Welcome back to Country Music 4 Ever! Today is part six of my "Story Behind the Song" series. Today's spotlighted song is "I Walk the Line" by Johnny Cash. The song was written by Johnny as a way to pledge his love to his first wife, Vivian Liberto. He was out on the road a lot during their marriage, so he wrote this song as a promise to always stay true to her.

Johnny's band member, Marshall Grant recalled the night "I Walk the Line" was written in his book, "I Was There When It Happened: My Life with Johnny Cash," saying the song was written on the road to a gig and was completed by the time they made it to their destination. Marshall was playing chords on his upright bass when Johnny joined in on the guitar while singing the line, "I keep a close watch on this heart of mine." Johnny then stopped and told Marshall to remember what they played because they were going to write a song later on that night.

"I Walk the Line" was originally written as a ballad, which is how Johnny wanted it to remain. However, the song's producer, Sam Phillips wanted to cut a more up-tempo version of the song. Despite Johnny and his band being very adamant about the song being a ballad, Sam had them record an up-tempo version as well as a ballad. The up-tempo version was sent to the radio and went all the way to number one.

It's hard to say if the ballad version would've also been a hit or not, but we can all agree Sam's version will always be known as one of the greatest country songs of all time. I like how you can feel the love that Johnny felt for Vivian in the lyrics of the song. The man in black will always be a legend.

Thanks for reading. I'll be back soon with part seven of this series which is one of the saddest songs in country music history.