Just To Watch It Die


“At Folsom Prison” (Johnny Cash)

I’ve heard cover versions of Johnny Cash’s famous song, Folsom Prison Blues, and the audience always cheers the line, “…just to watch him die.” Turns out the spontaneity we were celebrating was based upon a studio concoction. Next they’ll be reporting that when June Carter replied to Johnny Cash’s sentence, “I love to watch you talk”, with the great line, “I’m talking with my mouth, way up here”, she dubbed it in the studio! No, probably not.

Anyway, another myth debunked:

As it turns out, one of the most iconic moments in American music history is the result of a razor blade, a prerecorded hunk of hollering and some Scotch tape.

On “Folsom Prison Blues,” the opening track of Johnny Cash’s landmark live album, “Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison,” the Man in Black darkly intones: “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.”

The 1,000 inmates packed into the California prison’s cafeteria that Jan. 16, 1968, morning screamed, whistled and wildly applauded the musical murder.

For 40 years, music fans have regarded the chilling moment as a key component in the DNA of Cash’s career-making mystique.

But it never happened.

Columbia Records producer Bob Johnston later spliced the crowd response into the song.

Writer Michael Streissguth discovered the bit of larcenous creative license while he was researching his 2004 book, “Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison: The Making of a Masterpiece.”

Streissguth was in a studio listening to the master tapes of the concert with Sony Legacy engineers. On the weathered reel-to-reel tape, the moment whizzed past without any audience eruption.

Curious, the writer and the engineers pulled out the edited master. Sure enough, on the final version when Cash’s iconic line was cued up, the spliced in, taped up edit was evident.

[From Boxed set shines light on legendary Cash prison show | AccessAtlanta]

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Oh well, still love that album.

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