Click.
I turn on a light as I stagger into a little side room in my house. My eyes adjust to the sudden brightness, and I take a look around. It’s a little place full of all sorts of things I keep dear to my heart, the pieces of my history. There’s an acoustic guitar, a keyboard, and several newspaper stories and records, all about myself.
I came in here sometimes, oftentimes just to relive my glory days, back when I was young, spry, and full of budding talent that the labels all wanted. Now, I am none of those things, and all the clippings and records were collecting dust. I’d retired from music long ago.
I picked up the first newspaper clipping, a candid shot in black and white. It shows me onstage, pepper black hair, in a nice suit that fit my Earth Pony form, all in some sort of bar with my old backing band. I take a long look at the story again.
“New talent starts performing at Canterlot Bar
A new talent has started playing at the classic Canterlot hangout, ‘The Princesses’ Cove’, every evening. The band, who call themselves Cash Money and The Cashiers, have been seen by dozens of ponies already.
There’s talk over who this new band might be, and other talks to sign them.
“They’re a good band, you don’t hear Country with that kind of soul anymore,” says head record executive of Canterlot Legends Enterprises...”
I sigh and put the newspaper article back down. Those were the best days. I was happy, with my friends, and we were just playing music like we’d wanted to. A little bit of Country, a little bit of Folk. We had fun playing in that little bar, and right beside that newspaper clipping was a framed record, our second one. I always thought that the label was a bit pompous to call our second album Cash Money and the Cashiers Sing the Songs That Made Them Famous, but I couldn’t just argue. That first record did have a lot of hits on it.
From old Folk tunes like Celestia’s Lullaby to new ones at the time, such as Trot on Up. I had a blast recording that first album with my friends. I trot on a little more to a newspaper clipping that touts our success. In the spirit to actually feel good after remembering what time had done to who I was as a pony, I read it.
Cash Money and the Cashiers Release Their First Album, ‘Songs for the Sun’
Formally underground Country/Folk group Cash Money and the Cashiers released their first album recently. Titled Songs for the Sun, off of the label Equestrian National Records. Featuring covers of old Folk standards, such as Celestia’s Lullaby, which became a massive hit single, and The Pillars of Equestria, as well as new, written material such as Trot on Up and Lonesome City, another massive hit single. We have interviewed the band to explain the thought process behind some of it.
“Well,” Six String, lead guitarist, said,”Cash writes most of our songs, but we usually help, and want to strike this balance between serious songs and fun ones. Like, Trot on Up is this upbeat Country song with pretty silly lyrics, but then he writes a ballad about loneliness and it’s just so good we have to send it off as a lead single, you know.”
Cash Money himself also pitched in, saying, “See, the songs we chose to cover have that same balance between them. Pillars of Equestria is entirely based on tall tales, but then a song like Celestia’s Lullaby, about love and loss, rounds it out some more.”...
That first album ended up shattering our expectations. So, we wrote some more songs, we carried on for a good five years, one album a year, as per ENR’s specifications. We tried working together as a band, and we started out that way, but I eventually got too controlling and it left a sour taste in everypony’s mouth. Looking back on it now, I hate that I allowed myself to become so controlling and, honestly, I regret it.
Maybe if they gave out awards for regrets, I’d still be as famous now as I was then. But they don’t and I have to live with my mistakes, wondering why I even allowed my fame to take me over in the first place. I just wanted to have fun singing songs and writing with my friends, and it became so much more.
The next newspaper article, I hated reading. It’s an acute representation of exactly who I’d become, and I hated it.
Cash Money Announces Solo Album, ‘It’s Coming Very Soon’, He Maintains
Cash Money, former frontstallion of Cash Money and the Cashiers, announced a new solo album recently. He claims it’ll have 12 tracks of brand new material going in a bolder, new direction. A direction that the changing musical landscape is starting to encourage more and more.
The album, which Cash Money has said is going to be called An Unending Road is said to be a new Psychedelic concept album about the travels of a musician on the road. He has recently released the second single, aptly entitled All The Way Home, which has reached number 1 in all Equestrian magazines.
“My old band were just weighing me down, and preventing me from doing the stuff I wanted,” he had mentioned. “We couldn’t care less about each other, I’m going to absolutely demolish The Cashiers’ old career with this solo album. I’m finally free.”...
The album is framed right next to the newspaper article. The record is a beautiful purple and blue in the middle, I instantly know it’s inspired by The Beetles and their music and record design.
But still, I don’t like it. I did outsell the Cashiers alright, but I feel like everything that followed was an outburst of denial. I became a terrible pony, trying to convince myself that I didn’t care about my friends anymore. Now, most of them were gone, I didn’t have anypony to forgive.
