Johnny Cash – “Ring of Fire” (1963)

“Ring of Fire” or “The Ring of Fire” is a country music song popularized by Johnny Cash and co-written by June Carter (wife of Johnny Cash) and Merle Kilgore. The single appears on Cash’s 1963 compilation album, Ring of Fire: The Best of Johnny Cash. The song was recorded on March 25, 1963 and became the biggest hit of his career, staying at number one on the charts for seven weeks. Although “Ring of Fire” sounds somewhat ominous, the term refers to falling in love – which is what June Carter was experiencing with Johnny Cash at the time. Some sources claim that June had seen the phrase, “Love is like a burning ring of fire,” underlined in one of her uncle AP Carter’s Elizabethan books of poetry. She worked with Kilgore on writing a song inspired by this phrase as she had seen her uncle do in the past. In the 2005 film, Walk the Line June is depicted as writing the song while agonizing over her feelings for Cash despite his drug addiction and alcoholism as she was driving home one evening. 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, on her Mercury Records album Folk Songs Old and New (1962) 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 claims he had a dream where he heard the song accompanied by “Mexican horns”. Cash …
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