Now I taught the weeping willow how to cry, And I showed the clouds how to cover up a clear blue sky. And the tears that I cried for that woman are g… - Johnny Cash

The Man Comes Around" is a song that I wrote, it's my song of the apocalypse, and I got the idea from a dream that I had — I dreamed I saw Queen Elizabeth. I dreamed I went in to Buckingham Palace, and there she sat on the floor. And she looked up at me and said, "Johnny Cash, you're like a thorn tree in a whirlwind." And I woke up, of course, and I thought, what could a dream like this mean? Thorn tree in a whirlwind? Well, I forgot about it for two or three years, but it kept haunting me, this dream. I kept thinking about it, how vivid it was, and then I thought, Maybe it's biblical. So I found it. Something about whirlwinds and thorn trees in the Bible. So from that, my song started and... "The Man Comes Around." The song turned out to be "The Man Comes Around.

I hear the train a comin', It's rollin' round the bend. An' I ain't seen the sunshine' Since I don't know when. I'm stuck in Folsom prison, And time keeps draggin' on. But that train keeps a rollin' On down to San Antone.

You can ask the people around me. I don't give up. I don't give up... and it's not out of frustration and desperation that I say I don't give up. I don't give up because I don't give up. I don't believe in it.