Before they embarked on one of country music’s most enduring love stories, Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash were married to other people. However, the spark was instant when the pair met for the first time backstage at the Grand Ole Opry. Struggling to cope with the rush of conflicting feelings, June Carter put pen to paper and co-wrote the song “Ring of Fire” with country music singer-songwriter Merle Kilgore. When the song failed to become a major hit for June’s sister, Anita Carter, Cash decided to record it himself. On this day (June 8) in 1963, “Ring of Fire” made its debut at number 28 on the singles chart.
June Carter’s Sister Recorded It First
When June Carter wrote “Ring of Fire”, she and Johnny Cash were nothing more than touring partners on the surface.
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Still married to second husband Edwin Nix, Carter was battling intense attraction, along with societal and religious pressure surrounding divorce. Moreover, Cash was deep in the throes of addiction, often taking stimulants to stay awake on tour.
“I didn’t want to fall in love with him, didn’t mean to fall in love with him,” Carter said in archival footage included in the 2024 Paramount+ documentary June.
She added, “I was scared to death of him. … I wouldn’t even admit it to myself for a long time,”
Whether intentional or not, there was no denying her feelings. “One night, I woke up in the middle of the night and I was crying when I woke up and I thought, I can’t do this,” she said. “This is driving me crazy because all I could feel was pain.”
So, June dealt with that pain in the best way she knew how—by writing.
“I’d been writing songs with a guy named Merle Kilgore, a great songwriter, and he encouraged me to write,” said the Grammy winner. “The next morning Kilgore came in, and I said we’ve got to hone a little bit on this but I really think I’ve written a great song.”
That song was “Ring of Fire”.
This Song Gave Johnny Cash His First No. 1 Hit in Four Years
Initially, Anita Carter recorded the song in 1962 as “(Love’s) Ring of Fire”.
According to Johnny Cash, the idea to add “Mexican horns” came to him in a dream. He told Anita, “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.”
Anita’s version didn’t chart, so Cash recorded “Ring of Fire” with the mariachi-style horns from his dream. After its release in April 1963, the song eventually made its way to number one, where it stayed for seven weeks. It was Cash’s first chart-topper since 1959’s “Don’t Take Your Guns To Town.”
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