Men and black

When June Carter Cash unexpectedly died following heart surgery earlier this year, more than one comment expressed surprise that her husband had outlived her.  After all, Johnny Cash was suffering from some sort of progressive neurological disease as well as diabetic complications, and really hadn’t looked healthy at all for several years.

There was little shock, but still great sadness, upon hearing the news this morning that the end had come at the age of 71 for The Man in Black.  Others will recount his storied career, his passion, his anger, his power, his contradictions.  For my part, I’ll listen anew to the rumblings of that great thunder of a voice ... and to the mind behind it.  I’ll hear great, essential American music, and I’ll also hear the progressive, anti-authoritarian thoughts and passions that fueled Johnny Cash.

If there is an afterlife, Johnny and June are back together again ... the interruption in their coexistence was brief.  And perhaps they’re putting down tracks in Sam Phillips’s studio, accompanied by Warren Zevon.

I also associate the color black with another man who died within the last few days.  Bushy, beetling black eyebrows symbolized the black and bleak worldview of the blackhearted Edward Teller, dead at 95.  The self-described Father of the H-bomb was an unrepentant Cold Warrior to the very end, perfectly willing to squash anyone (for example, J. Robert Oppenheimer) and anything to foster his paleoconservative agenda.  It is said that during the research leading to the H-bomb, Teller calculated that a powerful enough bomb could theoretically produce a chain reaction that would ignite and consume the earth’s entire atmosphere.  Someone else at Los Alamos (Stanislaw Ulam? George Gamov?) showed that Teller’s model was flawed, and the project continued.  In his black heart, though, I suspect that Teller would have been pleased if it had turned out that his hypothesis was correct.  Surely, the infinitesimal probability of world annihilation wouldn’t deter Teller from pushing to build bigger and more powerful thermonuclear devices.

UPDATE:  No one can say what must be said about the deeply progressive nature of Johnny Cash, man of all the people, than Johnny himself.  You may have seen the lyrics of his 1971 composition The Man in Black in other remembrances, but it can’t be displayed too often:

Well, you wonder why I always dress in black,
Why you never see bright colors on my back,
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone.
Well, there’s a reason for the things that I have on.

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he’s a victim of the times.

I wear the black for those who never read,
Or listened to the words that Jesus said,
About the road to happiness through love and charity,
Why, you’d think He’s talking straight to you and me.

Well, we’re doin’ mighty fine, I do suppose,
In our streak of lightnin’ cars and fancy clothes,
But just so we’re reminded of the ones who are held back,
Up front there ought ‘a be a Man In Black.

I wear it for the sick and lonely old,
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold,
I wear the black in mournin’ for the lives that could have been,
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men.

And, I wear it for the thousands who have died,
Believen’ that the Lord was on their side,
I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died,
Believen’ that we all were on their side.

Well, there’s things that never will be right I know,
And things need changin’ everywhere you go,
But ‘til we start to make a move to make a few things right,
You’ll never see me wear a suit of white.

Ah, I’d love to wear a rainbow every day,
And tell the world that everything’s OK,
But I’ll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,
‘Till things are brighter, I’m the Man In Black.

He meant every word.  He lived every word.  He was every word.

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