Till Things Are Brighter

Too much going on for me these days, so just a short note. Best epitaph for Johnny Cash I've heard so far? "Johnny Cash is in heaven - God can retire" (paraphrased from a friend). I'm by no means a fanatic fan of his music - I have the usual stuff, but I'm nothing even close to a completist - but there's a sense of integrity and power in the man's voice, and in his life, that's nearly extinct today. As a singer, Cash had the rare ability to get to the heart of songs he didn't write - even when those songs didn't seem really to have a heart in their original versions. And as a man: remember Cash was one of the few country musicians to recognize the folly and waste of the Vietnam War, when too many of his cohorts were thoughtlessly flagwaving. Famous people die, and we often say they're irreplaceable: maybe so, but too often, there's no real need to replace them. This world will miss the presence of Johnny Cash.