LESSONS IN SELF EXPRESSION
Rosanne Cash blurs the personal
while highlighting the political

by James Keller

Rosanne Cash cherishes the ambiguity with which she writes. The lyrics that have appeared alongside her familiar folk-country music for the past two decades have long been filled with what seemed like thoughtful introspection and deep emotional sentiment, and listeners have never shied away from offering their own interpretations. Fans and critics were quick to link Cash's 1990 release, Interiors, to her then-faltering marriage with musician and producer Rodney Crowell, and 1993's The Wheel was lauded for its unabashedly sincere look at her divorce two years earlier.

Cash points out that she never drew those connections and she has never claimed the stories, thoughts and feelings in her songs were entirely autobiographical.

"I never said I was talking about my marriage," she says, interrupting the suggestion that The Wheel is related to anything in her life, much less her marital problems. "I never ever say that this is true or that this is a page from my diary, and for a reason. I think poetic license is incredibly important."

Twenty-five years after her debut record, Right or Wrong, Cash is still taking license with her personal life and writing the music to go along with it. Last year's release of Rules of Travel marked her first full-length recording since The Wheel (not counting her 10 Song Demo in 1996). The 11-track album revives the tried-and-true country-folk sound of her previous efforts and brings back her poetic explorations of the self.

Even with these explorations, she rejects the notion that writing must paint accurate pictures. Cash used to teach songwriting classes and found students would be reluctant to deviate from how things really happened. Instead of being cautious, she says, writers should embrace the opportunity to revise and rewrite their experiences or emotions.

"There's no fact checker at the end of this song," she explains, "and you can write whatever you want. The ultimate point is that people see their own lives in it. It's more reflecting what's universal between us. I'm not the first person who went through a breakup, who lost a parent, who suffered the bumps and bruises you get just as you get older. I've never found an experience I've had that's been unique."

Cash has certainly had her share of experiences that you'd expect to creep into her songwriting. Just this past year, she had to cope with the death of both her stepmother, June Carter Cash, and her father, legendary country musician Johnny Cash. While she might not always be telling the truth, she still uses her writing to make sense of it all.

"I will not say ‘Oh, it's therapy,' because that just diminishes it and makes it a one-dimensional experience," she says. "At the same time, I have valued being a writer so much since I lost my mom, my stepmom and my dad last year, because I don't know how people do it if they don't write."

This outlook certainly shines through in practice, which is probably why so many fans connect so deeply to the sorts of messages Cash brings forward. For her, hearing that fans really relate to her music is incredibly moving.

"Going back to Interiors, I cannot tell you how many people said to me ‘Interiors got me through my breakup' or ‘This was the record I listened to consecutively while I was getting divorced,'" she says. "That's really moving, and I think that's the ultimate goal – to write something that people get to have their own lives opened up to that."

Beyond the personal, Cash connects with the outside world on another level: through politics. Since first appearing on the country-music scene under the shadow of her father, she's never made any secrets about her political views. On her website, she writes an online column where she encourages readers to vote, documents her long history as a Democrat and outlines her strong opposition to the war in Iraq.

Despite having an established career where political commentary was par for the course, she acknowledges that getting into politics isn't always an easy thing to do.

"It's a little scary. Just when you think it's OK to go back in the water somebody gets a huge backlash," she says, citing the negative reaction Linda Ronstadt received after dedicating a song to Fahrenheit 9/11 filmmaker Michael Moore. "At the same time, musicians have just as much of a right to an opinion as anybody else. I'm not being naive that there's a larger format, and if you put it out there that way, that more people are going to read it; but I was taught that if you didn't have the courage of your convictions you weren't worth very much."