The Man in Black
"I wore the black, I sang, 'for the poor and beaten down, livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town.'
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"I wore it 'for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime, but is there because he's a victim of the times.'
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"I wore it for 'the sick and lonely old' and 'the reckless whose bad trip left them cold.'
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"And, with the Vietnam War as painful in my mind as it was in most other Americans', I wore it 'in mournin' for the lives that could have been. Each week we lose a hundred fine young men. I wear it for the thousands who have died, believin' that the Lord was on their side.'
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"The last verse summed it up:
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"Well, there's things that never will be right, I know,
And things need changin' everywhere you go,
But until we start to make a move to make a few things right,
You'll never see me wear a suit of white.
Oh, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day,
And tell the world that everything's okay,
But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,
Till things are brighter, I'm the Man in Black." — Johnny Cash; Cash: The Autobiography, p. 63
Gary Kelley
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