When I get an idea for a song it would gel in my mind for weeks or months, and then one day just like that, Ill write it.

When I was a baby, my mama told me son, always be a good boy, don't ever play with guns. But I shot a man in Reno.

My mother was determined that I was going to leave the farm and do well in life. And she thought with the gift, I might be able to do that. So she took in washing. She got a washing machine in 1942 as soon as we got electricity and she took in washing. She washed the schoolteacher's clothes and anybody she could and sent me for singing lessons for $3 per lesson.

We went down [Folsom Prison] and there's a rodeo at all these shows that the prisoners have there. And in between the rodeo things, they asked me to set up and do two or three songs. So that was what I did. I did "Folsom Prison Blues," which they thought was their song - you know? - and "I Walk The Line," "Hey Porter," "Cry, Cry, Cry." And then the word got around on the grapevine that Johnny Cash is all right and that you ought to see him.

For you I know I'd even try to turn the tide.

I start a lot more songs than I finish, because I realize when I get into them, they're no good. I don't throw them away, I just put them away, store them, get them out of sight.

People call me wild. Not really though, I'm not.I guess I've never been normal, not what you call Establishment. I'm country.