“Up there, remember me,
Ground bound and never free
Crow, crow, guard the tree
And the secrets you keep from me”
From “Black Crow’s Eyes” by The Cash Collective
When I listened to the song “Black Crow’s Eyes” by The Cash Collective – a song featured on their 2020 album Hey Crow! – I had a distinct feeling of yearning. It felt like bandleader John Carter Cash was yearning to be untethered from the “ground.” In this metaphor, the ground felt like a weight or shackle –and he wanted to feel free from his past, his sins and his regrets. In contrast, the crow saw all, had wisdom and perhaps most importantly, could fly away to new places – both practically and symbolically. And I found myself singing along yearning for that same wisdom.
This interpretation made perfect sense to me. Many of us wish we could be free from our past and start fresh, unbound by our faults and weaknesses, full of insight and ready to fly to a new beginning in which we are reborn. And yet when I spoke with Cash for The Hardcore Humanism Podcast, I was left with a very different impression. Because in talking with Cash, the ground and the sky are not opposing forces or enemies – but rather two necessary processes by which we grow and thrive. And I came away with a sense that it is only when we are grounded – in our humility, in our recognition of our mistakes – that we can truly fly and thrive.
Let’s face it, Cash would be forgiven for not being all that grounded. As the only child of one of the most legendary romances in music history – Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash – John Carter Cash was born into music royalty. And thus, it was not a certainty that being humble would be a priority over the trappings of celebrity. And yet as Cash tells it, it was actually through the extraordinary life that he had with his parents that helped facilitate his humility. He described how his parents would routinely and subtly engage in acts of charity to people in need.
“One of the first things that I noticed about my parents was how kind they were to everyone…,” Cash told me. “They were down to earth. They had a way about them, a humility of sorts. I mean, they had an ego just like every entertainer has to, but they had a humility of sorts… And so that humility transported itself, you know, in all walks of life – that desire to better the world, that desire to be there for people in need.”
And yet that lesson of humility was taught side by side with a demonstration of what celebrity and outsized success could bring. And this experience left cash wanting to achieve success and recognition as his parents had. “I grew up on stage with my parents. I grew up singing songs with them, you know, in front of hundreds of thousands of screaming people … I would be on his right side on the stage and I would look up at him and see this larger than life figure, Johnny Cash that the world looked up to,” Cash recalled. “And, I mean, early on, I wanted to be like my father … I wanted to be appreciated above others, I wanted to be noticed for being special and unique and different.”
Soon Cash found himself in something of an emotional dialectic whereby he was witness to both his parents strengths and weaknesses. “And there may have even been a competition of sorts in my spirit, especially when I got into my adolescent years … I saw their frailties, I saw their weaknesses early on. I saw the way they fell short…,” Cash explained. “So, I first noticed from the moment that I can remember that my parents were, that they were larger than life and you know, and whatnot, but they’re always went back to center. Always went back to the fact that they were not better than anybody else. And they exhibited that every day of their life.”
As Cash grappled with his own feelings regarding issues of strength and weakness, success and failure, he felt that his parents let him find his own way. And he began to internalize the notion that he can live a life that is equal parts outlandish success and grounded humility. “Well, for one thing, my parents never pushed me to go in any specific direction … They put me on stage, and, you know, I had the, the roar of the audience in front of me, and it’s almost like a drug how, you know, it attaches into the spirit. But they, I mean, they never forced me to go into music lessons, never said you had to go this certain path. They were quite supportive of me following my own visions and my own dreams…,” he described. “When I was 13 years old, there was a great sense of life is a marvelous adventure. And you don’t have to settle for less than that.”
In fact, as time went on, Cash found himself gravitating towards people who had achieved both success and humility while avoiding people whose fame undermined their basic sense of humility and decency. Cash feels that the common factor was people being able to recognize their own weaknesses and connect to something bigger than themselves.
“It’s the school of hard knocks, it’s the failures, it’s the broken fall downs. It’s the you know, hitting a rock bottom, it’s the reaching out and knowing that we can’t do it on our own…I saw my father do that, I’ve seen other people do that and you know, who are quote unquote stars. And along with that, like true humility – how do you get it?’” he said. “Well, you go through sheer hell and you hurt and you realize you can’t do it alone. And I saw that with my parents, I’ve experienced that in my own life. And so, in essence, it’s not like humility is something that you can work for, it’s something that you’re broken down to by your own nature, by the own darknesses within. That’s what I saw with my parents and in my own life anyway.”
The way that Cash has balanced being humble and striving for success is by changing the operational definitions of those terms. Specifically, “success” has been defined as loving what he does and connecting with others. And being “humble” has developed into being open-minded and willing to be “teachable.” And it was in those definitions that he feels that he has truly forged his own independent self-concept.
“I thought that at one point that I wanted to be that star…in that competition, that I wanted to be like my father, or like my mother and then I realized that if I did what I loved, and I was free within that, that my own identity was created through my joy in my work and my partnership with my co-workers, in my relationships with my friends, in the relationship with my mate – you know, and in and through that is how I have found my own identity…,” Cash described. “Life is a series of ups and downs of course, but it’s forever going back to realizing that we don’t know that we need to be teachable. That if I am teachable, I can learn and I can gain more in my life…If I’m not open minded, and I’m not willing, and I’m not learning, then I am blocked, you know, and I’m blocking myself…
“And if I’m willing to listen and willing to hear, who knows what the heck I can find.”
Somewhere a crow is smiling.
