The Complete Johnny Cash: Lyrics From a Lifetime of Songwriting, is a new music book that has a publishing date set for October 24, 2025. Cash is set as the author, along with his longtime chronicler, Mark Stielper, and the book will be published by the renowned publisher Hachette.
From the publisher’s announcement: “The Man in Black” is one of America’s most prolific and influential songwriters, speaking through his songs to the soul of the nation while capturing the victories and losses that marked his own life. This comprehensive and definitive 720-page book collects—for the first time—every one of his song lyrics alongside never-before-seen reproductions of handwritten pages from his own notebooks.
The lyrics are organized in a chronological order, and are accompanied by critical commentary on themes that appear throughout his work, including a foreword from his son, John Carter Cash.
The book catalogs Cash’s range as a poet and storyteller. It traces his evolution from his earliest compositions to his last love song, through periods of personal struggle, political activism, and tests of faith. What emerges is an unprecedented portrait of Johnny Cash as a timeless American artist.
Stielper has chronicled the life of the “Man in Black” for nearly forty years, contributing to a dozen Cash biographies, appearing on screen in documentaries, and speaking at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Country Music Hall of Fame, and the Cash museum. Johnny Cash himself called Stielper “my friend, the family historian” and said, “He knows more about me than me.”
You can pre-order here.
