The Man In Black: The Johnny Cash Story

Tex Perkins has been inhabiting the character of Johnny Cash for over a year now, and on the eve of the brief return season of The Man in Black at the Opera House (and having just finished recording the long-awaited new album with the Dark Horses: you read it here first!) he offers up what he considers to be the three key songs from the show.

Of course, there's a caveat: "There are many other songs that are really important to telling the story as well," he explains, "and there are some big hits that we really couldn't get away without playing, like ‘Folsom Prison Blues' or ‘Ring of Fire', but I'll pick these three."

1 ‘I Walk The Line'
"We open with it, which gets it out of the way, but obviously some people are coming with very little knowledge of Johnny Cash – some people are coming only with the knowledge of the film [Walk the Line]. So to get that out of the way off the top is a good idea. And it changes key four times [laughs]. The band have to really be on to that one, and we did muck it up a few times early on: it's a really strict pattern you have to adhere to, and if you go to the wrong verse..."

2 ‘A Boy Named Sue'
"It's a real feature of the show. It doesn't actually feed into the narrative too much but people love it and it's one his big hits. It almost is a novelty song – it's a moral tale but it's certainly comedic. You're meant to laugh: there's a huge punchline at the end but it's a pretty funny song all the way through. And it's a mouthful: it's ten verses or something and it's delivered with barely a breath in between. It was a challenge just to learn - I'm always proud of myself getting through that song without fucking it up."

3 ‘Hurt'
"It's very important in the show. He recorded it very late, just a year before he died, and just before June [Carter Cash, Johnny's wife] died. In our show that song basically deals with the death of June and the impending death of Johnny, so that does really feed into the narrative. I think even Trent Reznor [songwriter, who originally did the song with Nine Inch Nails] recognises Johnny's as the better version: with a lot of Johnny's latter work with [producer] Rick Rubin, he brings a whole new depth of meaning to the songs. Some of that stuff I find really hard to listen to, because it really is the sound of a dying man. It almost feels ghoulish to listen."

Andrew P Street