"Ring of Fire" is a song made popular by
Johnny Cash
John R. Cash (born J. R. Cash; February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003) was an American country singer-songwriter. Much of Cash's music contained themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially in the later stages of his ca ...
when it appeared on his 1963 album ''
Ring of Fire: The Best of Johnny Cash''. Written by Cash's wife
June Carter Cash
June Carter Cash (born Valerie June Carter; June 23, 1929 – May 15, 2003) was an American singer, songwriter and dancer. A five-time Grammy award-winner, she was a member of the Carter Family and the second wife of singer Johnny Cash. Prior ...
and
Merle Kilgore
Wyatt Merle Kilgore (August 9, 1934 – February 6, 2005) was an American singer, songwriter, and manager. Born in Chickasha, Oklahoma, he was raised in Shreveport, Louisiana. At the time of his death, he was the personal manager of Hank Wil ...
, it was originally recorded as "(Love's) Ring of Fire" by June's sister
Anita Carter
Ina Anita Carter (March 31, 1933 – July 29, 1999) was an American singer who played upright bass, guitar, and autoharp. She performed with her sisters, Helen and June, and her mother, Maybelle, initially under the name The Carter Sisters an ...
on her 1963 album ''Folk Songs Old and New''.
Cash's version became one of the biggest hits of his career, staying at No. 1 on the country chart for seven weeks. It was certified gold by the
RIAA
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...
on January 21, 2010, and has sold over 1.2 million digital downloads.
It was named the fourth greatest country song of all time by
Country Music Television
Country Music Television (CMT) is an American pay TV network owned by Paramount Media Networks, a division of Paramount Global. Launched on March 5, 1983, as Country Music Television, CMT was the first nationally available channel devoted to coun ...
, while ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
'' listed it as the 87th
greatest song of all time and the 27th greatest country song of all time.
Conception
Some sources claim that Carter had seen the phrase "Love is like a burning ring of fire" underlined in an
Elizabethan
The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personifi ...
poetry book owned by her uncle
A. P. Carter. She worked with Kilgore on writing a song inspired by this phrase as she had seen her uncle do in the past. She had written: "There is no way to be in that kind of hell, no way to extinguish a flame that burns, burns, burns".
The song was originally recorded by June's sister,
Anita Carter
Ina Anita Carter (March 31, 1933 – July 29, 1999) was an American singer who played upright bass, guitar, and autoharp. She performed with her sisters, Helen and June, and her mother, Maybelle, initially under the name The Carter Sisters an ...
, on her Mercury Records album ''Folk Songs Old and New'' (1963) as "(Love's) Ring of Fire". Mercury released Anita's version as a single and it was a featured "pick hit" in ''Billboard'' magazine. After hearing Anita's version, Cash claimed he had a dream where he heard the song accompanied by "Mexican horns". Cash said, "
..I'll give you about five or six more months, and if you don't hit with it, I'm gonna record it the way I feel it." Cash noted that adding trumpets was a change to his basic sound.
When the song failed to become a major hit for Anita, Cash recorded it his own way, adding the
mariachi
Mariachi (, , ) is a genre of regional Mexican music that dates back to at least the 18th century, evolving over time in the countryside of various regions of western Mexico. The usual mariachi group today consists of as many as eight violins, t ...
-style horns from his dream. This sound was later used in the song "
It Ain't Me Babe
"It Ain't Me Babe" is a song by Bob Dylan that originally appeared on his fourth album '' Another Side of Bob Dylan'', which was released in 1964 by Columbia Records. According to music critic Oliver Trager, this song, along with others on the al ...
", which was recorded around the same time.
Mother Maybelle
"Mother" Maybelle Carter (born Maybelle Addington; May 10, 1909 – October 23, 1978) was an American country musician and "among the first" to use the Carter scratch, with which she "helped to turn the guitar into a lead instrument". It ...
and the Carter sisters are prominently featured in the Cash recording singing harmony. Cash tinkered with a few of the original phrases in Anita Carter's version of the song. Cash's daughter
Rosanne Cash
Rosanne Cash (born May 24, 1955) is an American singer-songwriter and author. She is the eldest daughter of country musician Johnny Cash and Vivian Liberto Cash Distin, Johnny Cash's first wife. Although she is often classified as a country art ...
said, "The song is about the transformative power of love and that's what it has always meant to me and that's what it will always mean to the Cash children."
