The Early ’90s U2 Track Inspired by the Old Testament Featuring Johnny Cash on Vocals, “The Wanderer”

When U2 was piecing together their 1993 album Zooropa, there was one track they were stuck on. Bono initially composed the song with Johnny Cash‘s vocals in mind. During a visit to Dublin, Cash went in to record his vocals on the track, and though Bono also recorded his for the song it was Cash’s that ended up on the album.

“I was thrilled to death,” said Cash, “because I love that song.”

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“The Wanderer”

The closing track on Zooropa, “The Wanderer” was never released as a single and was inspired by the book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament. The lyrics tell the narrative of a preacher searching for God in a post-apocalyptic world.

I went out walking through streets paved with gold
Lifted some stones, saw the skin and bones
Of a city without a soul
I went out walking under an atomic sky
Where the ground won’t turn and the rain it burns
Like the tears when I said goodbye

Yeah, I went with nothing, nothing but the thought of you
I went wandering

In the song, Cash’s graveled voice rubbed against a steady bass and mostly electronic arrangement.

I went drifting through the capitals of tin
Where men can’t walk or freely talk
And sons turn their fathers in
I stopped outside a church house
Where the citizens like to sit
They say they want the kingdom
But they don’t want God in it

I went out riding down that old eight-lane
I passed a thousand signs looking for my own name
I went with nothing but the thought you’d be there too
Looking for you

I went out there in search of experience
To taste and to touch and to feel as much
As a man can before he repents

“For me, that’s a great song and it translates emotionally brilliantly, yet there’s a load of sonic experiments going on there,” said Zooropa producer Flood. “There’s the idea of this person sort of wandering through this desolate landscape, but there’s an air of nonchalance. Everything about the lyrics, the delivery, the sound of his voice, the music, it just seems fantastic. It delivers on all levels”

‘Love, God, & Murder’

In 2000, Bono, along with Cash’s wife June Carter, and director Quentin Tarantino wrote the liner notes for the box set, Love, God, & Murder. Bono introduced the God portion, which featured Cash’s more gospel songs, including “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” “The Kneeling Drunkard’s Plea,” and “Why Me, Lord,” and “Oh, Bury Me Not (Introduction: A Cowboy’s Prayer),” among others.

“Gospel music has a joy that in most hands comes off as sentimental; a sweetness so easily saccharine,” wrote Bono. “Why is it that in these songs the angels feel like they’re round the corner from devils? We feel he has made a choice to ‘pitch his tent at the gates of Sheol.’ ‘Johnny Cash doesn’t sing to the damned, he sings with the damned, and sometimes you feel he might prefer their company.”

Just three years before his death, Cash returned the favor and recorded U2’s 1991 hit “One” on his 2000 album American III: Solitary Man.

“I considered myself a friend, he [Cash] considered me a fan,” said Bono following Cash’s death in 2003 at 71. “He indulged me,” added Bono. “He showed me around his house, his ranch, his zoo (seriously, he had a zoo in Nashville), his faith, his musicianship. It was a lot to take in. He was more than wise. In a garden full of weeds—the oak tree.”

In 1993, Cash performed “The Wanderer” live three times, while U2 only performed the song twice, once for a Johnny Cash tribute concert in 2005 and again in 2011.

Photo: Dave Hogan/Getty Images