Happy July 4th, everyone! I imagine your day will be filled with the consumption of fatty proteins and the noise and excitement of that most patriotic of American pastimes: blowing stuff up. That is, unless you’re a vegetarian and not particularly fond of fireworks, then maybe you’re just inside reading a history book and crying, either way, you should be listening to patriotic music, and I can’t think of a better example (sans Rick Derringer) than the ultimate American, Johnny Cash, and his 1972 album simply titled America, and complicatedly titled America: A 200-Year Salute In Story And Song:
On the whole, I feel this album is a bit misunderstood. It’s not really a history lesson, though much of it draws from Cash’s earlier albums that have a lot to do with America’s history, Ride This Train and Sings Ballads Of The True West. What one needs to understand about this album to really get it is that it’s a patriotic singer making a patriotic album, and Johnny Cash in particular is relying on some of his greatest strength to make a very solid album. Namely, he blends in a lot of narration with a lot of songs, thus listeners who like to hear Cash sing, but through some unfortunate accident of birth, don’t like to hear him talk, this album will remain low on your list of Johnny Cash favorites.
As for me, not only is Johnny Cash pretty much my favorite artist, but America is my favorite country, and I have a whole bookshelf of U.S. History texts that I enjoy reading. Hence, this album is pretty much perfect for me, or is it?
Yes, I will admit that the shotgun-blast of topics that are covered on the album are kind of frustratingly random, such as Cash’s spoken-word tribute to the cowboy that kind of bottoms out immediately into a heavy-hearted tribute to the American Indian in order to introduce the song “Big Foot” (a wonderful title to see on a tribute album to America, but it’s not actually about a sasquatch, gentle readers) as he sings about the Miniconjou Sioux chief who fell under the U.S. 7th Cavalry at the Wounded Knee Massacre. It might be a bad thing that I consider the fact that Cash mentions Custer instead of James Forsythe to be more disturbing than the actual song content, which is one of the greater tragedies in how us whities dealt with the Natives, but such oversight is indicative of patriotism in general, so it doesn’t bother me so much that it’s all over this album.
Take the album’s opening number, “Paul Revere”. Most people who have taken a modern U.S. History class will know that Paul Revere’s actual ride was not as grandiose as the famous Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem would have us believe. Nevertheless, history books were written around this poem, and it took years for the other patriots of that day to even get a mention, even if all Paul Rever did was complete the first leg and then get caught and eventually gave up some rather important information to the British, but you know none of that makes for an interesting song at all. Johnny Cash sings the song “Paul Revere” with all the “Revere-ance” that any Longfellow fan would have toward that famous midnight ride. The song is a cracker, all right, but hard to take seriously for picky folk like myself.
Still, the album doesn’t dare to take itself too factually seriously, as evidenced by a brilliant cover of Jimmy Driftwood’s epic humorous folk ballad “The Battle Of New Orleans”. This is actually one of two hits of Jimmy’s that was covered by Johnny Cash, the second being “Tennessee Stud” which is, ironically perhaps, on another “American” album by Cash, his first on American Recordings.
The song itself is patriotic yarn at its best, singing the praises of the crafty and clever Americans against the boisterous and ineffective British, even going so far as to mention a particularly interesting abstract tactic:
Well we fired our cannon till the barrel melted down
Then we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round
We filled his head with cannonballs and powdered his behind
And when we took the powder off the ‘gator lost his mind
Did you ever see the Disney version of Robin Hood? Well, the songs were written by an artist associated closely with folk and country, Roger Miller, and this song is something in the style of the music that opens that film. It’s light-hearted and really fun, and easily one of the best songs on the album.
If your style of ballad is more heroic and daring, however, you should definitely listen to “Remember The Alamo” which is another cover. The song is largely factual and focuses on the 180 soldiers, a few of which became American myths, who died in that infamous battle. Perhaps I’m particularly fond of the song because it’s largely to do with Texas, the state I call home, but I really feel it’s a great song.
As I mentioned before, some of the songs on this album were previously recorded, one of which is the rather strange “Mr. Garfield”, which was not only previously recorded for the album Sings Ballads Of The True West, but was done so in a very strange way. I’ll leave the description for the True West version for when I actually write about it, but it’s worth mentioning here that the arrangement Cash uses for this Ramblin’ Jack Elliott classic is much simpler and only features Cash rather than a chorus of singers. The song is about the assassination of James A. Garfield, our 20th president, who, in being struck down by Charles J. Guiteau, was the second U.S. President to be assassinated in office. The song has an interesting way of presenting the news of the assassination, as it is told by an ordinary person with a particular fondness for the President and interest in his well-being, and the chorus is shouted out like a newspaper headline. I like the song, of course, because I feel there should be a song or two for every President (and it is my intention to collect them if they are), but maybe it’s because I’m particularly interested in that political office, I don’t know.
There are so many interesting points to this album, but I’m a little short on time. Johnny does a tribute to his mother in the way of a really short tune called “Come Take a Trip in My Airship”, and he spends on track reciting the Gettysburg Address, which is one of the shortest and most moving speeches to be delivered by a President (the first to be assassinated, as it happens), and the final song, “These Are My People”, is a touching one indeed. Again, the album is panned a little, even by modern-day listeners, for being an ineffective concept album, but if you take away the concept and replace that with an earnest desire to create a traditional, patriotic album from an artist who truly cares about his country, then this album is about the best that can be done.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some fireworks to attend to. Happy 4th of July*!
*Even if the 4th of July was by no means the day that should have been chosen to be Independence Day since the secession was officially decided on the 2nd of July, and the 4th was only the day that the final wording of the Declaration Of Independence was decided upon, apparently after the meeting hall was infested with locusts… also it wasn’t even signed until August 2nd of 1776 and wasn’t finished being signed until 1777… can you tell I’m a bit of a geek on this topic?
Filed under: Albums | Tagged: 1972, 70's, Johnny Cash
