I tried writing about this yesterday but I couldn't find the words. I forgot to take my phone into work yesterday so when I got home late last night the message service on it was maxed out. The same words sent over and over again by just about everyone I know. Johhny Cash died. Yesterday, like a lot of people, I listened to nothing but his music all day through. A bookstore is always a good place to start up conversations so yesterday I had a bunch of people talking to me about Johnny Cash. One girl was singing along to 'Long Black Veil' and said to me "Is that Johnny Cash?" I nodded and she said "I never knew he sang this... What a beautiful voice he has." She was one of many people that I found myself breaking the news to. On each occasion the response was the same. "No." Every one of them uttered the same flat out denial of what I was telling them. No one believed that it was possible. And these people were from every age group, every walk of life and a handful of countries. One guy asked me if the album I was listening to had anything to do with the MTV award that he had been nominated for so we spoke about that for a while and there came a point again where I had to say, "You haven't heard he died today?" He left the store so shocked he left his books behind. But in a way I was glad I was at work. I got to speak to people face to face about him as well as exchanging emails and looking at message boards as people spoke about what Johnny Cash meant to them. It was quite a day. When I was very young my dad told me I could have one record from his collection. I guess he figured that the sacrifice of one piece of vinyl to my grubby little hands just might save the rest of his records. The choice he offered me was a simple one. An Elvis Presley Greatest Hits album or A Johnny Cash Portrait. Even at that young age I knew Presley was a bitch and I opted for the real music. I still have the album. It's the oldest one that I own and is the only thing I have that my father gave me that means anything. Years later I inherited the Presley record along with all the other vinyl but the Cash record is the only one that I dutifully take with me every time I relocate. It's a part of my life. Simple as that. I remember being around 8 years old and playing it for the first time for my best friend. He had never heard anything like it. We would sit around for hours ignoring television and comic books listening to song after song, flipping the vinyl repeatedly. We just couldn't get enough. I remember that we would sing 'A Boy Named Sue' on the way to school. Even now it is impossible for me to listen to that song without joining in. "My name is Sue, how do you do?" So yesterday I finished work and went straight across the road to my favourite bar and ordered the largest drink they had. I haven't had a drop of alcohol in around six months but if the death of Johnny Cash didn't merit lifting a glass then I wasn't worth a fuck. The bar is a metal hangout. Never have so many tattoos adorned so many arms in such a small place. Anyway, the first thing I hear is: "... cried when I saw the video of 'Hurt'." I wonder if there was anyone in town last night who wasn't drinking a toast to Johnny Cash? So this morning I watched the video again for 'Hurt' and finally allowed myself a proper cry. I've lost close relatives without losing a single tear and here I am blubbing away over a man I never met. The thing is though that by choosing that Cash record all those years ago I eventually ended up where I am now. I honestly don't think that my life would have worked out in the same way if I hadn't grown up listening to him. How can you listen to something like 'Walk the Line' almost every day of your formative years and not be moved? I finally got onto johnnycash.com this morning but it wasn't the tributes that jumped out at me. It was this simple line of news from a few days earlier: "September 9, 2003 JOHNNY CASH RELEASED FROM HOSPITAL. Johnny returned to his home in Hendersonville, TN today after being released from Baptist Hopsital. He plans on traveling to California next week where he will continue recording songs for his upcoming American Recordings album." Working right up to the end. As sure as night is dark and day is light, I keep you on my mind both day and night, And happiness proves that I'm right, Because you're mine I walk the line.