.png?width=1200&height=800&crop=1200:800 "Johnny Cash told me to be myself – and it changed my life, says Louisa Young – UK Times")
Acclaimed novelist Louisa Young has revealed that country music legend Johnny Cash played a pivotal role in shaping her career path.
Young recalled interviewing the American singer in the 1980s and explained how a single piece of advice pushed her towards becoming a writer. Cash, she said, was initially gruff and reluctant to engage, describing the encounter as a “jukebox session”. But after realising she was a genuine fan, he began to warm to her.
She shared the story while appearing on Like This Love This, The Independent’s podcast where special guests tell Lucie McInerney about the books, films, TV shows and podcasts they can’t stop recommending.
Young remembered Cash telling her: “You’ve gotta be who you are; whatever you are, you’ve gotta be it.” The words stuck with her. “I’m not a journalist,” she thought. “I want to write books and if I want to write books, I have to write books. Johnny Cash told me, so onwards and upwards.”
An English novelist, biographer and former journalist, Young is known for her works My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You, Twelve Months and a Day and You Left Early: A True Story of Love and Alcohol.
Her first book, published in 1994, was a biography of her grandmother Kathleen Scott titled A Great Task of Happiness. In her twenties, she worked as a freelance feature writer for national publications including The Guardian, The Sunday Times and Marie Claire.
Her latest project is a trilogy continuing Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Cazalet Chronicles, which follows the Cazalet family’s summers in the Sussex countryside.
Cash, meanwhile, remains immortalised in music history. His career spanned from 1954 until his death in 2003, producing more than 100 albums. In the 1990s and 2000s, he experienced a late renaissance working with producer Rick Rubin on the American Recordings. That period produced his now-iconic cover of Nine Inch Nails’ Hurt, regarded as one of the greatest interpretations in modern music.
The full episode of Like This Love This is out this Thursday (11 September) wherever you get your podcasts.
