American IV: The Man Comes Around came out on November 5, 2002, on American Recordings and Lost Highway, with Rick Rubin producing. It was made in two places: Akademie Mathematique in Los Angeles and Cash Cabin Studio in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Cash’s health set the calendar. Sessions were fitted between hospital stays, with players including Smokey Hormel and Benmont Tench.

It was the last studio album he released in his lifetime. Within a year of its release, June Carter Cash and Cash himself were both gone. The record went platinum, and in 2003 the Country Music Association named it Album of the Year.

Hurt is the track most people come for. The rest of the record was made on the same clock, and once you know that, you hear it everywhere.