johnny cash, high class or white trash?

There's not a stich of "high class" on him. Johnny Cash is a twisted fuck out the mountains and he would beat your ass, son, for using that kind of language. Who are you, Lizzie Grubman?? Do you have any idea how offensive your thread title is?

Doe s this thread relate to me? I'm flattered!

It's only offensive because he equates "white trash" with "dud". Or maybe "high class" is the dud part. Ha.

Johnny Cash is the BOMB, I've thought so since the age of FOUR. Dark, imposing, wonderful, conscientious objector, full of style, tortured due to lost brother, and keeps Nick Cave on the bottom of his shoe like dog shit. I've still never seen him live and hope I get to before he succumbs to the non-Parkinson's nerve disease he's got. I LOVE this man. The Man In Black transcends origins as all great artists should do.

J.C. (nudge nudge) would call himself an unreconstructed redneck; he'd call himself a hick, a hillbilly. But "trailer trash" or "white trash", having been thoroughly "unreclaimed", are used exclusively by people who are not hillbillies themselves, or (more usually) by people who fear that somehow, deep inside, they are. It's a poisonous word.

Tracer, I object to that. Is there no middle ground between "hillbilly" and middle-class? In fact there is, I grew up in that middle-ground, and people like that are called "white trash". There *are* people who use that word ironically, usually people who are what snobs of means would call "white trash". There are several anthologies on this subject - I suggest that you avail yourself of them before disparaging people who use the phrase.

Not to keep heading off-topic, but I've always found the term "white trash" somewhat condescending to non-white people. As if the speaker assumes everyone else to be trash, and finds it so atypical of white people that the color bears mentioning. That's not meant as a semantic argument by the way -- it's just an odd, unsubstantiated sense I get about the root of that term: that "white trash" first developed to denote "Oh look -- white people living in the same isolated poverty we force on black people!"

Issue with the term "redneck": it's my understanding that the original "rednecks" were early union members, who wore red bandanas around their necks to denote said membership. Thus I hate to think of it as a term of disparagement. Obviously the word's changed and won't be headed back to its original meaning anytime soon, but . . . so far as the early 20th century went, unions = good.

"people like that are called 'white trash'"

By some. This is what I object to. Anything can be offensive, but 'redneck', 'hillbilly', and 'hick' aren't automatically. Some kids might get confused and upset over these terms, but most adults I know who cd fit the description are proud of those words (or have found a way to be). They are not proud of 'trash'. It's a subtle distinction I guess, but one that I'm sensistive to. (This is roughly E. Tennessee, W. North Carolina, West Virginia, Eastern Kentucky that I'm talking about btw)

"There *are* people who use that word ironically"

I know. But in my experience it happens rarely and is usually joyless - either self-flagellation or off-target attempt at putting someone else down - unlike 'yo what up my nigga?'

"Redneck" comes from farmers in field out inna sun all day = red necks.

"Not to keep heading off-topic, but I've always found the term "white trash" somewhat condescending to non-white people. As if the speaker assumes everyone else to be trash, and finds it so atypical of white people that the color bears mentioning. That's not meant as a semantic argument by the way -- it's just an odd, unsubstantiated sense I get about the root of that term: that "white trash" first developed to denote 'Oh look -- white people living in the same isolated poverty we force on black people!' "

Oh, yes, it *is* condescending to people who aren't white, not somewhat but very. When used in the non-ironic put-down sense, of course. And you're right about the origin - I don't see how it could be anything else. Although I think that for some who use it as a putdown, the idea is, "you're white and you have no excuse for poverty." Also condescending of course, but some self-styled middle-class "liberals" use it in this sense.

It just seems that when I hear the phrase these days it *is* almost always ironic (originator of this thread aside) - it's a way of throwing that insult back in the face of those who use it. I don't see what's wrong with that. I say that as someone whose origins are pretty much "white trash". The South doesn't have a monopoly on the term or its implications, nor does it have a monopoly on trailers, poverty, what have you.

I know kids who act proud of being white trash or coming from trailer trash backgrounds. I'm one of them, sometimes. If you wear Versace or go to Yale or are in any way clearly not white trash, eating spam and living in a double-wide is something you play up for its campy appeal. But it's clearly a disparaging term; whereas I have no qualms about referring to certain friends as hicks, I would never call them white trash.

Interesting. I have not had that experience. For example, when I got my first job at an expensive private university, I was chatting with a colleague about my background, and he said, "oh, you're white trash, too", and we had a good bonding laugh about it. I've had many such conversations, so perhaps in some regions of the country there is no ironic use of the term and in some there is. Although, the person I mentioned above is from the east coast, while I am from the midwest. I don't think there's any authoritative connotation for this term.

Obviously, Johnny Cash is so classic that it need not be discussed here. ;)

"no authoritative connotation" for a historically offensive term = don't use it in a room full of people you barely know.

I may be a little hyper-aware of this subject because of all the hoo-ha surrounding this.

