I just got the new Johnny Cash box, Love-God-Murder.
Tarantino wrote the liner notes for the Murder disc. He
places Cash firmly in the hardboiled tradition, what Woodrell
calls "Country Noir":
"In a country that thinks it's divided by race, where
actually it's divided by economics, Johnny Cash's songs of
hillbilly thug life go right to the heart of the American
underclass. With their brutal sheriffs, pitiless judges,
cheatin' tramps, escaped fugitives, condemned men, chain gang
prisoners, unjustly accused innocents, and first-person
protagonist who'd shoot a man just to watch him die, Cash's
songs, like the novels of Jim Thompson, are poems to the
criminal mentality."
[That's just the opening paragraph, the whole short essay's
pretty interesting.]
Johnny Cash's own notes conclude:
"So here is my personal selection of my recordings of songs
of robbers, liars and murderers. These songs are just for
listening and singing. Don't go out and do it."
Mark
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