The (Lightly Disputed) Meaning Behind “Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash

Anita Carter released the first version of the song as “Love’s Ring of Fire” in 1962. Johnny Cash waited to see if her song was a hit before recording his own take. The Man in Black’s career was limping along, and he needed a hit.

The song’s origin story has long been debated, and Cash’s recording session had to be delayed for tragic circumstances. After the singer’s death, an advertiser attempted to use the song to promote hemorrhoid-relief products. “Attempted” being the key word there. Let’s look at the meaning behind “Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash.

A Last Shot

Cash signed with Columbia Records in 1958. He had enjoyed a successful run of hits on Sun Records but became frustrated with the lack of artistic freedom under Sam Phillips. The first couple of years on Columbia yielded top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart and Top 40 entries on the Hot 100 pop chart. “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town” was the biggest success. However, in the early ’60s, the hits stopped coming.

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Release after release barely reached the bottom of the charts, if they made it at all. Cash felt he was going to be dropped from the label. He had faith in a Harlan Howard song called “Busted,” which was released at the same time as “Love’s Ring of Fire” by Anita Carter. Neither song reached the pop charts, and “Busted” only reached No. 13 on the country chart. Cash felt he had one more shot at a hit and arranged to record “Ring of Fire.”

Anita Carter Version

Love is a burning thing
And it makes a fiery ring
Bringing her to the heart’s desire
I fell in the ring of fire

Johnny Cash Version

Love is a burning thing
And it makes a fiery ring
Bound by wild desire
I fell into a ring of fire

Origin Story

The writing of the song is credited to Merle Kilgore and June Carter. Throughout her life, June Carter told different versions of the story. Some say she found “Love is like a burning ring of fire” underlined in an Elizabethan poetry book owned by her Uncle A. P. Carter.

Cash’s first wife tells a different version in her book, I Walked The Line: My Life With Johnny. “One day, in early 1963, while gardening in the yard, Johnny told me about a song he had just written with Merle Kilgore and Curly (Lewis) while out fishing on Lake Casitas. ‘I’m gonna give June half credit on a song I just wrote,’ Johnny said. ‘It’s called ‘Ring of Fire.’ ‘Why?’ I asked, wiping dirt from my hands. The mere mention of her name annoyed me. I was sick of hearing about her. ‘She needs the money,’ he said, avoiding my stare. ‘And I feel sorry for her.’

“I was so naive and trusting. The idea made me uncomfortable, but I didn’t argue about it. I still believed everything Johnny told me. To this day, it confounds me to hear the elaborate details June told of writing that song for Johnny. She didn’t write that song any more than I did. The truth is, Johnny wrote that song, while pilled up and drunk, about a certain private female body part. All those years of her claiming she wrote it herself, and she probably never knew what the song was really about. But I was the bigger fool.”

Anita Carter Version

I fell into into the burning ring of fire
I fell down, down, down, down into the deepest mire
And it burns, burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire, the ring of fire, the ring of fire

Johnny Cash Version

I fell into a burning ring of fire
I went down, down, down, and the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire, the ring of fire

Johnny’s Dream

Legend has it Cash had a dream where he heard the mariachi horns and knew they needed to be added to the song. It was a departure from the typical Johnny Cash sound, for sure. It’s also more likely he heard the Top 10 “Mexico” by Bob Moore from 1961. Producer Don Law even hired the same players to appear on Cash’s recording. Bill McElhiney and Karl Garvin performed the horn parts on both recordings.

Moore said in Robert Hillburn’s book Johnny Cash, “To me, it was like a wink and a nod, as if to say, ‘Job well done, Bob.” Years later, Moore produced one of Cash’s albums.

Anita Carter Version

The taste of love is sweet
When two fiery hearts meet
I believe you, like a child
Oh, but the fire went wild

Johnny Cash Version

The taste of love is sweet
When hearts like ours meet
I fell for you like a child
Oh, but the fire went wild

Delay of Recording Session

Originally scheduled to record during the week of March 4th, 1963, a tragedy caused a delay. On March 5th, Patsy Cline, “Hawkshaw” Hawkins, Cowboy Copas, and pilot Randy Hughes died in a plane crash in a wooded area near Camden, Tennessee. Cash postponed the recording until March 25, 1963.

I fell into a burning ring of fire
I went down, down, down, and the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire, the ring of fire

After Cash and June Carter’s death in 2003, an advertising agency approached Kilgore and the surviving family members about using the song in an advertising campaign for Preparation H. Kilgore thought it was funny. The family did not. Rosanne Cash told the BBC, “The song is about the transformative power of love, and that’s what it has always meant to me, and that’s what it will always mean to the Cash children.”

And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire, the ring of fire
The ring of fire, the ring of fire…

Photo by Don Hunstein, Courtesy of Sony Music Archives