John Carter Cash Needs To Step Back From His Father’s Corpse

Dan Gibson | April 22, 2009 11:45 am

I’d prefer to be a fan of John Carter Cash, considering he’s the son of two of my favorite people of all time, (Johnny Cash and June Carter ) and he looks like a friendly dude in a sort of Rick Warrenish way. But the guy is starting to push it a bit.

My impatience with him started with he already forgotten Cash Remixed project. But now he’s pushing his luck even more, with some mysterious/irritating viral marketing for a forthcoming single “Johnny Cash Is Dead And His House Burned Down.”  There’s not much information about the song, which was apparently co-written by the Man In Black himself somehow; John’s exact involvement is a mystery, but he does offer a letter of explanation on the song’s crappy Web site.

When I first heard the song “Johnny Cash is Dead and his House Burned Down” I smiled.  There are few who could sing these words and get away with it.  I don’t know of anyone else who could sing this and not only get away with it in my heart by only more closely endear themselves to me.  It is not a song about a man dying and a house burning, it is about a time passing, a certain quality of artist and entertainer just not being here.  It reminds me that though there are many inspired and dedicated artists alive today, there will never be another Johnny Cash, another Roy Orbison, or a Waylon Jennings….Though the words of the song may shock, they fulfill their purpose:  They get your attention and inspire further investigation.

The artist behind the incredibly tacky song title is still theoretically a mystery (although I’m 99% sure it’s Larry Gatlin), but that hasn’t stopped a group of marketers from spamming Twitter on the song’s behalf.  Maybe the song is good (although that seems somewhat unlikely), but I guess I would have appreciated it if John Carter Cash was a little more cautious and a little less shameless in using his father’s name and memory.  Cash Remixed seemed like the start of a journey down a road of exploitation, and John Carter Cash’s endorsement of this whole thing seems to be the next step in that direction.

Johnny Cash Is Dead And His House Burned Down [Official site]