theverge:"For all the records we made together, he would play me...

theverge:

"For all the records we made together, he would play me songs and I would play him songs until we got to the point where we both liked the songs… "Rusty Cage" was mine, "Hurt" was mine. He wouldn’t have heard those. Something like an old Jimmie Rodgers song, chances are he brought it.

What I came to realize about that whole Johnny Cash experience was that he was a great storyteller. The song didn’t matter — all that mattered were the words. All that mattered was if the character of Johnny Cash — the mythical Johnny Cash, the man in black — would say those words. If that’s what you would want to hear him talking about, then that would be a good song to do. So it was never about like melody, it was just about if the lyrics were right.”

- Producer Rick Rubin reminisces about Johnny Cash on Genius

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