Artists from Oliva Newton John to Social Distortion to Frank Zappa have covered Johnny Cash’s classic “Ring of Fire,” but now the song has been given the most dramatic and significant reinterpretation since Cash's recording spent seven weeks at No. 1 in 1963. The source? Cash’s first wife, Vivian, whose recently published posthumous autobiography I Walked The Line: My Life With Johnny offers an account that takes exception to nearly folkloric credit going to Cash’s second wife, June Carter, and singer-songwriter Merle Kilgore.
Carter, who passed away in 2003, maintained the inspiration for the song came from the feelings she had while falling in love with Cash, who was battling drug and alcohol addiction. She also claimed to have seen the phrase “love is like a burning ring of fire” underlined in one of her Uncle A.P. Carter’s poetry books. Reese Witherspoon’s Oscar winning portrayal of Carter in the 2005 movie Walk the Line included a scene in which she’s writing the song. But Vivian Cash, who died prior to the movie’s release but, according to a source, had problems with the script, provided her co-writer Ann Sharpsteen with another account of how the famous song came into being. On page 294 of the book, she says:
One day in early 1963, while gardening in the yard, Johnny told me about a song he had just written with Merle Kilgore and Curly while out fishing on Lake Casitas. “I’m going to give June half credit on a song I just wrote,” Johnny said. “It’s called ‘Ring of Fire.”
‘Why?’ I asked, wiping dirt from my hands. The mere mention of her name annoyed me. I was sick of hearing about her.
“She needs the money,” he said, avoiding my star. “And I feel sorry for her.”
I was so naïve and trusting. The idea made me uncomfortable, but I didn’t argue about it. I still believed everything Johnny told me.
To this day, it confounds me to hear the elaborate details June told of writing that song for Johnny. She didn’t write that song any more than I did. The truth is, Johnny wrote that song, while pilled up and drunk, about a certain private female body part. All those years of her claiming she wrote it herself, and she probably never knew what the song was really about…
Cash’s estate was aware of the book’s claim prior to publication. Sources say there was some back and forth during the vetting process, but Scribner’s legal department felt confident enough to publish the book without deleting the controversial claims. "Vivian Cash strikes me as someone who had very little ax to grind," says Eric Bjorgum, the Los Angeles attorney investigating the matter for Vivian Cash's second husband, DIck Distin. "If she did, she would've done it when she was alive. She and Johnny had four kids together. Their marriage wasn't a footnote as it was portrayed in the movie."
With millions of dollars in past and future royalties potentially called into question, Bjorgum adds, "We're looking at the situation and our options. The genealogy of the song is probably as complex as their relationship." Indeed, all of the main players -- Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash, Vivain Cash or Merle Kilgore have passed away. "Historical documentation and interviews clearly establish that Kilgore, a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame and composer of numerous hit songs, including 'Wolverton Mountain' and Carter wrote 'Ring of Fire' amongst many songs that she composed before and after this recording," counters a statement from the Cash estate. "We find it noteworthy that their authorship has been unchallenged for over 40 years, and was only questioned after the deaths of Kilgore and the Cashes."
In the meantime, that’s not the only Cash news. Today, “The Best of Johnny Cash TV Show” finally gets its much-anticipated release on DVD. Culled from 58 episodes of Cash's 1969-71 TV series, the four-hour, two-disc set include performances from Bob Dylan (he and Cash team up on “Girl From The North Country”) as well as Louis Armstrong, Neil Young, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Merle Haggard, and Tammy Wynette.
