Thursday, November 17, 2005

Half As Lonesome As His Sound

Last night there was a tribute to Johnny Cash on TV. TFR forgot to tell me about it, so I only caught the last half. That was disappointing enough, but then I caught the show, and it was almost as disappointing. Oh, the performances were pretty good, but they just weren't, you know, JOHNNY. I guess there's just no way around it, the Man in Black ain't coming back.

Ironically enough, the song that disappointed the most was one sung by someone who originally sang it. Kris Kristofferson performed Sunday Morning Coming Down, backed up by the Foo Fighters.

I'm sorry. I know the song launched Kristofferson's career, but they sucked last night. Kristofferson's part of the song had that "Last Karaoke of the night drunk and off tune" quality to it, while the Foo Fighters sounded unsurprisingly but still disappointingly high-pitched and whiny.

No, once Johnny himself sang the song, no one else was ever going to do it justice ever again.