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I see several sources including the main Johnny Cash singles chronology article on wikipedia that show So Doggone Lonesome as the A-Side, I'm trying to fix the Infobox information and would like some definitive answers — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gimpboy76 (talk • contribs) 18:49, 2 February 2021 (UTC)Reply
"shot a man in reno just to watch him die" - i don't know what others will think of this, but i was just listening to the ledbelly song "duncan and brady", which predates this song and would probably have been known to cash, as that whole generation of song writers were in awe of ledbelly, and it has a very similar line ,
"Twinkle, twinkle, little star
'Long came Brady in his shinin' car
Got a mean look right in his eye
Gonna shoot somebody just to see him die (!)
He been on the job too long."
I know cash has explained his inspiration for the line, but there seems to be an obvious connection to a well known song cash probaly knew. i'm not accusing cash of having ripped it off or anything, i see it all as aprt of the folk/blues/country/ creative process, its just an interesting connection - any thoughs ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.220.54.229 (talk) 08:33, 9 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
The Keb Mo' comment about social justice is incredibly relative and unsubstantiated. It has no place here, and in fact in interviews Keb Mo has actually stated that he changed the lyrics because he thought them too harsh. Rather than somehow adding a dimension to a song if anything he took a classically rebellious track and sanitized it. Here is the evidence: http://www.rogerwallace.com/kebno.html Keb Mo states "that turns my stomach." So, someone git rid of this speculative nonsense. I'd do it myself but I'm not clear on the editing policies and I don't want to go against the regulations, I know it can be very specific. Also, in a documentary about Johnny Cash there is an interview with someone who talks about having to convince Cash to let him edit out the cheering section during the "Reno" line on the live album. This would seem to go against what you have on this page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.138.51.29 (talk) 05:15, 7 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
Maybe I'm just deconstructing creative license here, but... If he shot a man in Reno, Nevada, how did he end in Folsom State PrisoninCalifornia? Wouldn't he either be in a Nevada prison or a Federal prison? --UsaSatsui 19:31, 17 July 2005 (UTC)Reply
Isn't it also possible that he killed a man in Reno, got away with it, and was imprisoned for another crime? And that he hangs his head and cries because he knows what a bad man he is, that he "can't be free"? Or maybe the syllables just fit the melody. It's said that Simon & Garfunkel originally wanted to say "where have you gone Mickey Mantle?," in "Mrs. Robinson." But "Joe DiMaggio," a sports hero of their fathers' generation, fit the rhyme better. Or so I've heard. [user: Thomconn]
I personally think the protagonist murdered an human cloned man on the Saturn Moon of "Reno" and jumped in his space ship and escaped to California where he was arrested for landing his ship in a city park and sentenced to life in a state prison. It's all right there in the song! —Preceding unsigned comment added by HowesR1 (talk • contribs) 18:48, 31 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
AND - The State of NEVADA is not mentioned anywhere in the song. Could be the county of Reno Junction, California, or any one of a half dozen other Reno town and counties in the lower forty-eight states. This whole "anomaly" is a joke. It's a song about a fictitious person. Get over yourself!HowesR1 (talk) 16:38, 13 July 2009 (UTC)Reply
Is it a copyright violation to have the entire lyrics of the song printed here? Joyous | Talk 00:44, 24 November 2005 (UTC)Reply
Sharon Waxman of the New York Times states that Folsom Prison Blues was plagiarized from a Gordon Jenkins song, "Crescent City Blues".[1] Waxman cites the same Streissguth book that's cited in this article. Anyone know about this? Is it accepted fact, or a disputed allegation? There's nothing about it in Wikipedia. If it's true it seems like a pretty big deal, given how influential the song is. --Allen 07:37, 5 January 2006 (UTC)Reply
ITs a song...
"A disputed allegation"?? The melody, changes, chord structure and many of the lyrics are identical. It would be a mathematical impossibility that all of this is coincidental.{75.69.241.91 (talk) 20:41, 31 October 2009 (UTC))Reply
Taken in the context of folk music and blues, what Cash did is no different than what had been done for centuries and decades in the 1900s. Matchbox Blues and Matchbox led me to this site http://heartonastick.blog-city.com/matchbox01.htm that talks about this in great detail. Escaping the Delta about Robert Johnson, and a WHOLE lot more, is another source to get insight into this phenom. Steve Pastor (talk) 22:01, 15 August 2010 (UTC)Reply
Perhaps it's a glitch in my browser (or rather browsers, since I tried to download the page in IE, Opera and Firefox), but the currently displayed version of the page does not reflect the latest revision. --Ghirla -трёп- 07:36, 20 March 2007 (UTC)Reply
The article contained the complete lyrics. While the use of short quotes for the purpose of critical analysis is allowed, the non-critical wholesale copying of lyrics in the article seems to be a clear violation of copyright. I thus removed the lyrics. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 06:41, 10 September 2007 (UTC)Reply
Image:Johnny Cash - Fulsom Prison Blues (Live).ogg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.
Winamp 5.5's Auto Tag feature insists on identifying versions of this song sung by Johnny Cash as being from the Reverend Horton Heat album "Holly Roller".
In popular culture
- In the motion picture When We Were Kings, Muhammad Ali mocks the song when asked about the difference between musical genres, and he calls the song "white people's music".
