“The Man Comes Around” is the title track from Johnny Cash‘s American IV: The Man Comes Around, released in 2002 It is one of the last songs Cash wrote in his life. Both sung and spoken, the song makes numerous Biblical references, especially from the Book of Revelation. The titular “Man” inferentially refers to Jesus Christ and the Second Coming.
The chorus contains the words “the whirlwind is in the thorn tree”. This reference is explained in Cash’s 1997 autobiography. He writes that Queen Elizabeth II appeared to him in a dream and said “Johnny Cash, you’re a thorn bush in a whirlwind”. Cash later found the same reference in the Book of Job, and was inspired to write thirty-three verses of what would become “The Man Comes Around”
Sit back and invest five minutes of your life in this song. You will not regret it…