Walk the Line

Johnny Cash, Walk the Line

Not so long ago, I was on a train in Germany. Sitting across the aisle from me were four hip hop kids. (You've heard of Die Toten Hosen, but have you heard of Freundeskreis?) I was on the way to visit my then girlfriend having just finished a lighting design project for a production of the 'Hostage'. The director (a brilliant women called Tina Breckwoldt - look out for her) decided that Johnny Cash's version of Danny Boy should be played at the end of the night as the audience left. Now that's all well and good for a couple of nights but gets a little passé after a while. So one of the musicians and myself started compiling a list of top songs to play in it's place.

(A little bit of background might be appropriate: The Hostage, by Brendan Behan, is the story of reluctant and not so reluctant IRA volunteers who take a young British soldier hostage. Without wanting to spoil the ending, the soldier gets shot.)

At the top of our "alternative, appropriate, ending songs list" was Highway to Hell (AC/DC), followed naturally enough by Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin). Now, those two everyone could agree with, but after that it got messy. My preferred third was Reach for the Stars (S-Club Seven), but I'll leave you to complete the list yourself and return to Johnny Cash and the Hip Hop kids.

You see, the Hip Hop kids were all singing Cash's Ring of Fire and I sat there thinking "Well you can't really beat that as an artist. What a tribute, here's a group of kids singing Ring of Fire". Johnny Cash's music has meaning for everyone. Yep, he's a proper artist and no matter how dire Johnny Cash's version of Danny Boy is I still love it and all his music (perhaps with the exception of that Green Beret song.)

Will I be going to see "Walk the Line"? I doubt it, even if it does star Reese Witherspoon. My favourite tribute to the great man himself is the thought of those kids singing Johnny Cash and of course hearing the music itself.

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