Bible and a Gun

The Tribute to Johnny Cash, pretty much an hour long ad for the movie "Walk the Line," is on CBS.

I just saw U2's performance of "The Wanderer," the song they collaborated with Cash on U2's album Zooropa. Reminiscent of the Stones forced to sing "let's spend some time together" instead of "let's spend the night together" on the Ed Sullivan Show, Bono sang "I went out walking, with a Bible and the sun" (or something like that) instead of "Bible and a gun."

Network censorship? Politically correct self-censorship? (U2, not Cash, wrote the song.)

In any case, disgraceful. In the context of the song, and considering that the song was written with Cash in mind, "Bible and a gun" was the best line in it.

Anyway, it's nice to see Jerry Lee Lewis and the great Kris Kristofferson brought out for this tribute. It would have been really cool if Kristofferson sang "Sunday Morning Coming Down," but that would be as much a tribute to himself, who wrote it, as to Cash, who made it a hit.

UPDATE: Cool, he is performing it!