Johnny Cash’s 1994 album American Recordings opens with a haunting murder ballad called “Delia’s Gone.” It was the fourth time he recorded the folk song.
“Delia’s Gone” was first recorded in 1962 on his album The Sound of Johnny Cash, backed with a full-band arrangement. The most famous version is the one recorded 32 years later, which is a starker, more minimalist take on the song.
“Delia’s Gone” is one of several traditional folk songs about the murder of 14-year-old Delia Green, who was shot on Christmas Eve, 1900, by 15-year-old Mose Houston. The lyrics are usually attributed to Blake Alphonso Higgs, although the track has been covered by the likes of Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger.
Songs based on Delia Green’s murder go back as far as 1928, when folklorist Robert Winslow Gordon claimed to have traced the songs back to a murder in Savannah and that he had interviewed both Green’s mother and the police officer who took her killer into custody.
Cash’s song is told from the perspective of a 15-year-old murderer. The country singer talks about the personal suffering that comes with committing such a heinous crime. In the later version of the song, Cash has updated the lyrics to highlight the malice of the murder.
Cash himself described the 1994 album, American Recordings, as the “worst, evil side” of him.
“Then maybe a little of the good side, whatever that is. It’s showing the evil that the mind goes through from “hard to watch her suffer, but with the second shot she died” in “Delia’s Gone” all the way to redemption. There are two redemption songs on the album—one I wrote called “Redemption” and [Tom Waits’ “Down By The Train”]. Then there’s a prayer, “Why Me Lord?” Cash told Guitar Player the year of his album’s release.