SUV = "white trash" term

"I did not intentionally hurt anyone" = "I didn't mean it like that"

"I would swear that she was driving at me on purpose" = my posts

There are all kinds of terms to denote WT, and since there's a fair amount of it in my family it's a term I've used, generally on my little sister, who goes to drag race meets, watches every talk show going, wears blue eye make-up, has perms, and listens to George Thorogood. When in high school she chewed watermelon Hubba Bubba in three-piece clusters. What I really hate is ironic use of it by people who've had a snobby/cushy upbringing, eg Harmony Korine, or those who make it their artistic metier as he does. Like Kerry and others, it became an ironic term of solidarity by me and friends at *very* expensive colleges on full-ride scholarships. Here is a simple litmus test: if your father thinks it's funny to ask his children to pull his finger, then releases a fart when you do so, feel free to use the term at will!

Harmony Korine = Dud. I'm dismayed he cowrote a song with Bjork on her new LP.

high class white trash - album of covers last year was gorgeous, appearenceeon U2's zooropa magnificent, low down and dirty - great stuff.

Trying to help stay on topic here: I think Johnny Cash has "class", if it is at all possible to use that term in a non-loaded sense. Probably not, but I like to think I'm transforming the meaning of that word when I use it. I mean, I don't like the origins of the word, either, but I like the connotation. He has style, elegance and cool, or are those loaded terms as well?

Gummo is one of my favorite movies, with probably the best soundtrack ever. Bjork is a hyperdud, though.

Gummo was a good film, way better than Kids. I never saw Julian Donkey- Boy, it looked better than Gummo. Ssab Songs (Korine's "band") are okay, I guess, if you're in the mood for sped-damage wrecked-music along the lines of NWW/Cromagnon, with a spoiled upscale self-styled white trash hillbilly vibe about it. Johnny Cash is better.

I'm glad somebody agrees with me on Harmony Korine re: dudness -- my admittedly limited exposure to his work had me wishing I was dreaming of pink clouds and cotton candy. Which might be the point, of course. Kids, how I loathe thee!

Oh, Johnny Cash, right -- duh, classic. Gidouddahere if you disagree. One Nick Cave amusingly introduced a take on "The Mercy Seat" back in March as 'a Johnny Cash number,' and well he should after that cover.

gummo is classic for 1) being a good reference point for something fucked up ('dude, that's like, something from gummo, or something!') and 2) making me think about it at bizarre random times. best thing ever read about chloe sevigny: 'she has the charisma of a young rudy ray moore'. too true.

Some days I think Johnny Cash is the Greatest Living Country Musician alive. Other days, I would give that honor to Merle Haggard. One's a hillbilly who can rock, the other's a hardhat who can swing.

Both are classics, of course.

I can't stand Johnny Cash's "singing". He sounds soulless and thick, as if he's unaware of the music around him.

It is rare but this time I 100% agree with you, Ned. When I listen to Cash's version I am on the mercy seat. I lie with (not in that sense!) him.

Given that there's a track on his last album called Country Trash, I'm guessing he wouldn't be too happy with the thread title.

As to the real question, I have a hard time coming up with someone who's more incontestably a classic. Paid his dues, went to hell and back, watched country turn into a circus and never wavered. Recorded possibly the best live album ever (At Folsom Prison), and may well beat the odds by making his definitive three or four albums at the end of his a career that includes nearly 100 of them. Unlike most of the other acts undergoing "critical reevaluation", he never tried to regain cool: he never lost it.

Plus, he's the man in black. And everyone knows that black is cool.

is that a cover for a comic book???

The funniest thing about this thread is reading all the previous posters scrambling for their white trash cred.

Johnny Cash is a twisted fuck out the mountains

Uh, Johnny Cash is from eastern Arkansas, there are no mountains there.

Johnny Cash is good on image alone; I like him fine but think there are better country artists (Haggard, Jones, Faron Young, etc.). For those of you who aren't familiar with Cash's epochal "The Chicken in Black" (Johnny's kiss-off to Nashville music biz in which he's gotten fed up with the whole affair, goes to NYC to get a "brain transplant," has his brain replaced with that of a bankrobber called the Manhattan Flash, and has his brain put into a chicken who steals Johnny's act and appears around the country as, yep, The Chicken in Black), well, you have to hear it.

White trash is not a term one uses loosely in the south; it implies all sorts of very negative things indeed. As should be obvious--I mean it's up there with "nigger" as a completely perjorative word. I like what Jim Dickinson once said: "hillbillies kill outsiders, while rednecks kill each other." "Redneck" as used by whoever that woman is who's at the top of the country charts with that stupid "Redneck Girl" song is now officially "ironic." I grew up around rednecks and good ol' boys and I know from "white trash," who are people who don't clean up after themselves, I would say as a simple definition. Good ol' boys and rednecks take care of their lawnmowers and equipment and so forth. My brother-in-law is a redneck who drinks Bud Ice beer but who gags when offered a Sierra Nevada or a Red Hook -- "they can keep this shit out in Colorado and California."

"Chicken in Black" is essential Johnny Cash!

i agree with nabisco, "white trash" has ultimately racist connotations.

pejorative.