Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. I Walk the Line
2. Oh, What a Dream
3. All Over Again
4. Little at a Time
5. My Old Faded Rose
6. Happiness Is You
7. Flesh and Blood
8. I Tremble for You
9. I Feel Better All Over
10. 'Cause I Love You
11. Ballad of Barbara
12. Ring of Fire
13. My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You
14. While I've Got It on My Mind
15. I Still Miss Someone
16. One Rose (That's Left in My Heart)

Disc 2:

1. What on Earth Will You Do (For Heaven's Sake)
2. My God is Real
3. It Was Jesus
4. Why Me Lord?
5. Greatest Cowboy of Them All
6. Redemption
7. Great Speckled Bird
8. Old Account
9. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
10. When He Comes
11. Kneeling Drunkard's Plea
12. Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?
13. Man in White
14. Belshazzar
15. Oh, Bury Me Not (Introduction: A Cowboy's Prayer)
16. Oh Come, Angel Band

Disc 3:

1. Folsom Prison Blues
2. Delia's Gone
3. Mr. Garfield
4. Orleans Parish Prison
5. When It's Springtime in Alaska (It's Forty Below)
6. Sound of Laughter
7. Cocaine Blues
8. Hardin Wouldn't Run
9. Long Black Veil
10. Austin Prison
11. Joe Bean
12. Going to Memphis
13. Don't Take Your Guns to Town
14. Highway Patrolman
15. Jacob Green
16. Wall

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #40188 in Music
• Released on: 2001-02-01
• Number of discs: 3
• Formats: Best of, Box set
• Dimensions: .67 pounds

From Amazon.com
More than a few novelists and literature professors have cited the troika of love, god, and death as the basic subjects of all literary works. It just so happens that most music is about the same stuff, and Johnny Cash's music is especially so. Except in Cash's music, you can tease from the general (peculiarly American?) idea of death the more dramatic, intentional, cruel strain of murder. The distinction is crucial for Cash--and this 48-track, three-CD collection--as the struggle presented throughout this set is to understand the subject of a person's will. The will to love, the will to believe, the will to murder: each involves surrender, and most of Cash's protagonists surrender (or are so vanquished that there's no discernible difference). Barrel chested in its breadth, Cash's voice is as ideal a delivery mechanism for metaphysics as it is for the police blotter, the confessional, and the altar. As for the music, Love, God, Murder goes all out to follow its thematic breakdown, avoiding chronological layout--except for Sun-era classics like "Folsom Prison Blues" and "I Walk the Line" to open Murder and Love, respectively. Murder's inclusion of "Orleans Parish Prison" and its B-side "Jacob Green," both recorded in 1972 at Stockholm, Sweden's Osteraker Prison, testify at once to the American roots and global relevance of Cash's vision. The contrasts between '90s material like Kris Kristofferson's "Why Me Lord" and Cash's own "Redemption" (both from American Recordings) with 1958's "It Was Jesus" and 1959's "Great Speckled Bird" (on God) is inspired, a great way to track the sometimes single-mindedness of Cash in his investigation of human behavior. Sure, the inclusion of short commentaries by Cash, U2's Bono (on God), June Carter Cash (on Love), and filmmaker Quentin Tarantino (on Murder) amounts to very little of substance, but it's always nice to read Johnny on Cash and especially June Carter Cash on Johnny. Fans might question another packaging of Cash hits, but the impeccable logic of the song choices and their thematic placement make this slim box an inarguably good thing for most with a passing interest in--or even a lasting obsession with--Cash. --Andrew Bartlett

Customer Reviews

Quintessential Johnny Cash, no need for more
Look, if you are like me, you have a couple of Johnny Cash CD's kicking around in your collection. I have both the Prison Cd's, and they are just super. However, I really didn't feel like buying 7 million of his releases to get a broad picture of JC's recordings (lets face it, JC had his first best of in 1965!) so, I bought this set. This set has great packaging and the songs are just incredible and span most of his career.

I highly recommend this release if you have some JC but want more, but don't want to take a small loan out to try and get everything.

The songs are powerful, they are deep and some will make you laugh although most will make you cry.

JC is missed and I must tell you this lessens the longing.