By Julia Menard
My band is performing Folsom Prison Blues soon and my experience is that learning the historical or narrative feel for a song can strengthen the depth of connection to it.
So I dived in…
Come with me!
Folsom Prison Blues was written about a real prison in California and about Johnny’s experiences in prison.
Or was it?
Johnny Cash never really did spend time in jail.
He did spend one night in jail – seven times – almost always for drunk and disorderly conduct. Once it was for trespassing late at night onto private property to pick flowers! A musician through and through.
What did happen was in 1953, Cash saw the crime film Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison. It was shot inside the real Folsom Prison, close to Sacramento, and depicted many of the brutalities of prison life, if in fictional form.
That piece of film art did work its magic on Cash and resulted in him writing Folsom Prison Blues as his response.
Story goes Cash was serving in the US Air Force in 1953, stationed in Germany and scheduled to catch a plane out of Memphis. He saw the movie and immediately after boarded the plane. While on the plane and refusing his meal (how do people know this) – he put pen to paper and got it written.
Folsom Prison Blues wasn’t only a song, it became a defining part of Cash’s life.
Not only did he open most of his shows with that song, that original inspiration grew into him becoming a big advocate of prison reform. He’d go on to perform in multiple prisons over the years, for free. He recorded live albums at several prisons in front of the prisoners. He was in letter correspondence with prisoners.
He even performed a song that one of the Folsom Prison inmates penned, called Greystone Chapel. He wanted that song recorded for the live 1968 album. He’d learned that one of the inmates, Glen Sherley, had written a song about Folsom’s Greystone Chapel. Cash learned the song the night before and performed it the next day. There’s more to that story that tells more of the magic of the man, but will leave that aside there!
Cash encouraged compassion and rehabilitation for prisoners, including eventually going on to testify in front of a US Senate subcommittee on national penitentiary reform.
At that time, Cash was also invited to a personal audience with Richard Nixon. He talked prison reform and when Nixon asked him to perform a few songs, Cash chose songs which were anti-war, advocating for indigenous rights, for the disenfranchised and the vulnerable. He chose:
- What Is Truth?
- Man In Black
- The Ballad of Ira Hayes
So, Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues was the start of, and the clarion call for, his life’s mission as both a musician and a man.
And what made Folsom Prison Blues so popular?
Well, he originally brought the song to Sam Phillips at Sun Records and was able to record it there in 1955 as part of his debut studio album. That was near the start of his career.
But it was more than a decade later, when he convinced Columbia Records to let him record the album live at Folsom Prison in 1968, that the song and his own acclaim really took off.
His career had taken a dip and June Carter was still only his girlfriend. But he wanted to record Folsom Prison Blues live in the prison – and that’s what he did. The Live album hit number one on the Country Music charts and top 15 on the national charts.
Now, it is true that Cash did take the melody and some lyrics from the song Crescent City Blues written by Gordon Jenkins and sung by his wife Beverly Mahr. But it wasn’t a secret as Cash had told Sam Phillips of Sun Records that he had used Crescent City Blues as its base. Phillips apparently told Cash that because the original blues number hadn’t become a hit, there was no need to be concerned about a plagiarism lawsuit.
Years later, Jenkins did hear the song, when it came out the second time on the Folsom Prison Blues Live album in 1968 and he did pursue a plagiarism lawsuit. There was an out of court settlement Cash paid of $75,000 as an acknowledgement that Crescent City was indeed a key influence.
The original song was centered on love – Cash’s changes were significant, not only to the lyrics but the tempo and adding guitar licks.
One example of the lyrics is the infamous verse in Folsom Prison Blues, when Johnny laments that he shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.
Well, no, that was not in the Crescent City version and no, Johnny Cash never did shoot no one…
He said he thought of what could be the worst thing he could think of doing and that line came to him. Some prisoners didn’t known that and of course that endeared him even further.
Interestingly, the opening line of the song is identical in both Folsom Prison Blues and in Crescent City Blues:
“I hear the train a comin’ it’s rolling ‘round the bend…”
Crescent City veers off to a torch song though:
“And I ain’t been kissed Lord, since I don’t know when.”
Although the opening lines are identical, inspiration would have it that there was great significance to the train in the context of the prison.
A lot of significance.
Free labour was used to build that railroad using those very prisoners. Those prisoners were also used as free labour to build the nearby canal and dam.
This song is a cry for justice.
And that railroad is a symbol of injustice, as it has been for other disenfranchised and oppressed groups. So what better way to start that song than by talking about hearing a train.
Plus it situates the listener right in the prison. So much empathy built for the listener – right in that first sentence:
“I hear that train a comin’ it’s rolling round the bend.
And I ain’t seen the sunshine since I don’t know when.“
Why?
“I’m stuck in Folsom prison and time keeps draggin’ on“
Thank you Johnny. Thank you.
References
https://folsomcasharttrail.com/the-trail/blog/the-real-story-behind-johnny-cash-folsom-prison-blues
https://pen.org/i-hear-the-train-comin/
https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/johnny-cash-richard-nixon-man-in-black-1972/
