Ring of Fire

Johnny Cash, who heard Anita Carter’s record, said he then dreamed of the song with Mexican-style horns, and he recorded it his own way, with two trumpets, on 25 March 1963 at the Columbia studio in Nashville, with Don Law and Frank Jones producing and the Carter Family singing backup. It was issued on Columbia as a single (Columbia 4-42788) coupled with “I’d Still Be There,” and appeared on his album Ring of Fire: The Best of Johnny Cash. It spent seven weeks at No. 1 on the country chart and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.

The lyric sets falling in love as a fall into flames: the singer describes being burned by love, and the fire rising as he goes down. Earl Scruggs included it on his 1972 Columbia album I Saw the Light with Some Help from My Friends, and Bill Harrell and the Virginians recorded it on Do You Remember? (Rebel, 1985).