I Remember Everything.

Five years ago, when I was first thinking about ending my musical hiatus but hadn’t yet figured out how to approach writing songs again, I learned to play a handful of covers that felt right at the time. Most of them fell by the wayside once I started making my “comeback” album, but the one that stuck around was “She Remembers Everything” by Rosanne Cash. I continued practicing it as a possible addition to my live repertoire but didn’t get down to recording it.

Then this past Labor Day weekend, YouTube recommended me a documentary I hadn’t heard of before, about Johnny Cash’s first wife, Vivian Liberto. Unfortunately, like much of the viewing public, my only exposure to Vivian had been the unflattering (and oddly cast) portrayal of her in Walk the Line, a movie that despite a memorable scene or two has almost certainly aged badly and in retrospect was clearly designed to perpetuate the sanitized lore of Johnny and June.

Unfortunately, when I was in my twenties, this was lore I was in the market for. I first saw the movie when I was still out in the country occupying some dream world and in love with an addict, so naturally I enjoyed envisioning myself as the inspiration for someone to go straight. I saw the film again on TV several years later while staying overnight somewhere with another stormy-tempered dude, and at that point I still harbored fond feelings for it (particularly the tractor-in-the-mud scene).

But seeing this documentary, in which all four of Johnny and Vivian’s daughters (including Rosanne) played a part, has ruined that film for me for good. This is not a dig at June, who obviously was no saint but who survived in her own way as we all do… but I cannot overstate the colossal act of historical erasure that appears to have taken place with regard to Vivian, for the sake of preserving a certain mythology.

All I can say is, so often, it seems there are certain people in the lives of famous figures who seem perfectly willing, in exchange for various benefits, to uphold the cult of personality around them, and others who ultimately can’t abide all the nonsense that involves. June Carter seems to have been the former while Vivian was the latter (though it also seems she never really stopped loving Johnny).

Seeing the story of Vivian – fiery, dynamic, but repeatedly overshadowed and demeaned and understandably filled with a resentment that ate her from the inside out – inspired me to pick up Rosanne’s song again and to finally record it.

Serendipitously, as I was coming up the home stretch with recording, I was listening to local public radio and learned that Rosanne Cash is very much in the news right now for her tour commemorating 30 years since the release of her landmark album The Wheel. What timing!

Vivian – this one’s for you.