The Ballad of Ira Hayes

Peter La Farge wrote it about Ira Hayes, a Pima Marine who was one of the six men in the flag raising on Mount Suribachi at Iwo Jima. La Farge introduces the Pima people of the Gila River Community, whose irrigation water was taken, then follows Hayes home, where attempts to honor him are met with contempt and he dies drunk in a ditch. The Western Writers of America later chose it among the Top 100 Western songs.

Cash recorded it for Bitter Tears, and it reached number three on the Billboard country singles chart in 1964. Seven weeks into its chart run it was floundering in the mid-teens. On 22 August 1964 he paid for a full-page Billboard advertisement calling some disc jockeys and programmers gutless for not playing it, and bought and mailed more than a thousand copies to radio stations. By 19 September it had reached number three.