Johnny Cash’s poetry set to music on new album Forever Words

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Collection of unknown poetry by Johnny Cash transformed into songs by artists including Chris Cornell, John Mellencamp, Elvis Costello and Alison Krauss

Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash (Image credit: Getty)

An album of songs created from Johnny Cash’s unknown poetry, lyrics, and letters, is to be released later this year.

Forever Words features performances by artists including Chris Cornell, John Mellencamp, Elvis Costello, Alison Krauss and Willie Nelson and will launch on April 6 via Legacy Recordings on CD, 2LP and digital formats.

Cash’s son John Carter Cash collected his father’s notes and, over the course of the last two years, he and producer Steve Berkowitz invited a range of contemporary artists to set new music to Cash’s written work.

Many of the songs were inspired by the book Forever Words: The Unknown Poems, which was released earlier this month.

John says: “Determining the artist for each song was truly a matter of the heart. I picked the artists who are most connected with my father, who had a personal story that was connected with dad.

“It became an exciting endeavour to go through these works, to put them together and present them to different people who could finish them in a way that I believed that dad would have wanted.”

Forever Words is now available to pre-order, while a list of songs and artists can be found below.

Johnny Cash Forever Words tracklist

  1. Forever/I Still Miss Someone - Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson
  2. To June This Morning - Ruston Kelly and Kacey Musgraves
  3. Gold All Over the Ground - Brad Paisley
  4. You Never Knew My Mind - Chris Cornell
  5. The Captain’s Daughter - Alison Krauss and Union Station
  6. Jellico Coal Man - T. Bone Burnett
  7. The Walking Wounded - Rosanne Cash
  8. Them Double Blues - John Mellencamp
  9. Body on Body - Jewel
  10. I’ll Still Love You - Elvis Costello
  11. June’s Sundown - Carlene Carter
  12. He Bore It All - Daily and Vincent
  13. Chinky Pin Hill - I’m With Her
  14. Goin’, Goin’, Gone - Robert Glasper featuring Ro James, and Anu Sun
  15. What Would I Dreamer Do? - The Jayhawks
  16. Spirit Rider – Jamey Johnson

The 10 best Johnny Cash songs, as chosen by Tom Russell

Scott Munro
Scott Munro
Louder e-commerce editor

Scott has spent 35 years in newspapers, magazines and online as an editor, production editor, sub-editor, designer, writer and reviewer. Scott joined our news desk in the summer of 2014 before moving into e-commerce in 2020. Scott keeps Louder’s buyer’s guides up to date, writes about the best deals for music fans, keeps on top of the latest tech releases and reviews headphones, speakers, earplugs and more for Louder. Over the last 10 years, Scott has written more than 11,000 articles across Louder, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Prog. He's previously written for publications including IGN, Sunday Mirror, Daily Record and The Herald, covering everything from daily news and weekly features, to tech reviews, video games, travel and whisky. Scott's favourite bands are Fields Of The Nephilim, The Cure, New Model Army, All About Eve, The Mission, Cocteau Twins, Drab Majesty, The Tragically Hip, Marillion and Rush.