I mentioned this one someone else's blog--for serennig:



It's an Arlo Guthrie tune but I can never say no to a Johnny Cash version of anything. And as I say, every quarter horse I've ever sung it to liked it. (And no, I cannot sing.)

"He had the nerve, and he had the blood
And there never was a horse like the Tennessee stud..."

When I was a kid I used to try to imagine what the horse looked like--"the colour of the sun" sounded like a palomino, but palominos are supposed to have dark eyes.

I have since decided the Tennessee stud was probably some shade of dun--I can't find a good picture right this minute, so just take this as evidence that some people think about horses too much...

Something unrelated on a mailing list reminded me of this:

A while back I read an old article about Johnny Cash. When he was writing "Folsom Prison Blues," he said he wanted the character in the song to have done something unforgivable. So he asked himself, "What is the worst possible reason to commit a murder?"

And the result was what I consider one of the best noir lines ever, from the Man in Black:

"...I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die."

The heartless economy of the line is pretty much perfect.

I found this on green_knight's journal. I think she'll approve of spreading the awesome.

A DVD set of the Johnny Cash Show? Which was inexplicably my favourite show ever when I was about four? And it turns out I was a four-year-old with great taste in music? Holy all over this, Batman!

(Featuring Luther Perkins--that moment in Walk the Line when someone takes a cigarette out of the sleeping Luther's fingers was pretty chilling)


(Cash generally should be allowed to keep any song he covers, and this one is no exception.)

Remember the episode of Columbo where Johnny Cash plays a suspect?

Here's a clip from it, featuring Cash singing "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down"!

Cash and Columbo. The only thing that could improve this is guest appearances by Kris Kristofferson and Jim Rockford!

This is close enough: