American IV: The Man Comes Around

Johnny Cash

PETER ZIMMERMANN

The Johnny Cash on “American IV: The Man Comes Around” is not the same “Man in Black” that performed outlaw classics and love ballads. Once a booming, warm bass-baritone, Cash’s voice on this album deteriorated to a raspy and at times harsh whisper, fighting to get out every word. However, rather than trying to hide his new voice, Cash and producer Rick Rubin embrace the signs of a legend nearing his end.

The title track “The Man Comes Around” is the only original written by Cash for American Records. This song can hold its own against his classics “I Walk the Line” and “Folsom Prison Blues,” featuring driving acoustic guitars and piano as Cash paints vivid images about biblical death.

Beyond the lone original, Cash’s ability to arrange the songs and make them his own has never been more prevalent. His cover of “Hurt” (orig. Trent Reznor) is especially striking, and has become part of pop-culture canon for good reason. Cash transforms an industrial rock song by a young man expressing pain and bitterness into an acoustic masterpiece, expressing remorse reflecting back on his life.

The album closes on a heartfelt cover of “We’ll Meet Again” (orig. Ross Parker, Hughie Charles). This song seems to predict the death of Cash and his wife June Carter Cash, both of whom died within a year of the album’s release. However, rather than being sad at the prospect of his own death, Cash accepts his fate, a theme prevalent through much of his late career.