh I know I am vain
Take this weight from me
Let my spirit be
Unchained



pearl 5,480...
[This message was edited Fri Sep 12 13:45:33 PDT 2003 by EllisDee]

Beautiful post - thanks for it.

great post, EllisDee.



it was also the first thing I heard when my alarm clock went off this morning... i heard them say "John" ... through the haze of sleep and i woke up right away thinking it was Johnny Cash, but it was John Ritter. when they announced Johnny Cash too, i said "oh no" and got very said.


i'm very glad that television today is showing him the respect he deserves. even MTV is showing "Hurt" 3 times an hour. it's really hard for me to get through it. i didn't start enjoying him until the last couple of years, but he'd always sort of been in the background when i was growing up. my dad really liked him and one of my grandfathers was a fan.


it's really made me feel a lot sadder than i thought it would, because i've almost been expecting it the last few months. but i think the world misses him already, even though they probably knew it was coming.

Well said Ellis.

Excellent post! and a great photo choice as well!

Very touching tribute EllisDee. What an icon ~ a most amazing man who lived and incredible life.

No doubt, Ellis.

Cash had a no-nonsense, authoritative aura. But yet at the same time, (to me) he never came across as intimidating - although the potential was there if you crossed him. There are certain people in life, non-famous as well as famous, who when they walk into a room they automatically command your respect. Even though I never met the man that's how I viewed Cash.

Within the past decade and a half, once I removed my uninitiated, lazy, adolescent, sweeping "Country music is boring" attitude and actually listened to some old school Country, Cash was one of those artists who held my attention. Lyrically he and his collaborators could often make the simple profound. You realize why he was one of Dylan's influences.

The man had rock and roll attitude. Lyrically Old School Country was gangsta rap long before the latter genre existed.

Unfortunately, for years I've been hearing that Country music radio doesn't respect its musical pioneers (much like it's mainly about youth in pop/rock/hip hop). They stopped playing Cash among a lot of other legends in favor of the more watered down likes of Garth Brooks, and many of his peers. That ad Cash's record company took out in Billboard magazine about 5 years ago where Cash is flipping the bird in his photo was a classic the day it was printed. A f*** off to Country radio, and the conservative Nashville music status quo.

RIP, Johnny. I dug ya.

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.

old timers,

i was shocked to actually hear willie nelson on the radio again, true it was with collaborators but, still. that outlaw still got it.

loretta lynn is working with the white stripes, they love her and have had her at some of their concerts and are producing her next/last album.

dolly parton, she protested very loudly about radio not playing her anymore. then she went back to her roots.
she's gathered rave reviews and numerous awards for this. her last 4 albums have been simply amazing. she has a new album due this fall and a tribute album too.

and george jones...he's still going strong too

to bad radio is moved by "cash" instead of johnny cash

RIP Great One.

I'm a fan. He will be missed.
ellisdee, that was nice.

Supernova said:

which is one of the reasons why this is so depressing...

i mean... johnny cash seemed invincible... all of the shit that he had been through, and to come out of in the 70s and live clean and still stand strong and tall and command respect and authority...




i've heard Ice-T say the same thing, and in a lot of respects he's right... it's music for the people who don't otherwise have a voice... it's fuckin' real and it ain't suger coated... and by gangsta rap, i'm assuming that Nova is talkin' about NWA and Ice-T and Public Enemy (not gangsta, but they serve the purpose for this point) and others who came out at this time and told about the real... not these gangsta glam muthafuckas who run around like street life is cool... i'm talkin' about the people who were talkin' about how fucked up life really is and how fucked up it is to be on the bottom...

this is why i've found (as much as it might stand in the face of what you've been taught), poor whites and blacks identify so much with each other... because they both get pissed on by those who run this country - the rich whites... so as much as the rich whites would like for you to believe that it's the poor ass southerners who are the cause of most of the world's racism, it actually tends to be those upper-class white folk... and hell, to be honest, you can see that shit at this site...

after 2 days of scanning the radio to hear Johnny Cash, outside of NPR features and as part of news updates yesterday, I finally heard him tonight.


of all things, it was actually "The Man Comes Around" ... a nice surprise.

Preach it, Reverend Dee.