My 100 Favorite Charted Country Songs: The Ballad of Ira Hayes

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Well, well, will you look at who’s showing up on the list of 100 favorite songs in country music? Probably no surprise at all that he’s on the list; however, you may take issue with me over the song. You may take more issue with me over the fact that this is his only appearance on the list. Here we go with today’s song on my country list. The Ballad of Ira Hayes - Johnny Cash Let me diffuse some of your hostility. I will be the first to admit that this is NOT Johnny Cash’s best song, quality wise. I’d go with “Any Old Wind That Blows” or “I Still Miss Someone” for that. No, what sets this song apart is the delivery. Listen to him. You can tell he’s pissed. That is one angry man singing about the real-life World War II hero Ira Hamilton Hayes. Maybe I identify with this because Hayes, like a lot of veterans, didn’t get the treatment they deserved post-war. (Of course, back then, PTSD was called “shell shock” or “battle fatigue,” and was thought to be a temporary thing. And “mental disorders” were treated with lobotomies [see JFK’s sister Rosemary].) This was “Sam Stone” before John Prine wrote “Sam Stone” (and I don’t know if Prine would have had the guts to write “Sam Stone” without this song proving that the truth of unhappy endings for far too many veterans COULD be told). Now we recognize these things. In fact, many interstate highways have a sign next to mile marker 22 to designate it the “Veterans Memorial Suicide Mile,” so chosen because an average of 22 veterans a day end their lives because of some battle (internally or “the scars that won’t heal” [as Elton John sang in “Daniel”] from a war). Was Hayes’ death a suicide? Of course, we’ll never know. As Cash told us in the song, “He died drunk, early one morning, alone in a land he fought to save.” It was just 12 days after his 32nd birthday that his body was found in a ditch after a night of heavy drinking. Whether he meant to drink himself to death or not, the sad truth remains that a man you see everywhere — in the US Marine Corps War Memorial in Washington and the famous “raising of the flag on Iwo Jima” photo that the memorial is modeled after — deserved better. And so do all of his brothers and sisters, before and since. The Ballad of Ira Hayes Written by Peter LaFarge Recorded by Johnny Cash From Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian, 1964 Peak chart position: #3 Today’s rock song: “All I Have to Do is Dream” His land is just as dry: