| Rosanne Cash refuses to do what she’s told. On her new album, Rules of Travel, her song "I’ll Change for You" details a woman who promises to become whatever her lover wants her to be.
"God forbid I think I only have to write songs that are therapeutically correct – then we’re all in trouble," she says over the phone from her home in New York City. "That’s why I did write it – partly in defiance of that very idea that you’re not supposed to change for anyone. Well, yeah, but the truth is we get obsessed and we get in these little whirlpools inside of ourselves and it takes a while to get out of them. And that’s what that song’s about, that erotic obsession."
The song grew even more obsessive when Cash added Steve Earle, her friend of 20 years, as the male counterpart in the duet.
"I wrote it as a duet and I didn’t know who the male voice would be and I wrote the answer parts and never did like them," she says. "When we (Cash and her producer husband John Leventhal) decided to ask Steve, I immediately knew what the answer parts should say, so I rewrote them."
It’s hard to find a guest vocalist who casts a longer shadow than Earle, but with some reservations, Cash did just that for another song – her dad, Johnny Cash, sings with her on "September When It Comes."
"I was worried that people would think it was just a novelty gimmick for me and my dad (Johnny Cash) to duet together, and that people would focus more on that than on the song. I knew the song was good. Alternately, that song was worth waiting for to do with him – the right song and right time."
The elder Cash’s understated vocal delivery could give goosebumps to a chicken. At first, it seems like a prison song in which someone is about to be released.
"It’s a metaphorical prison, but it’s not prison, it’s life – the transition between life and death," says Cash about the song’s theme of the mortality of a parent. "Early in my career, I was trying to put distance between him and me. You can understand why. As a young woman I was trying to establish myself, I was very independent, I didn’t want to use my dad. I wanted to do it on my own."
Other sweet musical trinkets include a song written for Cash by Craig Northey, formerly of Vancouver’s popular The Odds, a band that counted Cash and Leventhal among its fans. As well, Joe Henry and Jakob Dylan co-wrote a track after Cash requested one by them specifically. Her long-distance e-mail friendship with Henry includes conversations regarding foreign policy, music and parenting.
And with five daughters in her life – including a step-daughter with ex-husband Rodney Crowell, the three they had together, and a four-year-old with Leventhal – Cash often reflects on parenting. Her 14-year-old and four-year-old are the only children she has left at home.
"It’s awful. That’s the big secret of parenting…. They don’t tell you how hard it is when they leave home. It’s very sad. I miss them everyday. But they are happy and productive people and it’s my pleasure to know them."
Having spent years trying to heal after her tempestuous 14-year marriage to Crowell, Cash is not worried that her own daughters might experience the same therapeutically incorrect feelings.
"I don’t think it’s inevitable that they go through it as deep or as long as I did," she says. "They’ve seen, in the past 10 years or so, me modeling a certain kind of emotional independence and self-reliance that’s complementary to my mate, without blaming.
"We put all our eggs in one basket when we’re young and we think that love or a relationship or partner is going to save us, fulfill all of our needs, plug all of our holes, make everything wonderful. It’s a myth perpetuated in romantic culture endlessly. Another person is not going to heal you or provide your inner peace for you, but there certainly is an inner tension there, great for modern art and music."
The dysfunctional view of love is matched by a dysfunctional view of patriotism, Cash says. She has received "tons" of hate mail regarding her outspoken views against the war in Iraq.
"It seems the people who scream the loudest about America are the most intolerant of people who have a different opinion than them. It’s really infuriating. I have rules of behaviour for myself, and I only respond with respect, but it’s quite disconcerting. I think Americans take their own rights for granted and they don’t see it’s not just the stamp of approval on your opinion. It’s about tolerating all opinions."
But no matter what kind of mail she receives, Cash is content at the intersection of her public and private self.
"I do believe that songwriting is a very noble profession and I feel incredibly lucky that this is my life’s work. I can only speak about what I’ve gone through and – big surprise – it turns out that millions of women have gone through the same thing and there’s a real comfort in hearing about it." |
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