Cry! Cry! Cry!

After Sam Phillips showed little interest in Hey, Porter, Cash was told to come back with something Phillips could sell. He wrote Cry! Cry! Cry! overnight and played it for him the next day. Hey, Porter was coupled with it, and Cry! Cry! Cry! was the A-side. Cash was backed by Luther Perkins on guitar and Marshall Grant on bass. It reached number 14 on the Best Sellers charts and sold more than 100,000 copies in the southern states alone. It led to a spot on the Louisiana Hayride tour and to touring with Elvis Presley.

The lyric is a man telling his unfaithful lover she will cry when the consequences arrive. It later appeared on Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar!, while Hey, Porter did not. Hey, Porter was recorded on 1 September 1954 and released in May 1955. Cash wrote it with Perkins and Grant after Phillips turned down I Was There When It Happened, saying he did not want a gospel song but a fast one. Walk the Line (2005) mentions Cry! Cry! Cry! as his first success but does not perform it, though two deleted scenes show the character writing it.