(Love’s) Ring Of Fire

The famous song was written by June Carter & Merle Kilgore

Listen here to a combination of both songs

Anita Carter / Johnny Cash

Subject was June starting to fall in love with Johnny Cash. Her sister Anita recorded the song first in 1963.

Cash dreamed of the song, in that dream he heard a Mexican horn section. The same year he recorded his version. It became a big hit, probably also because the unusual instrumentation.

Versions

As common with unique songs there have been released many versions of the song. To start with Johnny Cash, who took over the song from his sister in law. That was not his sister in law at that time…

Eric Burdon recorded the song twice. Totally different versions, one in 1969 and the other in 1974. Tom Jones recorded the song and so did primal punks Peter & The Test Tube Babies. June Carter recorded the song also, in 1999.

Other language

Of course the song was translated and recorded in other languages. Howard Carpendale translated the song in German to “Heiß Wie Feuer”. Eldar Vagan recorded the song in Norwegian.

Merle wants to make more money

A special anecdote is that co-writer Merle Kilgore wanted to let a company use the song in 2004 for a cure against hammeroids. Relatives of June and Anita stopped that. Then to think that if you are one of two writers of a song covered and sold so many times that you might have ended up with some money because of that…