The Best Actor in the Vase of Meiyu

Chapter 1290 Narration through Song
Johnny Cash always carried the shackles of his own cross and staggered forward. From his father's beatings and scoldings to his mother's forbearance to Vivian's pain, those struggles and curses always bound his soul. He dared not face himself, refused to face himself, and even hated the real himself.

From the eyes of those closest to him, Johnny saw himself as cowardly and timid, incompetent and clumsy. They didn't even need words. A single look was enough to make him throw away his armor and remove all his equipment, exposing his softest and most vulnerable part, which was covered in wounds.

It's the same even when facing Vivian.

Vivian has always known about Johnny's musical dream. She neither opposed nor supported it. Occasionally, she would gently encourage him to create music, occasionally she would fall into pain because of the financial difficulties in life, and occasionally she thought that Johnny and his friends' amateur music had no future.

After all, Vivian is still a traditional woman. She longs for a stable and peaceful life, and she longs for Johnny to bring a stable income. Although she is immersed in pain and torture, she is always learning to understand Johnny gently and considerately. However, she has never truly understood him.

Vivian’s struggle is also Johnny’s struggle.

They are both gentle souls, but they keep hurting each other because they are too gentle.

Johnny didn't dare look directly into Vivian's eyes. He was afraid that he would see disappointment and struggle in those eyes, as well as the useless self.

In front of Vivian, Johnny always performed gospel music, but he never told Vivian that he could actually compose other types of music.

His joys and sorrows, his fragility and wounds, his pain and struggle, are injected into notes, transformed into melodies, and flow out from the depths of his soul.

However, he didn't dare to show it and could only carefully bury and hide it. That was another secret secretly hidden in his musical dream.

Even he himself didn't dare to face it.

Until this time.

Standing before Sam, Johnny felt naked for the first time—

It turns out that music really is a window to the soul; it turns out that there are people who can see through his struggles and concealments at a glance.

Johnny lowered his eyes, avoiding eye contact, like a child who had done something wrong.

After struggling and pulling, Johnny raised his head again and looked at Sam cautiously, and spoke carefully.

"I wrote a few songs while I was in the Air Force..."

The voice was unclear, like a muttering to himself. Johnny also realized his embarrassment and deliberately raised his voice, which was harsh but weak, with a slightly provocative tone.

"Do you have a problem with the Air Force?"

Sam raised his eyebrows slightly, and said calmly and decisively, "No."

Johnny also realized that his attack was a little childish, and his tone softened again, "I have."

Sam was stunned, a little surprised: Johnny has a problem with the Air Force? What? Or is it a joke?

Sam looked Johnny over carefully.

He saw a gleam of light in Johnny's eyes, a faint but firm light. Although he was still introverted and reserved, he could feel the power hidden deep in his soul, tenacious and hot.

Sam straightened his back without even realizing it, and began to feel a sense of anticipation.

However, Johnny's friends don't think so.

"JR, whatever you're singing, we haven't heard it before."

"what should we do?"

Johnny didn't respond. He just stared at Sam, lost in his own thoughts, humming softly without accompaniment or greeting.

"I heard the train approaching, coming around the bend." The voice was light and gentle, and you could faintly feel a slight tremor in it. It was spoken with a little hesitation and a little fragility, but with determination.

"I can't see the sun, so I don't know the time. I'm trapped in Folsom Prison, and time is dragging slowly."

Sam was slightly stunned and tried to react, but he just froze in place.

Not only Sam, but Luther and Marshall were no exception, because they could feel the power of emotion in Johnny's slightly trembling ending.

Involuntarily, I stretched out my right hand, trying to catch a ray of sunlight through the tofu-sized window, but my palm was empty and there was nothing. I slightly closed my fingertips and only caught a piece of coolness.

I looked up suddenly and saw that the four walls had formed a black hole where I could neither feel time nor space. Before I knew it, I was plunged into nothingness.

What song is this?

"Folsom-Prison-Blues".

Hunter caught the melody at once. Even without accompaniment, the vicissitudes and fragility, loneliness and sigh in Johnny's singing accurately fell on the heart.

This song, which was not written while Johnny was actually in prison, was inspired by a movie Johnny watched while serving time.

Folsom Prison is a maximum security prison in California. The movie tells the story of how the warden used various inhumane means to torture criminals before the prison reform in 1944, which made Johnny think.

Against this backdrop, Johnny wrote the song in the first person.

Obviously, Johnny has never made this song public. He is afraid to expose his inner thoughts and show his true self. His thoughts, his experience, and his soul have long been accustomed to hiding in his silence and clumsiness.

Until this time.

If this was the end of his life, if he was lying in the gutter waiting to die, if this was how he would appear before God, this was the first melody that came to his mind.

Carefully, with a little timidity and hesitation, Johnny lowered his eyelids and hummed softly, not daring to look at Sam's reaction, not daring to look at anyone's reaction, just immersed in his own thoughts

“But the train continued to roar on, towards St. Anton.”

It's melodious and graceful, yet it's completely relaxing between the smooth flow of notes.

The corners of his mouth twitched slightly, not out of happiness or joy, but the freedom of relaxing in the melody. The layers of haze that shrouded the top of his head quietly dissipated, and the diluted light peeked out from behind the thick clouds.

Although the theme of this song is heavy, Johnny Cash presents it in a light-hearted way. The sighs, loneliness and regrets fly freely and wantonly in the collision of swing and country styles.

However, just now, in the first verse, Johnny's performance was filled with too many mixed emotions, revealing a wavering uneasiness and uneasiness.

until now.

In the leisurely singing, I regained my confidence, entered my own performance state, and the noise in my voice settled down.

Then, his fingertips fell on the guitar strings and plucked them gently.

A variation.

The rhythm and tonality have completely changed, and it seems that the whole sky is still covered with dark clouds, with drizzling rain; however, the sun stubbornly penetrates the clouds and shines down, and the gray and chaotic world is slowly permeated with strands of gold, and the continuously falling rain does not seem so bad.

The whole feeling is subtle and complex.

His eyes couldn't help but fall on Johnny.

(End of this chapter)