There’s a certain truth to the statement “misery loves company”. There’s a reason why The Beatles sad song “Yesterday” is covered more than the giddy “She Loves You”. Rosanne Cash (via her last name) has never been one to want for “company”. On her latest album Black Cadillac, she is also a woman who knows pain. Over a two year period from 2003-2005, she lost her father and stepmother (Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash) as well as her own mother. But this isn’t just an album made to mourn the loss of great giants of music. All the television tributes, as necessary as they were, covered that. This a daughter mourning her parents and through her most personal album to date, Rosanne Cash invites us along on an intensely personal journey that brings us closer to the heart and soul of the Man in Black than the feature film Walk The Line ever could.
Singing with just a hint of anger, singer/songwriter Cash opens her stunning disc with the title track, singing of the car that drove her father to his final resting place. “One of gets to go to heaven / one of just has to stay here in hell” is one of the more poignant lyrics setting a tone that stays raw and aching throughout. The best and most engaging track, “Burn Down This Town” explodes with fury as the passionate songbird imagines torching her childhood home (the scene of some unhappiness) in one vengeful swoop.
Thankfully, Rosanne Cash is also not one to stay stuck in a dark funk for too long. There are also a range of beautiful songs here that reflect on good times as well. “God is in the Roses” is a track that speaks of healing and moving on past bitterness. If fans of Johnny are looking to Rosanne for a walk down memory lane, than they need look no further than the gospel-tinged love-letter to Southern roots called “House on the Lake”. “I miss the sounds of Tennessee” sings Cash the daughter, giving the Nashville crowd their moment to swoon and sigh. The tune also brings out the poet that has always lingered just beneath the surface of the “Seven Year Ache” singer. Here, she likens her father’s voice to a “velvet undertow” and damn, if that isn’t a perfect description!
There are many albums that have been called intensely personal in popular music – Joni Mitchell’s Blue for one and more recently, Neil Young’s Prairie Wind. Johnny Cash even stepped into the category with his cover of the Nine Inch Nail’s song “Hurt”, but it’s Rosanne Cash, who does them all one better by finding the light at the end of tunnel. It’s just a glimpse, but that promise of a connection that doesn’t end with death is truly what puts her at the head of the class. |