Freedom is just another word: It seems to get truer the older I get. It makes me think about the time when my apartment got robbed and everything was gone and I was disowned by my family. I owed money to a hospital and I owed my wife five hundred a month for child support and I thought, "I'm losing my job." I hadn't any money, I hadn't anything going for me, but it was liberating. I was in this Evangeline Motel, like something out of "Psycho", a filthy place, just sitting there with this neon Jesus outside the door, in the swamps outside of Lafayette, Louisiana, and I thought, "Fuck. I'm on the bottom, can't go any lower" -- and from then on, man, I drove my car to the airport, left it there, and never went back to get it. Went to Nashville and called this friend of mine, Mickey Newberry, and told him I'd just got fired, and he said, "Great. Johnny Cash is shooting a new TV show. Come up, and we can pitch him some songs." The next moment, they cut three of my songs, and they were hits. I never had to go back to work again.
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