"This is the first time Cash's fifty years of songwriting have been collected anywhere. [The] book includes the lyrics to 125 songs [culled from the 600 he wrote], and the stories behind them. Perhaps more than any other American artist, he spoke to the soul of the nation as well as to the triumphs and challenges of his own life. These pages explore Cash's range as a poet and storyteller, taking readers from his early life and first successes through periods of personal challenge, activism, and faith. The result is [an] understanding of Johnny Cash as a man and an artist, as well as the American story he helped shape"--