Neil Young picks his favourite Johnny Cash song
When it comes to the big names of folk and rock music, look no further than the two absolute titans, Neil Young and Johnny Cash. Cash is a true icon of America, with his songs of redemption and sorrow delivered in his trademark baritone voice. Young arrived later with a starkly differing high-pitched vocal, although his songs also often examined the kind of inner workings of the human mind and heart that Cash’s had previously.
Neil Young once appeared on Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco Radio show on SiriusXM to talk about his favourite Cash song and the first time he ever had the chance to meet him. Just after Young released After the Gold Rush, he was invited to play on The Johnny Cash Show.
“I really liked John,” said Young before noting that Cash had been too busy to actually spend any time talking to him. “But that’s OK. He was busy. You got to realize doing this; I’m 23 years old.” Young was just a new player on the scene, while Cash was already a big name, so he would have known that Young would become the legend he would.
Young continued, “I’m going on a television show. I was petrified. So I was thinking about the song I was gonna sing. Was I going to screw it up or not? That’s all I thought about. I really don’t remember much else about it.” But Young played his best as he always did on the show, even if he might not admit it.
During the chat with Conan, Young also noted his favourite Johnny Cash song. It arrived on Cash’s 1958 compilation Johnny Cash Sings The Songs That Made Him Famous. ‘Teenage Queen’ is the tune which tells of a woman’s decision to leave behind her fame and fortune in Hollywood to return to her small town and her childhood sweetheart.
Conan told Young after he spoke of ‘Teenage Queen’, stating: “You are a storyteller. I think, better than just about anybody, you tell a great story when you’re in your songs, and this is the classic story song. This is Johnny Cash telling us the tale of the teenage beauty queen.”
It was at that point that Young was asked if he still had the same love for Cash’s songs as he did back in the 1950s. He replied with a resounding, “Oh yeah. Definitely”. Check out the video below to listen to Neil Young’s favourite Johnny Cash song of all time.
