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Rosanne Cash interview
February 2, 2010 by Bill Palmer
“I am an iPhone user,” Rosanne Cash tells me right up front. “I was one of the first.” And here I thought my conversation with the multi-genre legend, whose latest album consists of interpretations of classic standards that were recommended to her by her father Johnny Cash back when she was still a teenager, would be all about the music. And as it turns out, it mostly was. But along the way we also touched on everything from her favorite iPhone apps, to the one she wishes someone would invent, to the next chapter of the Cash family’s musical legacy that’s just now unfolding…
So you’re an iPhone user. Before we talk about the album, do you have any favorite apps you can talk about?
TweetDeck for iPhone, of course. And I love some really geeky ones, Sextuple Word. It’s just a dumb spelling game. I really like it though. And my very favorite is recorder. I put a lot of song ideas on it. My second favorite, besides Recorder, is the Guitar Tuner. It’s so awesome. It actually works better than the old school real tuner I have.
When you were growing up, when you were a teenager in the seventies, what kind of music were you listening to?
The Beatles were the first thing that kind of turned my head around, and then I grew up in Southern California, so everything that was on the airwaves then. Buffalo Springfield, Traffic, Spencer Davis, Elton John, Janis Joplin, and all of the kind of “Laurel Canyon” era singer songwriters, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Stephen Stills, Jackie DeShannon, all those people. I was listening to everything. I had an insatiable musical appetite. I still do.
Did your dad have issues with that music, or was he just more concerned with what you weren’t listening to?
People think oh, he was against it. No, he had really wide musical tastes himself. He was just afraid that I was being too narrow minded, I was missing half of the picture by avoiding real deep American roots music
When he gave you this list, did you immediately go and check out these songs, or what the last thing you wanted to do at the time?
No, I was into it. And I didn’t go out and check it out as much as I asked him, how does this one go? How does this one go? And he had them all at his fingertips. He had thousands and thousands of songs memorized that he could play start to finish. It was really remarkable. I mean, he had a very unusual mind in that way.
The obvious question is that you’ve had this list for several decades, why was this the right time to make this album?
Well you know, it’s kind typical, a typical paradox that you don’t care about what your parents are giving you until they’re not on the planet anymore, that you don’t think about legacy until the ones who are giving it to you aren’t here anymore. It’s like, why should you? They’re still the carriers of it until they’re gone. And then suddenly you go, well now I’m the carrier of it.
How faithful did you feel like you had to be to the original versions?
Not faithful to the original versions except faithful to the original melodies. [Husband and The List producer John Leventhal] and I were purists in that way, that we wanted what the songwriter intended, we wanted to convey that. But as far as original versions, well, you know, I think a great song deserves a lot of interpretations. Elvis Costello and I are friends, and after he heard the record he called me and said, “Look, for me there were only ever two versions of Take These Chains From My Heart, Hank’s and Ray Charles.” He said “Now there are three.”
That, to me, was the best I could hope for, is that somebody put one of my versions in their catalog of something meaningful.
People tend to think cover albums are easy because there’s no songwriting. People think you just show up and start singing, which is not the case. What are the biggest challenges of tackling songs that are this far into the zeitgeist?
There are a lot of challenges, and you’re right, it’s not easy. Number one, I think these songs required a full life be brought to them. I don’t think I could have recorded these songs in my thirties, you know? And to bring your full self to them, they deserve it. And then another challenge was getting some of those iconic versions out of my head, you know, Patsy Cline’s version of She’s Got You, which I grew up hearing. I mean I was terrified at first. I said to John, I can’t do it, you know, Patsy’s is the definitive version. Then I started thinking, Patsy’s version was over forty years ago. It’s okay to do another interpretation.
Then once I started letting it go, you get inside of the song and you see why it’s such a great song.
Did you know from the start that some of these songs were going to have additional vocalists, or did you get to a point where you said “I’ve got to bring in some people like Elvis and Bruce”?
We went back and forth while we were working on Sea Of Heartbreak on whether it should be a duet, and when we got to the end of the process, I said we should definitely have a male voice on this. Who’s the perfect American mail voice? And Bruce [Springsteen] was our first choice, you know, obviously, and he said yes.
Then the other songs, we knew we wanted voice on those, and it was just a matter of who. Heartaches made perfect sense to ask Elvis because it’s such a structured song, and Elvis could really bring that. The kind of freedom that he brings, that was great. And Rufus [Wainwright] was surprising. I didn’t realize, I mean I thought he would do a straight harmony, you know, and he brought these kind of orchestral arrangements which were beautiful. And Jeff Tweedy, in some ways he was the biggest revelation because he’s so meticulous, his work ethic about these songs, and his respect of the songs is so deep
There were a hundred songs on the list, there are only twelve on the album, or thirteen on the iTunes version. Do you have plans for the other eighty-seven?
I don’t think I could record all of them. Some of them just don’t make sense, you know, you don’t need me to sing This Land Is Your Land. I know why it’s on the list but you don’t need the version. But I definitely have at least another record of me, if not two.
Are you going to do that next as a follow up to this, or do you think your next album will go back to writing your own songs?
I don’t know. I mean I am writing now. I could do another record from the list quicker than I could finish writing the songs for my own next record. But, you know, I’m not giving up that job. That’s my day job (laughs).
Maybe it’s ironic that the first line of the album just happens to be “I’m growing tired of the big city lights.” Obviously not your line, but you’re a New Yorker, you live in the biggest city. Do you think you’ll be a New Yorker forever?
I do. I’m not fit to live anywhere else (laughs). You know that saying, “We always thought she was so weird but it turns out she’s just a New Yorker.” That’s me.
Your daughter just released an album, right?
Yeah.
You’re a famous, well established artist whose child is now entering the music scene. Does that give you a better understanding of the position your dad was in when you first started making albums?
Yeah, you’re the first person to ask me that. It really does, and I’m just kind of filled with pride and love and kind of stepping back, you know, I don’t want to interfere, which was so much my dad. He stood way back, he would never have interfered or infringed on my independence. He wouldn’t offer advice unless I asked it, and yet he always let me know how proud he was. It’s kind of the way I am with my daughter. But seeing it from this perspective, it’s like it’s the other half of the painting.
You just performed at a Haiti benefit concert. What do we do now?
I don’t know. I have felt as helpless as everyone else. I think the most important thing to do is to not let the situation there become a victim of our short attention spans, like New Orleans is still trying to recover and yet nobody’s really talking about it much anymore. We can’t forget, five years from now, ten years from now, we still have to have our compassion aroused for them.
If we can swing back and finish where we started with the Apple stuff. As an Apple user, is there anything you wish they would bring out next?
Dammit, why don’t they make an app that turns the screen of the iPhone into a mirror, so I don’t have to carry a compact to put lipstick on? I’ll split the profits with you. Get going on that (laughs).
It sounds like you’re pretty happy with what they’re giving you at present.
I am. There’s nothing I’m longing for. I love my iPhone. It’s my companion.
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