I Walk the Line is a 1956 song written and recorded by Johnny Cash, released as a Sun Records single on May 5, 1956, with the B-side Get Rhythm, and later included on the album Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar! (1957). The track blends country and rockabilly and is built around Cash's signature boom-chicka-boom rhythm, recorded at Sun Studio in Memphis, and noted for Cash humming to hit the changing keys between verses. Lyrically, it narrates resisting temptation and staying faithful to his wife Vivian Liberto, a pledge Cash wrote backstage in Gladewater, Texas in 1956. It became Cash's first number one on the country charts and later crossed to the pop charts, reaching number 19 on the Billboard Hot 100 and staying on the charts for over 43 weeks, with sales around two million copies. The song has been re-recorded several times, included in films and soundtracks such as the 2005 Walk the Line biopic, and is recognized as a classic that helped shape rock and roll; it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998 and is listed among Rolling Stone's greatest songs of all time.
