My 100 Favorite Songs: #85

Johnny Cash - Ring of Fire

June Carter wrote the song in 1962 while married to Edwin Nix, though it is generally believed (and portrayed in Walk The Line) that the song was about Carter's relationship with Cash. "There is no way to be in that kind of hell," Carter wrote, "no way to extinguish a flame that burns, burns, burns."

The song was first recorded by Carter's sister Anita, but didn't gain much attention. After hearing the song, Cash said he had a dream where he heard the song accompanied by mariachi horns. Cash then told the Carters "I'll give you about five or six more months, and if you don't hit with it, I'm gonna record it the way I feel it."

Cash's first wife, Vivian, wrote "[June] 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."

Cash recorded the song, with backing vocals from the Carter sisters and their mother Maybelle, in March of 1963. It was the biggest hit of his career, spending seven weeks atop the charts.

Cash and Carter married in 1968 and remained so until Carter's death in 2003. Cash died four months later.