Johnny Cash
American IV: The Man Comes Around (2002)

review by: Brandon Copple
Date: 1/16/03

Johnny Cash is dying. "American IV: The Man Comes Around" is his valediction.

I say this not after learning that his health is failing, but after listening to his latest album, 'The Man Comes Around' a couple dozen times since its release in October.

The record just sounds like finality. Like a guy determined to get it all off his chest before he goes. He jumps from one topic to the next-love, pain, rebellion, redemption-trying to say it all, everything that he knows, that he's seen, that he must say.

The opening track sets the tone. It begins with a reading from the Book of Revelations, Chapter Six: 'And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder...' Then the song, a chilling apocalyptic primer that's probably Cash's best original writing in 20 years. Listen up, sinner: 'There's a man comin' round, taking names. He decides who to free, and who to blame...Will you partake of that last offered cup? Or disappear into the potter's ground? When The Man comes around" '

The song ends with Cash intoning Revelations again: "…and behold, a pale horse. And his name that set on him was Death. And Hell followed with him."

Now I'm no bible-thumping Baptist blue-hair, and I dislike clergymen generally. But this isn't some backwoods buffoon with a degree from a Nebraska seminary telling me how to live my life. This is John R. Cash. Johnny-fucking-Cash. There are a few genuine legends in our midst. One wears black, toured with Elvis and played Folsom Prison and married into the Carter family; when he speaks, we listen.

On this record, he's speaking on a central theme: hope vs damnation. The title song lays it out plain: for those who get righteous, there's salvation; for those who don't, there's hell. So for instance we have two songs about killers-one penitent ('I Hung My Head') and one defiant ('Sam Hall'). And we have songs about causing pain ('Hurt') and giving comfort ('Bridge Over Troubled Water').

You may recognize those two songs, the former from Nine Inch Nails, the latter from Simon & Garfunkle. Cash drops sets them at opposite ends of the spectrum, and covers just about everything in between. He sings Lennon & McCartney, Hank Williams, Don Henley, Depeche Mode. Plus we get two traditionals: 'Danny Boy' and 'Streets of Laredo.' Both of which deal with dying men and their final wishes. See?

The Man Comes Around' is the fourth installment in Cash's collaboration with producer Rick Rubin. There are some great moments: his duet with Nick Cave on 'I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry,' and that monsterpiece of a title song. But this isn't the best of the Rubin albums-that would be 'Unchained'-largely because several of the cover songs come up lame. Why the fuck they recorded 'Desperado,' I can't imagine. But again: this is Johnny Cash. And who am I to criticize a man's dying words?