The Rolling Stone interviews - Jann Wenner [45]
“I Walk the Line” was the big record for you. Did you have a special feeling about it when you finished it?
I thought it was a very good song, but I wasn’t sure about the record. I was in Florida when I first heard it on the radio, and I called Phillips and begged him not to send any more copies out. I thought it was so bad. I thought it was a horrible record. And he said let’s give it a chance and see. But I didn’t want to. I wanted it stopped right then. I got upset with him over it. I thought it sounded so bad. Still sounds bad.
Your voice or the arrangement?
The arrangement. And I didn’t like the sound, the modulation and all. But that’s what turned out to be the most commercial part of it. Sam was right about it.
What made you eventually leave Sun?
There were also some business matters that we didn’t see eye to eye on. He had me on a beginner’s rate after three years, and I didn’t feel right about it. But, mainly I knew that I could do different kinds of things with a larger label. I could record an album of hymns for Columbia, for instance, and that was important to me at the time.
What was it like returning home to Arkansas after you had become famous?
Well, I was still the country boy to those people. I mean I wasn’t anything special to them. A lot of places I’d go in those days made you feel like the big radio star that I had wanted to be, and it felt good. I really ate it up. But at home all the old people would come up and say, “Boy, I remember when you used to bring me buttermilk every other Thursday” or something.
Was there a point that you ever lost touch with those people? During the bad years? Was there a point where you really didn’t think of them as friends anymore?
Yes, right. I felt like I didn’t belong, and for about seven years I didn’t go back. I didn’t go back around those people. I didn’t want any of them to see me.
That was the bad time for you, the pills and all.
Yeah, not too long after I moved to California. I still don’t know why I ever moved to California. I liked it there, had worked out there quite a bit and thought I’d love living there. But I didn’t really belong out there. I never really felt at home there. I tried to, but I just didn’t. I got into the habit of amphetamines. I took them for seven years. I just liked the feel of them.
Was it the lift?
Yes, it lifts you, and under certain conditions it intensifies all your senses—makes you think you’re the greatest writer in the world. You just write songs all night long and just really groove on what you’re doing, digging yourself, and keep on taking the pills. Then, when you sober up later, you realize it wasn’t so good. When I run across some of the stuff I wrote, it always makes me sick . . . wild, impossible, ridiculous ramblings you wouldn’t believe.
You took more pills to cover up the guilt feelings. And I got to playing one against the other, the uppers against the downers, and it got to be a vicious, vicious circle. And they got to pulling me down. On top of that, I thought I was made of steel and nothing could hurt me. I wrecked every car, every truck, every jeep I ever drove during that seven years. I counted the broken bones in my body once. I think I have seventeen. It’s the grace of God that one of those bones wasn’t my neck.
Over a period of time, though, you get to realizing that amphetamines are slowly burning you up, and burning you up is the truth—because they are hot after a while. Then you get paranoid, you think everybody is out to do you in. You don’t trust anybody—even the ones who love you the most. It’s like a bad dream now.
Was there a point in your life that you think you hit bottom? Like the time in Georgia when you woke up in jail?
Yeah, that was in ’67.