Listen to Johnny Cash’s cover of the Bruce Springsteen song inspired by Johnny Cash
Bruce Springsteen has never been shy about telling people about his biggest musical influences. There are some artists who, for some reason, hesitate to admit that they do what they do because of a specific band. It’s as if they want to seem like a wholly original product, but we all know they make music because they have also been inspired by music. It seems silly to hide that fact, unlike Springsteen, who never has.
One of the biggest artists that Springsteen cites as an influence is The Beatles. When he took to the stage for his gig at Anfield recently, he addressed the Liverpool crowd and cited the city as “where it all began”. He is, of course, referring to the fact that The Beatles come from Liverpool and a lot of their early songs, which ended up sweeping America, were written within an hour of where he stood in that moment.
Springsteen also cites Bob Dylan as a big influence. While he loved The Beatles’ music, he thought that Bob Dylan was amazing in that he could enable us to employ his lyrics as a means to articulate serious topics and convey political messages. The way he spoke about politics and society was unlike anyone else at the time, and it led to Springsteen wanting to make music that others could learn from in the same way he learnt from Dylan.
While these are two artists he often cites as inspiration, there have been plenty of other people who have helped him become the performer he is. These include the likes of The Rolling Stones, Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and, of course, Johnny Cash. When it comes to telling a story using lyrics, nobody does it better than Cash did, hence Springsteen decided to use him as inspiration when creating the narrative-driven number ‘I’m On Fire’.
The track is seen as one of Springsteen’s more controversial cuts, given that it talks about a man lusting after a much younger woman. The song was initially written for Nebraska, an album where the musician was intentionally portraying controversial and struggling characters. However, it wasn’t released until 1984 on Born in the USA, which is why it stands out as sounding quite odd to many people. Had it been released on the former album, it would have fit the theme well and made sense; of course, it might not have stood out as much.
Springsteen came up with the song when he was playing around with a rhythm that he could see Johnny Cash singing over. He crafted the driving melody to ‘I’m On Fire’ and then wrote the lyrics after deciding how the track needed to sound.
In 2000, an album was released as a tribute to Nebraska, including all of the songs that were written for it but didn’t make the final cut (‘I’m On Fire’). The album was called Badlands: A tribute to Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, and it featured covers from a range of different artists. Johnny Cash was asked to contribute to the record, and when he accepted, it made sense that he provided his voice to the track that he inspired. As such, he played a cover of the now-classic song ‘I’m On Fire’.
You can hear that the song was inspired by Cash thanks to how easily he settles into the rhythm. It makes for a great listen and reflects perfectly just how good both he and Springsteen are as artists.
Listen to Johnny Cash’s cover of ‘I’m On Fire’ below.
