God Bless Rick Rubin

Rick Rubin has done many great things during his career, but reviving the careers of Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond has to be as high a peak as any other. The albums he did with the two of them are revelations at the tail end of important (dare I say epic?), but declining careers. As if in an effort to top himself, during the process of recording those albums, he gave us two duets that could only be dreamed about.

At some point during the American recording sessions, Joe Strummer dropped by to record a cover of Bob Marley's Redemption Song with Johnny Cash. Now, anyone who's ever met a hippie with a guitar just rolled their eyes. To say the song is overplayed is an understatement. Somehow it works, though. Johnny Cash's slow, wise reading is beautiful, but when Joe Strummer takes over for the second verse, with his flawed, and still somehow edgy voice, the song really starts to hit home. For the third verse, they trade lines, the two familiar voices contrasting beautifully before coming together at the end to break your heart. They do the unthinkable, giving new life to the song. What sounds too good to be true (a Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer duet?!) is better than I ever could have imagined and I'm a hopeless optimist for dream pairings like this. (Count Basie and Jackie Wilson? searched for it for years before finally finding a copy. Minutemen and Black Flag? Oh yeah.) Knowing that they both died not too long after recording this and that it so easily could have never happened adds a layer of depth and relevance that few songs can reach.

So how does Rick Rubin follow this up? He takes Delirious Love, the most upbeat song on Neil Diamond's American debut, a joyous pop song minimally orchestrated with Neil's voice unaccompanied that echoes with the oohs and ahs of absent harmony, and brings Brian Wilson in to sing along! Neil Diamond and Brian Wilson?! Are you kidding me?! And you know what? It's perfect. The song is completely Neil Diamond and completely Brian Wilson all at once.

I was almost afraid to write about these two songs as I'm so in awe of the fact that they exist and are as good as they are. How does one write about perfection? Dream duets are often a practice inverted math. Add two amazing things and it comes out flat. That both of these manage to escape that common end leaves me with just one thing to say. Thank you, Rick Rubin.

Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer's Redemption Song

Neil Diamond and Brian Wilson's Delirious Love