I walk the line

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Johnny Cash - I Walk the Line

I Walk the Line is a 1956 country song written by and performed by Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two . It was Cash's first million seller and the first No. 1 song on the country charts . A new recording by Columbia Records appeared in 1964 on the album of the same name . In 2004, the song made it to Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 best songs of all time .

History of origin

After Cash had his first successes in 1955 and was on the way to becoming a sought-after star, his then wife Vivian Liberto worried that her husband might succumb to the temptations of the many female fans. In her 2007 posthumous biography, Liberto wrote that one day Cash had said to her: “ Don't worry, you are on my mind day and night. I stay on the straight path for you. “He then asked her to write these lines down, and Cash made the song I Walk the Line out of it . Liberto went on to write: “ Every time I heard this song by Johnny, regardless of whether it was a thousand times, I knew he was singing each of the words for me. “The marriage ended in divorce in 1967; In 1968 Cash married June Carter .

After a concert in Texas , Cash initially intended the song to be called Because You're Mine , but his friend and Sun colleague Carl Perkins advised him to choose I Walk the Line as the song title from the lyrics. Since Cash's band didn't have a drummer at the time, he had a piece of paper tucked behind the strings of the rhythm guitar; this percussive snarling has become a typical feature of the famous “boom chicka boom” sound. The name is an onomatopoeic description for the fast, pounding sound similar to that of a moving freight train ( Freight Train Rhythm ). The rhythm often recurring later in Cash songs became his signature sound.

Cash originally designed the song as a ballad, but Sam Phillips of Cash's Sun label thought a faster version would sell better. The recording day was April 2nd, 1956, when the B-side Get Rhythm was created. The single, released on May 1, 1956 as Sun # 241, was Cash's third record. In June 1956 the song hit the country charts, where it stayed at number one for six weeks. In September, the song developed into a crossover when it reached number 17 on the pop charts. After Carl Perkins ' Blue Suede Shoes , I Walk the Line became Sun Records' second millionaire, with sales of almost two million copies.

Interpretations

After the first recording in 1956, Cash sang the song again in 1964 for the album of the same name. Cash, who had served in the US military in Landsberg am Lech , recorded a German-language version in New York on June 19, 1965 with a text by Günter Loose under the title Who knows the way .

Further recordings were made in 1968 and 1969 for the albums At Folsom Prison and At San Quentin , in 1971 for the soundtrack of the film I Walk the Line (The Sheriff) with Gregory Peck in the lead role and finally in 1988 for the album Classic Cash: Hall of Fame Series . In 2001, Cash's son-in-law Rodney Crowell released the song as a duet with Cash on his album The Houston Kid .

Cover versions

The song received a BMI award and has been covered at least 33 times. This also includes a German version by Gunter Gabriel , Ich bin auf Kurs, from 2002.

In 2005 director James Mangold shot a Johnny Cash biography called Walk the Line . In the film, the main actor Joaquin Phoenix sings all of the Cash songs himself, including I Walk the Line , which Phoenix also recorded for the soundtrack of the same name .

In 2015 the pop singer Halsey released a cover, which can be heard as background music in the trailer of the 2017 Power Rangers film.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. The RS 500 Greatest Songs of All Time: Rolling Stone ( Memento from June 22, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (Retrieved April 18, 2012)
  2. Archive link ( Memento of the original from June 7, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.country.de
  3. [1] Here explained by Cash and seen in a live video from I Walk the Line on youtube
  4. ^ Whitburn, Joel: The Billboard Book Of Top 40 Country Hits. 1944 - 2006. 2nd edition. New York, NY: Billboard Books, 2006, p. 74
  5. ^ Whitburn, Joel: Top Pop Singles 1955-1993. Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin: Record Research Ltd., 1994, p. 95
  6. ^ Stephen Murrells, Million Selling Records , 1985, p. 96
  7. BMI entry for I Walk the Line  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / repertoire.bmi.com  
  8. Official trailer for "Power Rangers". In: YouTube. October 8, 2016, accessed October 24, 2018 .