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62 Years Ago, Johnny Cash Topped the Charts With a Melody Ripped Straight From a Bob Dylan Song (Which Bob Dylan Also Stole)
Don’t call my name out your window, I’m leaving / I won’t even turn my head / Don’t send your kinfolk to give me no talking / I’ll be gone, like I said. So begins Johnny Cash’s 1964 song “Understand Your Man”, which topped the country singles charts on this day (April 18) in 1964. The lead single from Cash’s 1964 album I Walk the Line, “Understand Your Man” spent six weeks at the pinnacle of the country charts. It also enjoyed crossover success, peaking at No. 35 on the Top 40. If the melody sounds familiar, you aren’t hearing things. It’s quite literally identical to Bob Dylan’s single from the previous year, “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”.
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The way Cindy, Johnny Cash’s daughter from his marriage to first wife Vivian, tells it, the Man in Black did at least ask permission before shamelessly ripping off the “Blowin’ in the Wind” singer.
“He wrote ‘Understand You Man’ while not in a real good mood, as you can tell, and was having a hard time coming up with a melody which, for him, was a frustrating thing. He could come up with them so fast,” Cindy Cash once wrote in a YouTube comment. “So he called Dylan and said, ‘Hey, do you mind if I use the melody of yours from ‘Don’t Think Twice for a song I’m writing? I just can’t seem to come up with one?’”
Dylan, unaffected as ever, replied, “I don’t give a s—.”
Bob Dylan Stole The Melody, Too
Bob Dylan’s lackadaisical attitude toward what some may have construed as theft on Johnny Cash’s part makes more sense when you learn that Dylan also “borrowed” the melody for “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”.
Dylan based the beginning of the melody on the traditional song “Who’s Gonna Buy Your Chickens When I’m Gone?” He lifted it from fellow folk singer Paul Clayton, who also borrowed it for his 1960 song Who’s Gonna Buy You Ribbons (When I’m Gone).”
The Last Song Johnny Cash Ever Performed
“Understand Your Man” is also notable in Johnny Cash lore for being the final song of the nine-time CMA Award winner’s live career.
On July 5, 2003, Cash closed out his set at the Carter Family Fold in Hiltons, Virginia with “Understand Your Man”.
Frail and wheelchair-bound, he nonetheless grinned broadly as he greeted the cheering crowd with his signature “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash”.
Before performing “Understand Your Man”, the singer told the audience that this was his first time to play the song in 25 years. “I’ve been getting a lot of requests for it,” Cash said.
The event would mark Johnny Cash’s final public performance. He died of complications from diabetes on September 12, 2003, at age 71.
Featured image by Gai Terrell/Redferns
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