The
song was written in
1962 by
June Carter Cash, with
Merle Kilgore. She found the line "
Love is like a burning ring of fire" in a book of
Elizabethan poetry, and collaborating with Cash's tourmate
singer-songwriter Kilgore, wrote the classic ditty for ber beau Johnny.
The story goes that she wrote it, enamored with the man in black--all cool and sexy yet at the same time hot and dangerous--and he performed it for many years before fully understanding what it meant (about him).
She performs an interestingly heartful version (it's not really a cover if she wrote it, is it?) of the song on her 1999 album "Press On".
Incidently, the most recently released cover of "Ring of Fire" was performed by actor Jeff Bridges and former pop star Kim Carnes for the soundtrack of Jeff's movie The Contender.