April 22 – Forgotten Gems : Johnny Cash

Happy Earth Day! It’s both great that there is an unofficial holiday at least to celebrate the Earth and remind us to take care of it, it’s a bit disappointing that it’s still necessary, 54 years after it began because we just don’t seem to get the message as a species. For every step forward we seem to make on the environment, it seems like we take two back… our air is still polluted, oil spills are rather routine, the Amazon (the rain forest, not the omnipresent online store) continues to be logged and so on.

A lot of musicians are environmentalists but not that many have done much about it in song. Marvin Gaye got the ball rolling in 1971, with “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)” a song Motown boss Berry Gordy famously hated and didn’t want released. The song was a top 10 hit in the U.S. and Canada, which perhaps diminished Gordy’s anger a little. Gaye explained the song with lyrics like “oil wasted on the ocean and upon our seas, fish full of mercury…” by telling his biographer “when we don’t follow (Jesus’) example and turn to exploitation and greed, we destroy ourselves.”

Since then stars like k.d. lang and Morrissey are outspoken vegetarians and artists like the Eurythmics, Depeche Mode and Sting have taken part in major environmental fund-raising events. But one of the most sharply-worded musical rebukes was made 50 years ago by a perhaps unexpected source – The Man in Black. And who wants to be scolded by Johnny Cash! He put out his 47^th album, Ragged Old Flag, in 1974, and it delivered a sort of state-of-the-nation address from Cash, who broached subjects like Watergate, flag-burning and patriotism, unemployment… and our destruction of the environment. Among his backing musicians were Carl Perkins on guitar and the Oak Ridge Boys singing backing vocals on some tracks. This month’s Forgotten Gem is “Don’t Go Near The Water” by him. It was the b-side to the single “Ragged Old Flag” released this month 50 years ago.

The song focuses on water pollution and the singer tells his son to keep away from the polluted water and its dying fishes – “we’re torturing the Earth, and pouring every kind of evil in the sea, we violated nature and our children have to pay the penalty.” It came about five years after the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught fire… for the 13^th time!

The single hit #31 on American country charts; the album #16.

It probably doesn’t rank high among his canon of greatest works, but it delivers a message loud and clear and has been adopted by various organizations as an Earth Day anthem. And indeed if the idea of the day itself isn’t enough to make you want to do something Earth-friendly today, maybe the thought of getting to the “Pearly Gates” and being met by an angry Johnny Cash might!