Empire of Dirt

Something about Johnny Cash makes anything he does sound incredibly urgent. Over the ten year period before his death, he recorded several albums covering songs by bands like Nine Inch Nails and The Beatles and U2.
And without effort he tops every single one of them, just by strumming a guitar and lazily mumbling the vocals in that distinctively deep voice of his.

Two of the highlights from the series of six albums are "Wayfaring Stranger" and "One", the latter by U2. Let's just say this eighty year old man had a knack for making you cry - every song sounds like he died right after he recorded it and every song makes a pretty convincing epitaph. Guy's got like fifty epitaphs. Some look back on life satisfied and accomplished, some look back dejected and alone. Even though the songs weren't originally written about death, Cash makes them about death.

It's terrifyingly affecting, and it puts everything in perspective. Johnny Cash is gone forever, and someday I will be too - just without any kind of legacy.
In Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt", Cash wallows in his sense of the meaninglessness of all his accomplishment. "You can have it all," he promises. "My empire of dirt."