When John Carter Cash approached noted Nashville-based photographer/director David McClister about producing a new music video, McClister suggested that Cash find a song that meant the most to him.
That part was easy, Cash, 50, said, because he had written something called “Dragon Song” as a 21-year-old while riding a motorcycle herding cattle in Australia.
“It’s a real coming-of-age tale for me,” he said. “It was two weeks of isolation in the wilderness in Australia. Two weeks later, I fell flat on my face, and the song still had its strength and meant a lot to me.”
While the song took on new meaning to him over the years, it always touched him deeply, both for the cathartic powers it held for him when he wrote it and for its evolving meaning over the years.
It’s a song about “facing the darkness of the masculine nature. It’s about honoring women, though it doesn’t honor women in the song. It’s about wanting to change and be better,” he said. “It’s about being willing to change and coming to a different place.”