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Johnny Cash can kick your ass. It’s a fact and it always has been,
so get used to it. In the long history of rebels, outcasts, and bad-asses,
no one can touch the man called Cash. Want proof? Go buy American
IV: The Man Comes Around. You’ll find out soon enough.
If this album were two thousand dollars and only one track long, it’d
be worth it as long as that track was “The Man Comes Around”.
It is nothing short of amazing that a man who wrote great songs all
his life wrote his greatest so close to the end. The song just oozes
with everything Johnny Cash is loved for. It has a dry and dusty spoken
word introduction and exit, an outstanding rhythm guitar part, and lyrics
inspired by the Book of Revelations. The Man Comes Around is
a masterpiece, and it’s safe to say I’m not the only one who
thinks so. Instead of giving us his usual page after page of liner notes,
Cash writes only a few paragraphs and they’re all about this song.
As for the rest of the album, well, there’s good news and bad news.
The good news is that there are fourteen more songs to enjoy. The bad
news is fourteen songs is about four songs too many.
As usual, Johnny Cash has taken a few of his own songs and with mega-bearded
Rick Rubin mixed them in with a bunch of Cash-filtered covers. While
some are just traditional folk songs, Cash also picks from some surprisingly
contemporary sources. For instance, American Recordings had “Thirteen”
by Danzig, Unchained had “Rusty Cage” by Soundgarden, and
Solitary Man had “Mercy Seat” by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.
Here, he gathers from the likes of Nine Inch Nails, The Beatles, Sting,
and The Depeche Mode among others. The results make for an album so
close to perfection that the faults bringing it down border on villainous.
Rubin produces this one much like he produced Solitary Man, which was
a perfect mixture of the completely bare American Recordings and the
full band backing of Unchained. But on The Man Comes Around this approach
actually hurts some of the songs. I really want to love Cash’s
version of “In My Life”, but the almost complete lack of production
robs it of the weight it should carry. And “Danny Boy” should
have been dropped completely. Not only has Cash recorded the song before
(complete with a kick-ass narration), but the song itself is dull and
placed so late in the album that all momentum is abruptly halted. The
only other sore spot is “Bridge over Troubled Water”. The
song really isn’t all that bad in and of itself. The problem lies
in the harmony line from Fiona Apple. Her voice is great, but the line
chosen sounds lost and confused, instead of strong and confident. It
almost sounds like she made it up as she went. Initially, I assumed
that I just didn’t get it and I’d find hidden genius the more
I listened, but sadly that hasn’t happened…I’m still
hoping, though.
Other than that, the album is incredible. Along with a similar production
style, The Man Comes Around is a definite companion piece for Solitary
Man because of Cash’s especially raspy voice exclusive to both
the records. He sounds ancient. But on this one, he seems more aware
of it, which makes the record truly heartbreaking at times. Songs like
“In My Life”, “Give My Love to Rose”, and “First
Time Ever I Saw Your Face” paint a portrait of introspection new
to Cash’s character.
Now that may be all in my mind. But it is impossible not to see the
message of the album’s closer, “We’ll Meet Again”.
In a very joyful and optimistic way, Cash is saying goodbye to us. During
the second verse he stops singing all together and simply speaks the
lines in that perfect Johnny Cash voice, “Yeah, we’ll meet
again. I don’t know where. And I don’t know when.” Then,
in the last chorus, he is joined by an army of friends and family referred
to in the liners as “The Whole Cash Gang.” Plenty of songs
are sad, but not like this, not with this kind of direct link to the
listener. It’s the kind of song that makes you stop whatever you’re
doing to just listen. I sincerely hope this is not Johnny Cash’s
last album, but if it is no one could ever ask for a better, more appropriate
send off.
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