An Unending Road served as a turning point, the point in which I stopped doing what I loved and starting doing what would make me the most money.
I wish that the Cashiers never broke up. The fact that I got wrapped up in controversy directly afterwards doesn’t help with that line of thought.
There’s a tabloid article hanging up a little bit onwards. A tabloid article.
Cash Money; Fiend of Ponykind?
Country/Psychedelic artist Cash Money has been discovered hooking up at The Princesses’ Cove with an old ex. Witnesses claim that Cash had one too many drinks, and slugged his current marefriend before kissing his old one passionately.
Exclamations ranged from “disgusting!” to cheerful hollers, ponies who were fans of that old ex in his life. Whatever happened to the two can be found on page 26.
It sounds outlandish, but it happened alright. In a drunken rage, I slugged my current marefriend at the time and kissed an old ex I had. Afterwards, we broke up. I denied caring about her at all, of course, in my constant state of denial, I denied caring about anypony.
But I know I was secretly heartbroken by it all on the inside, but I thought I knew that heartaches didn’t make one famous. One of the most covered songs of that era was Heartaches, but nobody could make a career of it outside of songs. I had to stay strong, or so I told myself.
I don’t know why I thought that way. I’d never seen evidence to the contrary, but I must’ve decided I had to tear myself apart to have other people put themselves back together.
I truly did tear myself apart, as evidenced by the next article I trotted to, shakily. An opinion piece, but part of my history anyways.
Squeaky Clean or Awfully Dirty? Cash Money and Hypocrisy
Country/Psychedelic artist Cash Money, best known for An Unending Road is a hypocrite, just like a not insignificant amount of ponies in this newfangled ‘Psychedelic Rock’ movement. They preach about love and tolerance, love your brother, sister, whatever, all that fancy mumbo-jumbo. Then they go right around and drink copious amounts of alcohol and start a bar brawl that results in several ponies being injured. Then they go right back into the studio and say to do no harm.
Case in point: Cash Money. After the release of his very popular recent album Change Will Come sporting the hit single A Revolution in Ink, he, shocker, drank copious amounts of alcohol and started a bar brawl.
He’s actually started several, ponies have said that Cash Money had been drinking heavily since An Unending Road and has frequented his old hangout. They say he’s drunk most of the time, and when he’s not, he’s hitting on some mare in the corner.
Then he asks us to believe A Revolution in Ink which has the lyrics
Try to take back the day
But don’t take it back with hate
Put up your pen and think
Write a revolution
In ink...
It seems so innocuous on the surface, just an old coot complaining about modern music at the time. To a point, it is. However he didn’t hate all the Psychedelic Rock, just mine (and a few others) in particular, because I was a bad pony, and I didn’t practice what I preached. He had nothing but unending praise for The Beetles and bands like them, because they at least tried to practice what they preached.
I was just cashing in on what was popular, and I saw a market in Psychedelic Rock. It also wasn’t some old coot either, he was a veteran songwriter and still very much in his prime. He was Diagonal Line, and he had written and recorded so many hits over the years. He was old now, but then, he wasn’t. He had written hits for incredible artists from even before my time, and one multiple occasions, his albums had knocked mine of the charts.
People took it to heart. They finally had enough of me, and I couldn’t blame them. The newspaper a little onwards was a reflection of my lowest point. The moment when it all finally caught up.
Cash Money Releases New Album ‘Built To Last’
Cash Money, best known for his Country and Psychedelic Rock songs, has released a new album within the last week. The album, Built to Last has, in a cruel ironic twist, underperformed. The new album, a pursuit of the brand new style of Rock dominating the charts, has been touted as a new sound that’ll fly off the shelves. Despite this, the lead single, Highway Stallion, peaked at 34, barely scraping the top 40. Even more so, the album underperformed, only selling a couple hundred thousand units, compared to the 2.5 million Cash Money had sold with The Classics, his last album.
The new album has also been critically panned, being shot down as a trendchasing album...
Built to Last was really my last bit of media coverage at the time. Nopony cared enough for me, I didn’t care for myself. I was drowning in a pit of sorrow, and drowning my sorrows regardless.
The record was a cheap trendchaser, it was written without any soul, even my manufactured, cocky soul. I was phoning it in and hoping it worked out, not noticing that my other albums had been selling to diminishing returns regardless.
I recorded two more albums after that, both of which were chasing the same trend that was popular at the time. Then, suddenly, my world fell apart. The denial I’d manufactured had gotten so strong that I finally broke. Nopony covered it, because I’d already shot myself in the hoof and made it so nopony wanted to.
