This week’s question is a simple but important one:

In 2016, Johnny Cash’s family released Forever Words, a collection of unpublished poetry that they found among his possessions after he died, and now they’ve teamed up with a number of musicians to try and reinterpret some of those poems—and other artifacts found in Cash’s papers—into proper songs. The artists involve…

The five children of Johnny Cash have issued a statement about the right-wing violence in Charlottesville that makes it pretty damn clear that not only would the music legend have been opposed to all this white supremacist bullshit, but that the stormtrooper wannabes of the so-called “alt-right” are a “poison.”

The YouTube channel Yaog operates primarily on two different questions: “Will It Sad?” or “Will It Happy?” The conceit is that the channel’s namesake host will reinterpret classic songs in a manner that subverts their initial intent, such as he did with the themes to Sesame Street and Super Mario Bros. It’s harmless…

In retrospect, we should have assumed that outlaw country musician Johnny Cash was leading a double life as a secret poet. First of all, he dressed all in black. Also, he did a lot of drugs, and everybody knows that drugs are a gateway drug for poetry. None of this is to complain, though. We assumed that Cash—who died…

The Cars: As you may have noticed, I’m something of a completist, to a fault. If I love a band, I generally have everything they’ve ever done. But The Cars to me is the very definition of a greatest-hits band. I’ve never heard an entire Cars album straight through, I don’t think, and I’m fine with that. Because why…

Classic car-collecting, frosted tip TV personality and restaurateur Guy Fieri has hosted his reality series Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives for nearly a decade now. He’s traveled the world in search of the greasiest, spiciest, and most delectable dishes. Even with all of the glamour and success, not to mention the …

As reported by The BBC, scientists have discovered a new species of black tarantula that can be found near California’s Folsom Prison, so, naturally, they decided to name it after a guy who spent a whole day there in the ‘60s: Johnny Cash. The spider is called Aphonopelma johnnycashi, which is fancy science-talk for…

Version Tracker examines how different artists have performed the same song over the years, adapting it to suit their own needs and times.

Before you had kids, you probably never gave trains a second thought, except perhaps as a mode of transportation, a way to get from point A to point B that’s speedier than a car, not as fast as a plane. After kids, more than likely, trains became the nucleus the rest of your household revolved around. For whatever…

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week: Songs with prominent harmonica usage.

The 12th anniversary of the death of Johnny Cash is coming up this month, and to mark the occasion CMT will temporarily rebrand itself as “Cash Music Television” as part of a weeklong tribute to the iconic singer. Also, Kid Rock will be there to host the whole thing, which is appropriate since Johnny Cash was one of…

“There are two types of people in this world,” Bill Murray’s Bob tells his therapist Leo (Richard Dreyfuss) in the 1991 movie What About Bob? “Those who like Neil Diamond, and those who don’t.” Many of us here at The A.V. Club fall into that former camp, even though Diamond’s long career has definitely had its peaks…

With the Country Music Hall Of Fame’s new exhibit honoring Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, and the Nashville session musicians that helped make the outlaw country movement so successful, it’s as good a time as any to talk about The Kingston Springs Suite. Recorded in 1972 by Vince Matthews and Jim Casey, the Suite is part…

Going to live shows can be amazing, but it’s rare that a live version of a song is better than whatever a particular artist has already laid down on tape. (Production takes weeks, costs fortunes, and requires producers for a reason.) It happens, though, and when it does—when a live song surpasses its original…

Johnny Cash would’ve been a legend regardless, but 1994’s American Recordings brought the singer a late-career renaissance with a formula that many have since tried to emulate. With Rick Rubin on board as producer/guru, Cash turned in his most stripped-down, emotional set in decades, and the album—his 81st!—stands…

Pop-Up Video for an era when nobody watches music videos on TV, Genius (formerly Rap Genius) has long been the Internet’s premier source for pounding all of the nuance and imagery out of Wu-Tang Clan lyrics. (“C.R.E.A.M. is an acronym for ‘Cash Rules Everything Around Me’ and has throughout the years become…

The broad strokes of “El Viaje Misterioso De Nostro Jomer” are very familiar—Homer makes a foolish decision that puts his relationship with Marge at jeopardy, then works his way to redemption over the course of the story—but what makes this episode one-of-a-kind is the execution. Inspired by the works of…

Music is inherently numerical: A song’s time signature represents a brief, repeating exercise in algebra; chords are arranged in intervals of thirds and sevenths (and ninths and elevenths if you want to get really tricky with it). Nothing on TV has harnessed this truth quite like Sesame Street, whose mission to…

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, we’re picking some of our favorite songs about cowboys.