Okay, so I'm a kid from the seventies, I guess you could say I was naive to think that Johnny Cash was a cool guy. My "fifties" themed day ended with watching "Walk the Line" with Paul. Here's my view for what it's worth.
I always sang along to Johnny Cash's songs and particularly liked duets with he and June Carter. I thought their story was a love story of all time, boy meets girl, sings and falls in love. At least the previews lead me to believe that even moreso.
My Dad had thought Johnny Cash had served some time in prison, afterall, many of his hits were about Folesome Prison, about killing someone, and doing time. Johnny Cash apparently wrote these songs as a type of fantasy of what prison life would be like, almost as if he wished to be the ultimate bad boy. Afterall, he was the bad son and his brother Jack was going to be the preacher.
Well, much to our disappointment, he was a big time drug user, alcholic, and was a cheater to his family who ended up finally leaving him. And this wasn't the family that consisted of June and he- this was a Vivian. I never heard of her. He had two girls with her that he financially supported, but didn't raise and then didn't have anything more to do with. So he was a bad father as well. Course to give the guy a break, he was very strung out on drugs- as if that's an excuse. So I wonder if the public had known all this about him, would he have been such an icon as he was? I think it's ironic that this story has come out now that he and June have both passed on. I do however have complete respect for June Carter-Cash, she really saved his life along with her parents and detoxified Cash finally after many years. It was after that, that she finally agreed to marry him and remained so for 35 years until their deaths. I wonder what their story was during their married life, was he redeemed- did he seek to know his children? Did he ever get back with the Lord who he liked to sing about in his early years? The movie was good, don't get me wrong, I just most likely won't be able to sing along to his songs anymore.
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Well, I guess I should clarify a few things. I watched the movie again today- and I guess my opinion changed. His first marriage was not a good one really, he really didn't know her prior to marrying her and she was pretty self centered and didn't try to get John into a detox or something. And she turned her head to his affairs. I think he made the mistake of getting married too young. At the end of the movie, it does say that they had a son, raised their daughters, and traveled together touring. Hopefully he had learned from his mistakes. I'd like to read a biography of him someday to finish the story.
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