In 2004,
Merle Kilgore
Wyatt Merle Kilgore (August 9, 1934 – February 6, 2005) was an American singer, songwriter, and manager. Born in Chickasha, Oklahoma, he was raised in Shreveport, Louisiana. At the time of his death, he was the personal manager of Hank Wil ...
, who shared writing credit for the song with June Carter, proposed licensing the song for a hemorrhoid cream commercial. When performing the song live, Kilgore would often "mock dedicate" the song to the "makers of
Preparation H
Preparation H is an American brand of medications that is made by Pfizer, used in the treatment of hemorrhoids. Hemorrhoids are caused at least in part by inflamed blood vessels, and most versions of Preparation H work by reducing inflammation in ...
". However, June's heirs were not of a like mind, and they refused to allow the song to be licensed for the ad.
Cash's first wife
Vivian Cash (Liberto) states in her autobiography: "One day in early 1963, while gardening in the yard, Johnny told me about a song he had just written with Merle Kilgore and Curly while out fishing on Lake Casitas. 'I’m gonna give June half credit on a song I just wrote,' Johnny said. 'It’s called "Ring of Fire."' 'Why?' I asked, wiping dirt from my hands. The mere mention of her name annoyed me. I was sick of hearing about her. 'She needs the money,' he said, avoiding my stare. 'And I feel sorry for her.' Vivian Cash also states: "To this day, it confounds me to hear the elaborate details June told of writing that song for Johnny. She didn’t write that song any more than I did. The truth is, Johnny wrote that song, while pilled up and drunk, about a certain private female body part. All those years of her claiming she wrote it herself, and she probably never knew what the song was really about."
Chart performance
Johnny Cash version
Eric Burdon and the Animals version
Sandy Kelly & Johnny Cash version
Alan Jackson version
Certifications
Legacy
Numerous
cover versions
In popular music, a cover version, cover song, remake, revival, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording by a musician other than the original performer or composer of the song. Originally, it referred to a version of a song release ...
of "Ring of Fire" have been produced, the most commercially successful version being by
Eric Burdon & the Animals
The Animals (also billed as Eric Burdon and the Animals) are an English rock band, formed in Newcastle upon Tyne in the early 1960s. The band moved to London upon finding fame in 1964. The Animals were known for their gritty, bluesy sound an ...
. Their version was recorded at the end of 1968, and made the top 40 in four countries.
In late 1974,
the Eric Burdon Band released a
hard rock
Hard rock or heavy rock is a loosely defined subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard ...
version.
Wall of Voodoo
Wall of Voodoo was an American rock band from Los Angeles, California, United States. Though largely an underground act for the majority of its existence, the band came to prominence when its 1982 single "Mexican Radio" became a hit on MTV an ...
debuted with a cover of the song on their self-titled 1980 EP and featured a pulsing synthesizer.
Dwight Yoakam
Dwight David Yoakam (born October 23, 1956) is an American singer-songwriter, actor, and film director. He first achieved mainstream attention in 1986 with the release of his debut album ''Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.''. Yoakam had considerabl ...
covered it on his debut album ''
Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.'' Punk rock band
Social Distortion
Social Distortion is an American punk rock band formed in 1978 in Fullerton, California. The band currently consists of Mike Ness (lead vocals, lead guitar), Jonny Wickersham (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Brent Harding (bass, backing voca ...
covered it on their 1990
self-titled LP. In 1991,
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by wikt:nonconformity, nonconformity, Free improvisation, free-form improvisation, sound experimen ...
released a reggae-style live version on the album ''
The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life
''The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life'' is a double-disc live album by American musician Frank Zappa, released in 1991. The album was one of four to be recorded during the 1988 world tour, along with ''Broadway the Hard Way'', ''Make a J ...
