25 Minutes to Go

Sound Beat

Friday, January 29, 2021 -

This live version of “25 Minutes to Go” is from Johnny Cash’s 1968 Columbia LP At Folsom Prison. The song gives a minute-by-minute description of a man awaiting the hangman’s noose.

Two thousand Folsom prisoners attended Cash’s famed performance at the prison a year earlier; however, Death Row residents were not allowed. On performing a song about an execution at a prison, Cash said, “I was trying to get things close to the bone.”

Who wrote the song that Cash used to accomplish this? None other than beloved children’s author Shel Silverstein, who also wrote the Cash classic “A Boy Named Sue.”

This episode was co-written by Syracuse University student Josh Daghir as part of the Sound Beat Class Partnership.

Image: “Folsom Prison, East Gate”. The image is in the public domain.

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