12 Johnny Cash Quotes on Music

Johnny Cash quotes on music

6. People say, Well, he wore that body out. Well, maybe I did. But it was to a good purpose. They should be thankful that I wore it out to the purpose I wore it out and that was writing and recording and touring and doing concerts. Everywhere I could possibly do them that I thought I might enjoy them. I thought people might enjoy me.

7. The line 'because you're mine, I walk the line.' It kept coming to me, you know? But I was - I was ... young and not been married too long. Yes, it kept coming to me. Because you're mine, I walk the line. And then the words just naturally flowed. It was an easy song to write.

8. I think it speaks to our basic fundamental feelings, you know. Of emotions, of love, of breakup, of love and hate and death and dying, mama, apple pie, and the whole thing. It covers a lot of territory, country music does.

9. There's always rhythm going in my mind. ... I'm either singing them - June will tell you, I'm either singing them, or I have got the beat going from one, or I'm writing one.

11. 'The Man Comes Around' is a song that I wrote, it's my song of the apocalypse, and I got the idea from a dream that I had - I dreamed I saw Queen Elizabeth. I dreamed I went in to Buckingham Palace, and there she sat on the floor. And she looked up at me and said, 'Johnny Cash, you're like a thorn tree in a whirlwind.' And I woke up, of course, and I thought, what could a dream like this mean? Thorn tree in a whirlwind? Well, I forgot about it for two or three years, but it kept haunting me, this dream. I kept thinking about it, how vivid it was, and then I thought, Maybe it's biblical. So I found it. Something about whirlwinds and thorn trees in the Bible. So from that, my song started and... 'The Man Comes Around.' The song turned out to be 'The Man Comes Around.'

18. I am not a Christian artist, I am an artist who is a Christian.

20. I have a new album out. It's American Recordings, it was done with an American Recording company, and was recorded in America.

24. I never did understand the resentment about Country artists 'going pop'. Either you've got what it takes to appeal to a whole lot of people, or you don't.

31. Some of the old songs I sing often, because they help me to reflect on where I've been and that's important for me to do - so I don't lose track of where I am going.

38. You've got a song you're singing from your gut, you want that audience to feel it in their gut. And you've got to make them think that you're one of them sitting out there with them too. They've got to be able to relate to what you're doing.

40. We were in the studio, getting ready to work - and I popped it in, by the end I was really on the verge of tears. I'm working with Zach de la Rocha, and I told him to take a look. At the end of it, there was just dead silence. There was, like, this moist clearing of our throats and then, 'Uh, OK, let's get some coffee.'

41. There are two kinds of people, there's those who like Johnny Cash, and those that will.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.