Delia's Gone

Cash originally recorded this Karl Silbersdorf and Dick Toops penned murder ballad for his 1962 The Sound of Johnny Cash album. The country legend re-recorded it in 1994, on the Rick Rubin produced American Recordings LP. He explained why he chose to redo the song: "'Delia's Gone' is the Devil's deed of daring," said Cash. "We were talking about 'Folsom Prison Blues' – and 'I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die' – and I said, 'I want another song like that.' So Rick and I started listening and we found 'Delia's Gone.' We realised I had recorded it in the '60s, but not the way I've recorded it on American, and that I should work it up and do it over. So we started working on it and we did it and we came up with this version." (Source Mojo magazine October 2013)