John­ny Cash wrote down at least two lists in his life­time. Let’s start with the big one. In 1973, when his daugh­ter Roseanne turned 18, the leg­endary musi­cian pulled out a sheet of yel­low legal paper and began writ­ing down 100 Essen­tial Coun­try Songs, the songs she need­ed to know if she want­ed to start her own musi­cal career. The list, writes the web­site Folk­Works, did­n’t con­strue coun­try music nar­row­ly. It was eclec­tic, tak­ing in old folk songs, Appalachi­an bal­lads, and also protest songs, ear­ly coun­try clas­sics, and mod­ern folks songs sung by artists like Bob Dylan. (Don’t miss our post on Dylan and Cash’s 1969 col­lab­o­ra­tion here.) This essen­tial list nev­er went pub­lic, at least not in full. Roseanne Cash guard­ed it close­ly until 2009, when she released an album fea­tur­ing inter­pre­ta­tions of 12 titles from her father’s list. The oth­er 88 songs still remain a mys­tery.

Now on to that oth­er list: Some­where along the way (we’re not sure when) The Man in Black jot­ted down 10 “Things to Do Today!” This list feels almost like some­thing you and I could have writ­ten, the stuff of mor­tals. Heck, in a giv­en day, we all “Cough,” “Eat” and “Pee.” We strug­gle with will pow­er (not eat­ing too much, per­haps not smok­ing, maybe not fool­ing around with any­one but our spouse). And we’re hope­ful­ly good to our loved ones. So what sets John­ny Cash apart from us? Just June and that piano.

John­ny’s to-do list sold at auc­tion for $6,250 in 2010.

via The New York Times via Lists of Note

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

By the 1980s, Frank Zap­pa was enter­ing the third decade of his musi­cal career. An icon of the avant-garde music scene, Zap­pa had cul­tur­al cap­i­tal to spend. And spend he did. On one occa­sion in 1986, Zap­pa appeared on CNN’s Cross­fire, where he sparred with con­ser­v­a­tives look­ing to cen­sor rock lyrics. On oth­er occa­sions, he record­ed pub­lic ser­vice announce­ments (PSAs) that encour­aged a younger gen­er­a­tion to make bet­ter life deci­sions. The PSAs dealt with the mun­dane and the dead­ly seri­ous, and things that fell some­where in between. But they were always pre­sent­ed in Zap­pa’s own dis­tinc­tive way.

Above we start you off with Zap­pa’s “Reg­is­ter to Vote” PSAs from 1984. It’s worth recall­ing that the ’84 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion pit­ted the incum­bent Ronald Rea­gan against Wal­ter Mon­dale. That’s fol­lowed by Zap­pa (now reborn as “The Den­tal Floss Tycoon”) record­ing PSAs for the Amer­i­can Den­tal Asso­ci­a­tion in 1981. And final­ly we head back to the late 1960s, when Zap­pa cut announce­ments for The Do It Now Foun­da­tion, an orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to high­light­ing the dan­gers of amphet­a­mine abuse. At its height, the cam­paign aired on 1,500 radio sta­tions across the US and beyond.

Brush Your Teeth

Don’t Do Speed

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!