The song Johnny Cash said was too strange for him to sing: “This isn’t working”
Throughout his career, Johnny Cash has been more of an interpreter of songs than anything else. He had his moments where he could write immaculate works of art whenever he got into the studio, but when he reached the tail end of his career, every one of the covers he chose meant something different whenever he wrapped his thick baritone around them. And while Rick Rubin could steer him in the right direction, there were a few tunes that Cash rejected on principle when they were presented to him.
Granted, it’s not like Cash didn’t have a little bit of leeway when it came to making the right choices for his songs. He loved the idea of going into different genres to see where his muse took him, and despite Chris Cornell sounding absolutely nothing like ‘The Man in Black’, there’s a reason why a song like ‘Rusty Cage’ works so well with Cash’s travelling beat. It had much more to do with the message behind everything than the instrumentation, and Cash could turn practically anything into outlaw country.
From the moment he began work on American Recordings, people already knew that this was a different Cash than the one they were used to. He had never seemed less dangerous than when working with the Highwaymen, and despite having a handful of hits in the 1980s, it’s impossible to think of that era as the most complimentary to his style. There was no one less flattering to neon colours than Cash, so when he got that pitch-black overcoat on and sang ‘Delia’s Gone’, people were shellshocked that he could still sound gruff and intimidating.
But that doesn’t mean that the American series of albums is all about darkness. There are some tunes that are certainly more intense than others like his cover of Depeche Mode’s ‘Personal Jesus’, but the heartbreak comes in whenever he gets to the ballads, like redoing the country classic ‘Give My Love to Rose’ or Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’.
When Rubin suggested getting a little bit too freaky with it by covering Robert Palmer, though, that’s when Cash put his foot down, with Benmont Tench recalling, “Rick wanted to cut Robert Palmer’s song ‘Addicted to Love’ with Johnny. I remember thinking, This is ridiculous. We gave it a good shot, and he sang it well. But it was what you would expect if you know the song: ‘Might as well face it, you’re addicted to love.’ Johnny finally said, ‘This isn’t working.’ Nobody was bummed or embarrassed. We tried it, but it didn’t work, so let’s try something else.”
But that had everything to do with the kind of character that Cash was. Half his appeal among men and women was that he seemed like a hardened badass with a good heart, so having him adopt a soulful loverman persona was practically impossible. If we were to use a pure rock and roll comparison, it would be like Bruce Springsteen trying to interpret one of Prince’s sexy songs – both are very good ideas on paper, but oil and water when thought about in context.
And even with one of the Heartbreakers by his side, it’s not like he could have sprinkled his magic on top of things. He had a handful of goofy songs around this time, but while it’s easy to have a bit of a laugh listening to ‘Sam Hall’, this would have been a case of everyone laughing for the wrong reasons, to the point where it’s easy to see the pre-emptive shades coming on as Cash croons out every word.
While the music world was thankfully spared by that kind of collaboration, it’s not like Cash needed that kind of pop smash in his arsenal. He knew that suited his voice and what didn’t, and if a song wasn’t good enough to make it on one of his records, he had the rest of the greater music world to help him find a song suited for an outlaw.
