The Bob Dylan song played at Johnny Cash’s funeral

Sun 21 January 2024 23:30, UK

The friendship between Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash was the coming together of two country and folk icons. Each gave so much to the world and shared a clear mutual admiration; they seemed just to get each other. In fact, at Cash’s funeral, a special Dylan song was requested.

Dylan and Cash had an enduring friendship that stretched over 40 years. They met way back in 1964 at the Newport Folk Festival when Dylan was still a relatively new kid to the scene. However, he was already facing backlash as the folk scene seemed to demand politics and protest songs from him.

Cash became a knight in shining armour, writing to Broadside magazine in his defence, he said, “Shut up! And let me sing!” After that, the duo were tight confidants.

Throughout their long friendship, they only collaborated once on ‘Girl From The North Country’ in 1969. However, they honoured each other’s work time and time again. Cash and his wife, June Carter, recorded their own version of ‘It Ain’t Me Babe’. In turn, Dylan regularly covered ‘Big River’. He also wrote ‘Wanted Man’ for the country and blues legend. 

One of the things that seemed to unite the singers later in their friendship was religion. In the 1980s, Dylan emerged as a born-again Christian on his album Biography. Amongst its ballads and odes on the topic was Johnny Cash’s favourite song by the artist, ‘Every Grain Of Sand’.

Sounding more like a hymn than any other Dylan song, the track ponders the sins and regrets of his youth before reaching towards future forgiveness and betterment. It’s a subject that would have moved Cash greatly, who found his own faith again as he attempted to get clean and sober for his wife and children.

It must have meant a lot to him as the track was requested to be played at Cash’s funeral in 2003. Only a few months after the death of his wife, the musician seemed to follow June’s lead, stating before his final performance, “We connect somewhere between here and Heaven.”

As a testament to the power of the song and to Dylan’s importance in Cash’s life, Emmylou Harris and Sheryl Crow sang the song in his honour. “I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea,” the track goes as a perfect funeral song and a fitting goodbye to a long-time friend.