In February 1970, Johnny Cash wrote something for June Carter Cash that was never intended to become a country hit. It was a simple expression of love, inspired by an ordinary morning in their Tennessee home.
Nearly fifty years later, those words became a beautiful song. But what made the story extraordinary was where the music video was filmed: among the remains of the lakeside home where Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash had once shared their lives.
By then, Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash were gone, and the house that held so many of their memories had been destroyed by fire.
Yet a few handwritten words from 1970 had survived.
A Quiet Morning in February 1970
Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash were living in Hendersonville, Tennessee, overlooking Old Hickory Lake. June Carter Cash was eight months pregnant with their son, John Carter Cash, who would be born the following month.
One morning, Johnny Cash made coffee while June Carter Cash came down the stairs. It was a small domestic moment, far removed from concert crowds, recording studios, and the demanding schedules of country music stardom.
Johnny Cash captured the morning in a love letter to June Carter Cash.
The words described the lake, the morning mist, the rising sun, and the simple pleasure of being together. There was no dramatic declaration or elaborate promise. Johnny Cash was writing about the happiness of sharing a home with someone he loved.
That quiet side of Johnny Cash was sometimes overshadowed by the familiar image of the Man in Black. But behind the famous voice and commanding stage presence was a husband who could find something worth remembering in a cup of morning coffee.
For decades, those words remained part of the family’s collection of personal writings.
The House That Held Their Memories
The Hendersonville home was much more than a place to live. Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash had made it a gathering place for relatives, friends, musicians, and visitors from across the country.
Bob Dylan and other celebrated figures visited the property. Kris Kristofferson famously landed a helicopter on the grounds during the early days of Kris Kristofferson’s Nashville songwriting career.
Years later, the house appeared in Johnny Cash’s unforgettable 2002 music video for Hurt. The images of Johnny Cash surrounded by reminders of a remarkable life gave the property an enduring place in American music history.
June Carter Cash died in May 2003. Johnny Cash followed in September of the same year.
In 2006, Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees purchased the property, hoping to preserve and restore the famous home.
But on April 10, 2007, a devastating fire swept through the building during renovations. The flames destroyed almost the entire structure, leaving little more than chimneys and parts of the framework.
A house that had witnessed decades of music, friendship, and family life was gone.
The Love Letter Becomes a Song
Years after Johnny Cash’s death, John Carter Cash began working with unpublished writings left by his father. The collection included poems, letters, and unfinished lyrics that revealed aspects of Johnny Cash’s life beyond the familiar recordings.
The project eventually became Johnny Cash: Forever Words, an album released on April 6, 2018, featuring musicians who created new songs from Johnny Cash’s writings.
One of those songs was To June This Morning, performed by Ruston Kelly and Kacey Musgraves.
Ruston Kelly had first begun setting Johnny Cash’s words to music as a teenager. When John Carter Cash invited Ruston Kelly to participate in the album, Ruston Kelly asked Kacey Musgraves to join in recording the finished song.
Then came an especially meaningful detail.
In a 2018 interview, Kacey Musgraves revealed that Ruston Kelly played one of Johnny Cash’s own guitars on the recording.
Kacey Musgraves also remembered John Carter Cash becoming emotional during the session. According to Kacey Musgraves, John Carter Cash was moved to tears and expressed the belief that Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash would have been proud.
For John Carter Cash, the words carried a deeply personal connection. They had been written in February 1970, just one month before John Carter Cash was born.
A Music Video Among the Ruins
When the music video for To June This Morning arrived on April 10, 2018, its setting gave the song another layer of meaning.
The video was filmed at the remains of Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash’s former home beside Old Hickory Lake.
Rather than presenting the love letter against an elaborate studio backdrop, the filmmakers returned to the place connected with the memories behind the words.
The video also opens with a contribution from two of Johnny Cash’s closest musical friends, Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson.
Kris Kristofferson recites Forever, one of the final poems Johnny Cash wrote before his death, while Willie Nelson plays the melody of I Still Miss Someone.
Those opening moments connect Johnny Cash’s final years with the much earlier love letter written for June Carter Cash.
Then the song takes listeners back to that morning in 1970, when Johnny Cash made coffee and waited for June Carter Cash to come down the stairs.
What Johnny Cash Left Behind
The remarkable thing about To June This Morning is how ordinary its beginning was.
Johnny Cash did not write the original words for a major recording project. Johnny Cash was simply preserving a moment of happiness with June Carter Cash.
The house eventually disappeared. Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash passed away. Decades went by before the handwritten words reached a new audience.
But in 2018, a new generation of musicians gave those words a melody, using Johnny Cash’s own guitar and returning to the place where the memories had begun.
For listeners who grew up hearing Johnny Cash sing about heartache, faith, and devotion, the song offered something especially intimate: a glimpse of Johnny Cash simply enjoying life with June Carter Cash.
And nearly half a century after that February morning, a moment that might otherwise have been forgotten became part of Johnny Cash’s lasting musical legacy.