- InThe Simpsons episode Brother from Another Series, Krusty the Klown performs a 'prison special' at Springfield Penitentiary dressed in black. He sings the following lyrics to the tune of "Folsom Prison Blues": I slugged some jerk in Tahoe/They gave me one-to-three/My high-priced lawyer sprung me on a technicality/I'm just visiting Springfield Prison/I get to sleep at home tonight.
- In the webcomic xkcd by Randall Munroe, the "I killed a man in Reno, just to watch him die" lyric is parodied, with the characters coming up with their own variations (examples: "I killed a man in Reno, him and all his succubi", "I killed a man in Reno, because they canceled Firefly", "I killed a man in Reno, and a bunch more in My Lai.").
- In sketch in the comedy series Kids in the Hall, Dave Foley says, "I once shot a man just to watch him die, then I got distracted and missed it. Oh my friends tried to describe it to me, but it just isn't the same."
- In one episode of Wings, Joe says "I once shot a man in Reno just to watch him die" in an attempt to intimidate someone.
- An episode of The CW series Supernatural was named after this song.
- In an episode of Veronica Mars, Veronica mocks a task where she's asked to give someone two truths and a lie about herself by saying "I'm Veronica, I'm from Neptune, I once shot a man in Reno just to watch him die."
- In the film Little Nicky, when the character Adrian is threatening to push Nicky's girlfriend, Valerie, in the way of an oncoming train, he cups a hand to his ear and says "I hear a train a-coming.", seemingly mimicking the opening line of the song.
- In the film Starsky & Hutch, when the duo enters the bikers bar it can be heard playing.
- In an episode of Gilmore Girls, a community service roadside cleanup worker asks Rory what she did to deserve the punishment, to which Rory replies "I shot a man in Reno."
- The Beastie Boys sample Johnny Cash's line in the lyric "I shot a man in Brooklyn - 'Just to watch him die,'" on the track "Hello Brooklyn" on their album Paul's Boutique.
- In an episode of 21 Jump Street, Tom Hanson is in a jail cell, and asks what a fellow prisoner was there for; "Let me guess? You shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die?".
- In the I'm Not That Guy episode of How I Met Your Mother, Lily tries to explain how she can afford expensive clothes by saying: "I steal. I'm a criminal. I once shot a man just to watch him die".
- Beat Happening paraphrases the killing line in the song "Revolution Come and Gone" as "got a girl in Reno just to watch her cry."
Heading added by Wank Hilliams (talk) 10:10, 7 November 2013 (UTC)Reply
The "whoops" at the Reno Line were not edited in. There is a recording a reporter made sitting in the audience and you can hear it there too. I think the "whooow" has been shouted by Cash himself as he often did. Just my opinion. I am sure Streissguth is wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.244.188.204 (talk) 14:15, 19 October 2008 (UTC)Reply
I've seen (twice) a new CBS News piece about the new Cash biography by Robert Hilburn. In it, it is reported that Hilburn was present at the Folsom Prison concert (perhaps he is the reporter that 89.244.188.204 refers to above) and Hilburn says the prisoners cheered this line. But perhaps his memory is faulty and he heard these cheers only in the commercially released recording (which he no doubt has listened to dozens, if not hundreds, of times by now). Wank Hilliams (talk) 10:23, 7 November 2013 (UTC)Reply
I have removed the following paragraph:
Now, it is a slightly jarring aspect of the song, and it would be nice to acknowledge that, but it needs to be done better, preferably with sources. --Trovatore (talk) 01:36, 19 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
An interesting aspect of the song is that the singer "shot a man in Reno." Reno is in the State of Nevada; Folsom Prison is just outside of the city of Folsom, California.
This is a frequent talking point with regard to the song; it doesn't seem right to have no mention at all of it in the article. While posts on a message board might not satisfy some people as a 'reliable source', they are surely evidence that people talk about the conundrum and suggest various explanations for it. Jess Cully (talk) 09:55, 12 May 2010 (UTC)Reply
I would recommend that the entire unreferenced list of cover versions be deleted. It's been an influential song and lots of people have covered it, but the covers are not more important than Cash's version, and that list is entirely too long. ---RepublicanJacobiteTheFortyFive 02:16, 5 May 2012 (UTC)Reply
Drive-by comment regarding these (and no, nothing to do with jurisdiction in Reno!). The lead mentions that this song is an example of a Train Song, but there's nothing in the body to explain why, or what makes it a train song. Likewise, the article mentions "the Reno line", several times, but doesn't say what that line is. (I do see that both of these references were removed at some point in the first page of the article history.) Those of us familiar with the song will understand the meaning, but someone unfamiliar will be left confused; if they want to understand further, they will have to go elsewhere... not the goal we're looking for here, I imagine. What says the page? Rails (talk) 22:12, 9 July 2012 (UTC)Reply
I came here to find out who performed each instrument/part on the original recording. Alas, that information is not here. --67.176.133.158 (talk) 15:38, 25 August 2015 (UTC)Reply
For some time now I have noticed a strong similarity in the melodies of the two songs "Folsom Prison Blues" by Johnny Cash and "That's All Right Momma" by Elvis Presley. I had simply assumed that both songs had been authored by the same songwriter. Now I have learned to my surprise that this was not the case. Which leads me to wonder whether there were ever any accusations of plagiarism made in connection with either of these songs. from Bill Bannon
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