I didn’t release any albums for years, this is reflected along the walls, where there are more and more articles asking where I was, and whatever happened to me. The articles gradually dry up, until there are none left for years on end.
I got older, I got remorseful, and I decided that I wanted to set the record straight. It takes the better part of fifteen years, but I finally see an article talking about my music again, not my controversy, but my music.
Cash Money to Release ‘Comeback Album’
Cash Money, who was incredibly famous decades ago for his Country and Psychedelic Rock songs, has finally started to leak the existence of a possible ‘comeback record’. Given that most listeners don’t know about him at all, in his own words, he’s conceded that it may be a gamble.
“I’ve decided that I wanted to tear down that old mask I had up,” the 55-year old stallion said. “I know nopony really knows about me anymore, but I wanted to just, to just take something I loved and get to loving it again. I haven’t loved making music for the last 25 or some-odd years, and I wanted to bring back that feeling and finally release what I’ve been holding inside.”
The album, which is said to be called Equestrian Recordings: A Collection of Folk Tunes and Other Oddities and will contain 15 tracks, 7 being original compositions, and 8 being covers, including a cover of The Cashiers’ hit ‘Celestia’s Ballad, of which he was the frontman...
I finally decided on setting the record straight. It turns out, however, that my reputation was harmed so much that I could only find one record label who gave me a shot, and that’s all I had with those last albums.
If I had simply been better, I might be a household legend, not simply one in the footnotes of musical history. Instead, nopony really knows my name. Everypony that does, they know me as a awful musician who can’t get his head on straight.
Due to what I’d done, I had to go through heartbreak, pain, and suffering. I wish I never broke up The Cashiers.
There’s one last newspaper article hanging up on the far end of the room. It was the final newspaper article I’d decided to collect of myself. I haven’t collected any since, because I just don’t see the benefit in it. My history is over, there’s no more history to collect.
Regardless, I take a look at the final article in the little room.
Cash Money Announces Retirement, “I Said All I Wanted to Say”
Cash Money has announced his retirement from music as a whole. He claims that the next album will be his last. It will be a double album with one record consisting of a collection of Folk tunes and newly written material, as with his last few albums. It will be newly-recorded just for this album.
However, the other record will consist of previously unreleased material from his heyday all the way until now. It will have songs by The Cashiers and Cash Money himself, all bundled up into one package.
“I think I really said all that I needed to say, my regrets, my life, the loves I’ve lost. I don’t really have any other song ideas in my head. I just want to finally make peace with myself, which I think I did,” he mentioned to us. “The albums are done, and there’s no point in continuing them.”...
That album was simply entitled Cash Money. There are no other newspaper articles hanging up. It’s simply a final succinct article about an album that about half a million ponies bought.
But still, I don’t quite know what I am to consider myself. I wanted fame, and I got fame, but that fame took me over and made me become somepony who I didn’t want to be. I was famous and I thought that was everything there was to it. I didn’t think about being a good pony, I thought I was by proxy.
But when I finally cracked, I truly broke. They didn’t give out prizes for realizing you’re a bad pony, they didn’t hand me a golden trophy that said, “Congratulations, you’re better now!” they just gave me nothing. They didn’t think I deserved anything, and it was up to me to realize that I wasn’t famous anymore because of what I’ve done.
However, fame is subjective. Some colt could’ve bought that last album and I became a famous pony in his mind. I didn’t have to be huge, I just had to be there, and somepony he could relate to.
I’m not a legend, not by any means, but that doesn’t mean I’m not famous. The ponies I’ve touched surely see me as a role-model, and that’s what I need to be. It’s what I need to be for my benefit as much as theirs.
I take a long look at the last single I ever released. The singled entitled (I’d Be) A Legend in My Time.
I sigh, and hope that to somepony, that’s true.
I stagger out of the little room, and turn off the light.
Author's Note
Wow, very rarely do my one-shot stories take me multiple days to write. Not to mention 3-4 hours across the days to write it all and come up with all of the lore and stuff.
This story was inspired by Johnny Cash’s amazing cover of Don Gibson’s A Legend in My Time. I wanted to write a story that I really wanted to capture the song and give Johnny Cash a good story inspired by him and written by me (yes, he died before I was born, but still).
I personally think I succeeded, because I want to write more and more about Cash Money and his entire career (as if the hefty word count (for me) wasn’t evidence enough). It’s taken a long time (also for me), but here it is.
Influences: This is Spinal Tap, Tangled Up in Blues, Johnny Cash’s A Legend in My Time cover.
And yes, I know that song genres aren’t technically supposed to be capitalized, I do it anyways because I want to and you can’t stop me.
