10 Classic Rock Covers by Rosanne Cash

Rosanne Cash, a 16-time Grammy nominee, has been around music and musicians her entire life.

The eldest daughter of Johnny Cash, Rosanne Cash started her own musical career when she was still a teenager, dabbling in songwriting and sometimes singing backing vocals for her dad. She released her debut, self-titled album in 1978 and has pretty much not stopped since.

Of course, having a famous parent has its pros and cons, and Johnny Cash is nothing if not a legend in the music industry.

“I tried to avoid it in the early years,” Rosanne Cash said to Billboard in 2010, “because I couldn’t figure out who I was in the glare of that; it was just too enormous. I don’t think it’s that different for any young person, particularly one that enters the same field as their parent. You have to separate to find out who you are. It so happened that my dad cast a very large shadow. I probably pushed away longer than was necessary or gracious. But fortunately, he completely understood that.”

But she’s more than proved herself with four Grammys, 14 albums and multiple charting hits. She’s also well-versed in other artists’ music and has occasionally put her own spin on them. Here are 10 Classic Rock Covers by Rosanne Cash.

1. “Girl From the North Country” by Bob Dylan

Way back in 1969, when Cash was approximately 14 years old, her dad recorded “Girl From the North Country” as a duet with Bob Dylan for the latter’s album Nashville Skyline. Four decades later in 2009, Cash recorded her own version for an album called The List, which also featured guest appearances by Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello and Jeff Tweedy. But she was initially hesitant to record the song.

“I told John [Leventhal, The List‘s producer and Cash’s husband] that I can’t do this,” she told Magnet in 2009. “It’s almost sacrilegious. Not only did I have Dad and Bob’s version of it in my head, there’s even TV footage of them doing it, so I had pictures of them doing it, too. So, John said, ‘No, let’s listen to Bob’s original version and approach it that way.’ And Bob’s original version is a classic folk song in the Elizabethan tradition. Also I loved doing it in the folk tradition of the woman singing about another woman. It’s great because it expands the repertoire. I could be singing about my daughter or my sister or my mother. It adds mystery to it, too.”

2. “Hometown Blues” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

In 1996, Johnny Cash released Unchained, the second album in his American Recordings series with Rick Rubin serving as producer. On that album, he was backed mainly by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. But many years before that, Rosanne Cash put her spin on a Heartbreakers song called “Hometown Blues” which originally appeared on their debut album in 1976. Cash’s version was placed on 1981’s Seven Year Ache, an album that went to No. 1 on the Billboard country album chart.

BONUS: Cash also recorded a Heartbreakers song called “Never Be You,” which she put on her 1985 album Rhythm & Romance. The Heartbreakers’ own original version would not come out until the 2024 deluxe edition of 1982’s Long After Dark.

3. “I’m Only Sleeping” by the Beatles

In 1995, Cash put out a compilation album titled Retrospective, which pulled material from her 16 years of working with Columbia Records. It contained quite a few covers, including one of the Beatles‘ “I’m Only Sleeping.” Like many songwriters of her generation, the Beatles were a key influence on Cash. “I deconstructed how those songs were written,” she explained to The Bitter Southerner in 2024, “in both rhyme schemes and the way the choruses and the lyrics were set up, and that was the first imprint.”

4. “Magician” by Lou Reed

Cash was given her choice when it came to what she wanted to contribute to 2024’s The Power of the Heart: A Tribute to Lou Reed. She chose a song from her favorite Reed album, 1992’s Magic and Loss, called “Magician.”

“I thought that record [Magic and Loss] was the most beautiful musical meditation on death I’d heard. I went to see him at Radio City when it came out, and he performed the album in sequence. I wept. It was spectacular,” Cash recalled in 2014 for Talkhouse. “He was always so sweet to me. He couldn’t have been more of a gentleman. I saw the other, difficult side of him in glimpses, but he just seemed like a really sensitive guy who hated pretension and who found it intolerable to compromise on anything that was important to him, whether it was the sound of his monitors or the meal he had ordered. I’ll always respect him.”

5. “The Weight” by the Band

In the spring of 2011, a laundry list of acclaimed musicians gathered at Levon Helm‘s studio in Woodstock, New York to record a charity single called “Toast to Freedom.” Cash was on it, along with Donald Fagen, Carly Simon, Kris Kristofferson and many more, plus Helm himself. But that wasn’t the only time Cash and Helm worked together. Below you’ll see them performing the Band‘s “The Weight” along with Larry Campbell, Helm’s daughter Amy, Benmont Tench of the Heartbreakers and others.

6. “This Train Don’t Stop There Anymore” by Elton John

Back in 2016, Cash posted a photo of herself, her husband and oft collaborator John Leventhal and Elton John, writing that she and John had written two songs that day. What became of those songs, we do not know. What we do know is that Cash has been a longtime admirer of John’s, has performed at several of his AIDS Foundation galas and also covered his song “This Train Don’t Stop There Anymore” as a duet with Emmylou Harris.

7. “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” by Bob Dylan and the Band

Both Johnny Cash and Rosanne Cash performed at Dylan’s 30th anniversary concert in New York City in 1992. The former performed “It Ain’t Me Babe” with his wife June Carter Cash, while the latter did a rendition of Dylan and the Band’s “You Ain’t Going Nowhere” as a trio with Mary Chapin Carpenter and Shawn Colvin.

8. “Time” by Tom Waits

In 2019, Cash contributed to the album Come on up to the House: Women Sing Waits, a tribute LP to Tom Waits that featured, along with Cash, Aimee Mann, Patty Griffin, Phoebe Bridgers and more. “What an honor to sing a song like ‘Time,'” Cash said of her cover. “Many years ago, I recorded it just for myself, for the pleasure of singing those words. Maybe I seeded the notion in the deepest part of the creative ether, the place from where these songs travel through Tom. For whatever reason and from whatever source, I’m just thrilled to be a part of this album. There is no other songwriter in the world, past or future, like Tom Waits.”

9. “Things We Said Today” by the Beatles

Here Cash and Joan Osborne offer a beautiful version of the Beatles’ “Things We Said Today.” “I’m still well aware and in touch with the feeling that the Beatles had on me at 10 years old,” Cash said in 2021. “That’s, you know, that doesn’t go away.”

10. “Hello in There” by John Prine

John Prine was a friend to both Cash and her dad. “My dad instantly recognized what a tremendous songwriter John was, but I never saw John get starstruck,” Cash said for Vulture in 2020. “I saw admiration, and I don’t think he lived in that world where he thought about fame or hierarchy. It wasn’t about that — it was about artistry. With my own songwriting, I sometimes think, ‘Would John think this is a good line?’ If it feels self-conscious or pretentious, then my inner Prine meter goes off.”