Songs of Our Soil [Bonus Tracks]

1	Drink to Me 1:54
2	Five Feet High and Rising 1:46
3	The Man on the Hill 2:09
4	Hank and Joe and Me 2:13
5	Clementine 2:30
6	Great Speckled Bird 2:09
7	I Want to Go Home 1:58
8	The Caretaker 2:06
9	Old Apache Squaw 1:46
10	Don't Step on Mother's Roses 2:34
11	My Grandfather's Clock 2:45
12	It Could Be You (Instead of Him) 1:50
13	I Got Stripes Bonus Track 2:05
14	You Dreamer You Bonus Track 1:49

Barnes & Noble

This folksy concept album, originally released in 1959, is a sneaky affair: Cash's performances are so amiable that they almost disguise the depth of his subjects. In keeping with its title, Songs of the Soil indeed addresses the elements' role in shaping everyday events, but it's also about people whose daily lives depend on the soil and the turning of the earth. In "Five Feet High and Rising," water is wreaking havoc on peoples' lives; two songs later, in "Hank and Joe and Me," water is the elusive life-giving element for three bereft desert wanderers ("I'm dying for water/Can't help crying/for water," Cash sings). In "Don't Step On Mother's Roses," he reflects on the seasonal reminder of his late mother's unconditional love ("They'll bloom for me each year/And I'll have mother near"). "The Caretaker" describes a cemetery keeper's musings on the solace he finds in the peaceful land and the resting souls nearby, while wondering if he is so isolated that no one will mourn come judgment day. The stark, throbbing "Old Apache Squaw" finds Cash contemplating the tragedies and resentments hidden by the weary eyes of an elderly Native American woman. This reissue includes two fine bonus tracks, both familiar to Cash fans: the durable, jaunty Leadbelly-inspired prison ballad, "I Got Stripes," and "You Dreamer You," better known in some quarters as "Oh What a Dream." Songs of the Soil is gentle and tuneful, but its placid exterior can't mask the meaningful dramas played out in its songs. David McGee

All Music Guide

One of Cash's earlier pseudo-concept albums, this doesn't exactly follow a specific theme like farming or hymns of the American land the whole way through. Rather, it's a collection of a dozen songs that generally are on the folkier and more Americana-centered side of Cash's repertoire, though, of course, such songs have always had a prominent place in his material. He bagged the songwriting credits for all but one of the songs on Songs of Our Soil, skillfully relaying tales of drinking, disastrous farm flooding ("Five Feet High and Rising"), the vicious circle of sharecropping ("The Man on the Hill"), death and burial ("The Caretaker"), Native Americana ("Old Apache Squaw"), and spiritual-like piety ("It Could Be You (Instead of Him))." The death-in-the-desert tale of "Hank and Joe and Me" might get unintentionally camp with its rather jaunty depiction (complete with gospel-like backup choral vocals) of the narrator dying of thirst on a quest for gold. Although "J. Cash" gets the songwriting credit for "I Want to Go Home," in fact it's his version of the homesick-sailor folk tale more commonly known as "Sloop John B," recorded elsewhere by the Weavers, the Kingston Trio, the Beach Boys, and others. It's a good set, though pretty short at 26 minutes, and lacking the hits or classics that decorate some of his other vaguely Americana concept albums. The 2002 CD reissue peps things up a bit with two bonus tracks, the singles "I Got Stripes" and "You Dreamer You," both recorded at the same March 12, 1959, session that yielded most of the songs on the original LP. Richie Unterberger