'', after claiming to have met Johnny Cash in the elevator before the show and inviting him to perform the song with his band that night. Cash did not follow through on the invitation, but the band played the song anyway. A cover of the song by
Alan Jackson
Alan Eugene Jackson (born October 17, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter. He is known for blending traditional honky-tonk and mainstream country pop sounds (for a style widely regarded as "neotraditional country"), as well as penning many o ...
with guest vocals from
Lee Ann Womack
Lee Ann Womack Liddell (; born August 19, 1966) is an American country music singer, songwriter, and musician. Her 2000 single, " I Hope You Dance" was a major crossover music hit, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Country Chart and the Top 15 ...
was released as a single on December 6, 2010. It served as the lead-off single to his ''
34 Number Ones'' compilation album, and peaked at #45 in the
Hot Country Songs
Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States.
This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data from Nielsen BDS along with digital sal ...
, becoming his first single to miss the top 40 since "Just Put a Ribbon in Your Hair" peaked at #51 in 2004. It was his last single released by
Arista Records
Arista Records () is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. The label was previously handled by BMG Entertainmen ...
. The
ska
Ska (; ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a walki ...
band
Swim Herschel Swim
Swim Herschel Swim was a popular ska band in Provo, Utah from 1989 to 1993. The band's initial members were Rod Middleton (lead singer), Jon Armstrong (keyboardist), Rich Hillquist (drums), Russell Cluff (bass), and Rick Anderson (guitar). Jeff ...
covered the song on their album ''Burn Swim Burn''. The English power metal band
DragonForce
DragonForce are a British power metal band from London, England. The band was formed in 1999 by guitarists Herman Li and Sam Totman, and are known for their long and fast guitar solos, fantasy-themed lyrics and retro video game-influenced ...
recorded a cover as the closing track to the standard edition of their 2014 album, ''
Maximum Overload
''Maximum Overload'' is the sixth studio album by British power metal band DragonForce, which was released in Europe on 18 August 2014, and in North America the next day. Trivium vocalist Matt Heafy contributed backing vocals on three songs, in ...
''.
Cash's version of "Ring of Fire" was never released as a single in the UK. However, in 1993 and 1994, it gained significant radio airplay in the UK after it was used in a popular television commercial for
Levi's
Levi Strauss & Co. () is an American clothing company known worldwide for its Levi's () brand of denim jeans. It was founded in May 1853 when German-Jewish immigrant Levi Strauss moved from Buttenheim, Bavaria, to San Francisco, California, to o ...
. In 2005,
Liverpool FC
Liverpool Football Club is a professional football club based in Liverpool, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Founded in 1892, the club joined the Football League the following year and has p ...
fans began singing the song at matches during the run-up to
that year's Champions League Final, and it has been a staple song for the team's fans ever since.
Wall of Voodoo's cover version was featured in the 1981
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
pornographic
Pornography (often shortened to porn or porno) is the portrayal of Human sexual activity, sexual subject matter for the exclusive purpose of sexual arousal. Primarily intended for adults, film ''
Nightdreams
''Nightdreams'' is a 1981 pornographic film with strong horror elements directed by Francis Delia, and written by Jerry Stahl and Stephen Sayadian.
Plot
Two scientists use electric jolts to induce a woman named Mrs. Van Houten with surreal a ...
''.
Since 2004, the
Calgary Flames
The Calgary Flames are a professional ice hockey team based in Calgary. The Flames compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division (NHL), Pacific Division in the Western Conference (NHL), Western Conference, and ...
of the
NHL
The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...
have used the song as a victory song after every home win.
References
External links
*
*
*
{{Authority control
1963 songs
1963 singles
1990 singles
1969 singles
2010 singles
2014 singles
Songs written by Merle Kilgore
Johnny Cash songs
Dwight Yoakam songs
Mark Collie songs
George Canyon songs
Alan Jackson songs
The Animals songs
Social Distortion songs
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Columbia Nashville Records singles
MGM Records singles
Epic Records singles
Sony Music singles
Mercury Nashville singles
Arista Nashville singles
Songs written by June Carter Cash
Song recordings produced by Don Law