Johnny Cash's 67th studio album included a song written by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, a track first released in 1994. On November 5, 2002, that album, American IV: The Man Comes Around, arrived on American Recordings and Universal Records. It was the last album Cash released while he was alive. The album also carried a quiet sense of history. Six of its songs had appeared on earlier Cash records, including "Danny Boy," which he had first recorded for the 1965 album Orange Blossom Special. Returning to that material decades later gave the project the feel of a man closing a circle. The album also drew on songs Cash had lived with for decades. "Give My Love to Rose" had first appeared on his 1960 album Sings Hank Williams, and he returned to it here with the weight of all those years behind him.
Recording through illness and doubt
The record was the fourth part of the American Recordings series, and most of its songs were covers in Cash's stripped-down style. The project had a strange tension at its core: Cash was recording while suffering from multiple health problems and had almost lost his sight. Sessions were interrupted by hospitalizations, and the singer Will Oldham voiced doubts about the ethics of recording a gravely ill artist. Yet what emerged was not a frail document but a statement of startling clarity.
The centerpiece was "Hurt," a song Reznor had written for Nine Inch Nails. Reznor initially feared Cash's cover would look like a gimmick. After hearing it, he called it beautiful and meaningful, and said the song no longer belonged to him. That reaction captures why the album worked: Cash did not imitate the originals, he inhabited them, turning the originals into something stark and personal.
That reaction captures why the album worked: Cash did not imitate the originals, he inhabited them, turning the originals into something stark and personal.
Chart positions and gold certification
Commercially, the album moved slowly at first, reaching number 22 on the Billboard 200 and number 2 on the country chart. In Norway it climbed to number 4. On March 24, 2003, it received a gold certification from the RIAA, making it Cash's first non-compilation album in thirty years to earn that status. By November of that year it had gone platinum, a milestone he had not reached with a regular studio album since the early 1970s. The album's reach went beyond sales figures. In 2003 it won Album of the Year at the CMA Awards and the Americana Award for Album of the Year. It was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. The album's collaborators added to its depth. Fiona Apple sang on "Bridge over Troubled Water," and Don Henley played drums, keyboards, and sang on "Desperado."
The album ran 51 minutes, but its emotional weight felt far larger. Cash was nearing the end of his life, and the record carried that awareness without ever asking for pity. The songs he chose ranged from his own catalog to modern rock, and each one sounded like a man taking stock of what he had done and what was left. The original double LP had a different track order from the 2014 reissue, and it included two extra songs: "Wichita Lineman" and "Big Iron." "Big Iron" later appeared on the box set Unearthed.
The critical and commercial success raised a difficult question that followed the album: was it right to record a man so visibly unwell? Oldham's doubts were not unfounded, but the music itself answered them. Cash's voice gave the material a gravity that no healthy singer could have matched. The frailty was not exploitation; it was the point.
The album became a late-career landmark, the kind of record that changes how an artist is remembered. It proved that a legendary figure could still surprise audiences, not by chasing trends but by stripping everything down to voice, guitar, and truth. Johnny Cash had spent decades as a country icon, but with American IV: The Man Comes Around he became something rarer: an artist whose final statement outshone almost everything before it.