Despite his fame, Cash and Queen Elizabeth II had never met . But she occupied a powerful place in his oneiric landscape, just as she did for countless others worldwide. Craig Brown’s book, Q: A Voyage Around the Queen , details many people’s dreams of her, ranging from the banal to the erotic.

One night, the queen of England came to Johnny Cash in a dream. “Johnny Cash! You’re like a thorn tree in a whirlwind,” she remarked . When he awoke, the phrase stuck with him, and over the next seven years, he turned it into his apocalyptic song , “The Man Comes Around.”

One night, the queen of England came to Johnny Cash in a dream. “Johnny Cash! You’re like a thorn tree in a whirlwind,” she remarked. When he awoke, the phrase stuck with him, and over the next seven years, he turned it into his apocalyptic song, “The Man Comes Around.” The book cover for Q: A Voyage Around the Qeen by Craig Brown.

Despite his fame, Cash and Queen Elizabeth II had never met. But she occupied a powerful place in his oneiric landscape, just as she did for countless others worldwide. Craig Brown’s book, Q: A Voyage Around the Queen, details many people’s dreams of her, ranging from the banal to the erotic.

It’s one of the ways that Brown approaches a legendarily difficult subject to write about. In the past decade or so, Brown, one of Britain’s finest satirists, has taken his eye for the absurd and started applying it to biography. That includes a book on the chaotic life of the queen’s sister, Princess Margaret, which mixes might-have-beens, dissection of rumors, parody, and anecdote.

Margaret provided a wealth of material. But while most of her sister’s life had been lived in public, Elizabeth herself was professionally boring.