Bob Dylan's Statement on Johnny Cash


I was asked to give a statement on Johnny's passing and thought about writing 
a piece instead called "Cash Is King," because that is the way I really feel. 
In plain terms, Johnny was and is the North Star; you could guide your ship by 
him -- the greatest of the greats then and now. I first met him in '62 or '63 
and saw him a lot in those years. Not so much recently, but in some kind of 
way he was with me more than people I see every day. 

There wasn't much music media in the early Sixties, and Sing Out! was the 
magazine covering all things folk in character. The editors had published a 
letter chastising me for the direction my music was going. Johnny wrote the 
magazine back an open letter telling the editors to shut up and let me sing, 
that I knew what I was doing. This was before I had ever met him, and the 
letter meant the world to me. I've kept the magazine to this day.

Of course, I knew of him before he ever heard of me. In '55 or '56, "I Walk 
the Line" played all summer on the radio, and it was different than anything 
else you had ever heard. The record sounded like a voice from the middle of 
the earth. It was so powerful and moving. It was profound, and so was the tone 
of it, every line; deep and rich, awesome and mysterious all at once. "I Walk 
the Line" had a monumental presence and a certain type of majesty that was 
humbling. Even a simple line like "I find it very, very easy to be true" can 
take your measure. We can remember that and see how far we fall short of it. 

Johnny wrote thousands of lines like that. Truly he is what the land and 
country is all about, the heart and soul of it personified and what it means 
to be here; and he said it all in plain English. I think we can have 
recollections of him, but we can't define him any more than we can define a 
fountain of truth, light and beauty. If we want to know what it means to be 
mortal, we need look no further than the Man in Black. Blessed with a profound 
imagination, he used the gift to express all the various lost causes of the 
human soul. This is a miraculous and humbling thing. Listen to him, and he 
always brings you to your senses. He rises high above all, and he'll never die 
or be forgotten, even by persons not born yet -- especially those persons -- 
and that is forever.

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