Introduction

Iconic American singer-songwriter Johnny Cash recalled in song a boyhood experience of watching his parents monitor flood conditions at their 1937 Dyess, Arkansas, home by counting the number of front steps the water had risen; 1 step = 1 foot (0.305 m):

How high’s the water, mama?

Five feet high and risin’

In introducing his 1959 Columbia release, Five Feet High and Risin’, Cash noted (AZLyrics, 2000-2015):

My mama always taught me that good things come from adversity if we put our faith in the Lord.

We couldn’t see much good in the flood waters when they were causing us to have to leave home,

But when the water went down, we found that it had washed a load of rich black bottom dirt across our land.

The following year we had the best cotton crop we’d ever had.