[LEMONS] 9.12.2003
Goodnight Johnny
I am, as I have been for the last three years this week in September, back in the cradle. Back in the South. Back in Alabama. I woke up today in Montgomery in my mother's house. I'll sleep tonight in Macon in my grandmother's apartment. I spent the day driving Southern backroads, through Coweta county on state highways, past confederate flags and trailers and poverty shacks. Speakers blaring that demon voice.I left Montgomery looking out for a record store, but didn't find one before I hit the county line. Normally I don't get all choked up when entertainers buy the farm. But this was a big one, up there with Joey Ramone and Kurt Cobain. I wanted to hear Johnny today. I wanted it bad. But with no CDs on hand and nothing but Clear Channel radio as far as the dial would reach, there was no way for the man to speak to me today.
But then, just as I was about to give up on Alabama radio which seems to be all about MTV-style hip-hop and horrid "new" rock, I flipped the dial to WEGL, Auburn University radio. And there. There I heard my old man sing to me. Delia. Good God. For an hour I listened to his words and music. I knew all the damned words. I heard track after track after track. Until the signal faded out. I franticly flipped around the dial, and was once again saved by college radio. By my old friend and Indie Rock 101 professor, Album 88, WRAS Atlanta.
I heard in Johnny Cash a singer who sounded more contemporaty than musicians half his age. Who was equally comfortably covering gospel standards, Nine Inch Nails, Simon and Garfunkel, The Beatles, Wille Nelson, and old Irish folk music. I listened and listened and listened, and when I heard him sing a song by my fellow Montgomerian Hank Williams, I lost it.
I have few heroes. Johnny Cash--Southerner, American, Badass--was one of them. If the Man in Black never made you cry; you're a heartless SOB. Johnny's exactly where he always wanted to be, with June and Jesus. But we're left here all alone. I'll miss the Man. I wish I'd seen him. God bless you, Johnny Cash.
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