Am I a snob? Mebbe so.

I discovered Johnny Cash via Willie Nelson several years back. I'd listened to some Cash before, particularly "Ring of Fire," which for a while closed down Margarita's every night. (For a while, so did I.) But then I bought At Folsom Prison about four years ago, and I was hooked. I mean, anyone who can cover Tom Petty and Nine Inch Nails, and OWN it... That's a guy with some talent. I've bought many albums of his since then, and loved just about all of them. Folsom Prison is still my favorite album of Johnny Cash's, and I listen to it at least once a week, often more.

Needless to say, I was interested to see Walk The Line, but as much as anything I was a little apprehensive about it. For one thing, they had legally blond playing June Carter.

Well everything went well. All the main, and most of the minor actors in the movie absolutely fucking nailed it. Most everyone has heard that Pheonix really sounds like Cash, and blondie sounds like June Carter. True.

So why did I leave the movie a little bummed out?

Easy. I'm a snob.

Starting now, it's going to be impossible to distinguish people who listen to Johnny Cash, with the people who also listen to the Backstreet Boys but saw Walk the Line and kind of liked the music. Soon enough, people in Abercrappy are going to know the words to Folsom Prison Blues, and that's going to piss me off.

---

I tried to explain this to the gf last night, and was informed that I was being a pompous ass, and that I should be glad people were going to learn to listen to music that I liked. Well, I certainly can be an elitist, but only because I know that there are an awful lot of stupid people in the world. And seriously, there are people in the world that thought the Spice Girls made good music. It's not hard for me to consider myself better than them.

---

So ignoring my misgivings about new Cash fans, I really do highly recommend watching Walk the Line. It's gooder than most of the crap movies out there, and whether or not you already like Johnny Cash, you will at least recognize where the appeal comes from.