Lykke Li hasn’t released music since 2022, when she shared her album EYEYE and the one-off song “Possibility.” Today, she’s premiering a cover of Johnny Cash’s “Ring Of Fire” for the upcoming Netflix film Damsel directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo.

“To be honest, the only version I’ve ever heard in my whole life is the Johnny Cash version, so I had no real history,” the Swedish artist told Variety. “I just went into it pretty blank. I sat down at the piano and the first thing that came out of my mouth was what I recorded.”

She was asked to do the cover last year, following the birth of her second child in August. “I was in the baby phase, I wasn’t really doing anything,” she said. The song was recorded in one take with producer Andrew Sarlo. “You can feel that energy on the recording, so it’s a very important process for me to keep it live and keep the tension.”

She added that she was surprised to discover that “Ring Of Fire” had been written by June Carter Cash and Merle Kilgore, then originally released by June’s sister Anita Carter before Johnny Cash rerecorded it. She explained:

I was very inspired by June Carter. What I read was that she wrote this when they were both married to other people and she was like, shit, I’m about to fall in love and it’s going to blow up and ruin my life. But also there’s no other way. So there’s this haunting quality that it is to fall in love. It really is like stepping into a ring of fire. And then I think the beauty of the song, what I realized too when you break it down, is that Johnny Cash’s version has tempo and all of those other things. It’s him. It could even be a lullaby. But that goes for every great song. It’s a classic. Timeless.

Hear her take on “Ring Of Fire” below.