Johnny Cash Interview (Bonus Track) Lyrics
Johnny Cash talks about - Water from the Wells of Home
(Johnny Cash)
Hello I'm Johnny Cash. I've really gone 'n' enjoy myself lately. This is the first I ever spent nine months on an album, but we did this deliberately, because this was a very special project to me, it's called "Water from the Wells of Home." The title came about just about a year ago this time. One day, we were packin' up to leave home to get on my bus and June and John Carter and I, we passed by the water fountain, there by the door, and I said, just a minute, before we go on this long run, I want one more drink of Water from the Wells of Home. And as we walked into the bus, John Carter said, that would be a good song title.
So we get on the bus and sat down in my room and got two guitars and sat there and in about thirty minutes, we had the song wrapped up. And we came back in, ah, about the time, well actually, it was the first time we started this project, and John Carter and I came in together and put it down. Well, since that time, we've gone through probably, ah, trying and recording and really actually finishing between twenty-five and - and thirty songs, but we've always gone back to this one song as the Canada Anchor and as a theme for the songs that were in the album. And these songs are to me really "Water from the Wells of Home", they all got a special place with me from the duet with Tom T. Hall and one with Hank Williams junior, they bring on a lot of memories. I worked with Hank junior when he was fifteen, sixteen years old, he was part of my show. And he was stealin' in the Show Promin'. I always wanted to have him on one of my records and we finally found a song, I think that you are goin' to agree that we have found the right one for Hank and I, it's called "That Old Wheel."
But back to the Waters from the - Water from the Wells of Home - project, ah, thinking about home and family and friends and loved ones, well, I started thinking about June, Rosanne and people I've always admired like Emmylou Harris, Waylon, Tom T. Hall. And, ah, over the years, ah, from time to time, ah, June and I have entertained the McCartneys. Either at their home here in Nashville, when they came to Nashville or more - more frequently in Jamaica, when we were on vacation down there in the wintertime.
We have our house there, where we stay and Paul and Linda and their family stay at a place called Round Hill, which is about twenty miles away. Well, there's no secrets in Jamaica, as they say, so we hear that the McCartneys are on the island, when gave them a call this last Christmas and they came right on over, had dinner with us and Tom T. Hall and Dixie were there, so we sat up all night on the front porch, ah, singin'. Ah, and ah, a musical session, a guitar pull or a-swappin' songs-session with Paul McCartney is really a trip. He's the only singer I've ever sat with across, ah, a porch front, who plays the guitar left-handed and upside down. And he had the only guitar on the porch, this night, and ah, in order to get a descant alright for Tom and I, who had to tune it to an open tuning and used a bar to accord it with. But Paul did most of the guitar playing.
Along about two or two - thirty and the moon came on over the porch, now this sounds like a - a - a - drummed up story but it's true. The full moon, ah, it wasn't new moon, it was a full moon. But the full moon came on over the porch and Tom T. Hall looked up and he said, there's a new moon over Jamaica, that'll be a good song-title and I said, there's full moon over Jamaica, Tom T. and he said, yeah, but a new moon sounds like a better song-title. So Tom T. and Paul, ah, started writin' a song and then I came in on the Chorus and wrote the third verse. It was a joy workin' with John Carter to, ah, to kinda feed off of that youth and energy and that fire and that happiness and that joy in the studio.
Sometimes, ah, with all the years that go by in the sessions we have, we can get a little jaded and - and stilted and, ah, whatever once in a while a spark like Paul McCartney will come along or - or John Carter to work with in the studio and will really inspire me and make me want to get up on my feet and - and - and - and sing it, standin' on my feet. All in all, I'm really proud of the project, there's the duet with, ah, Tom T. Hall, "Last of the Drifters", which, I think, is a very fine song. A Scottish folk song that I really believe, that the people in Scotland are goin' to like. A song, I wrote, called "The Ballad of Raw - of Rob MacDunn" or "A Croft in Clachan" - Clachan, that's a little town in Scotland. Ah it's a seventeenth century, ah, war ballad, about Scotland. And Glenn Campbell sings with me on that. He flew into Nashville to be on the session. All of these people that are on the - the session, that I have mentioned, everyone of them who are singin' on it, only had to be asked one time, and they were here.
The Everly Brothers, Rosanne, came in pregnant and, ah, did her vocal on the "Ballad of the Teenage Queen" and the Everly Brothers came in together and then one of them came back in to do his part over and the other one came back in. And everyone has worked really hard on this project, as I said, for a period of nine months and we really believe that, ah, it's goin' to pay off, we think that, ah, we've come up with some really, ah, commercial nuisance on some songs that were really classics and then some new songs that, we think, have that feel about them, that they're all a part of, ah, what came up in a bucket out of - with the Water from the Wells of Home.
