"Rusty Cage" was covered by Johnny Cash on the 1996 album, "Unchained", which won a Grammy Award for Best Country Album, and Cash's version earned him a Grammy nomination for Best Male Country Vocal Performance. During at least three live performances by Soundgarden (July 21, 1996, in Knoxville, Tennessee, at Forks In The River, early November 1996 at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, Illinois, and at Soundgarden's last pre-breakup show at the Blaisdell Arena, Honolulu, Hawaii, on February 9, 1997), Cornell introduced the song with a dedication to Cash. On Cornell's "Higher Truth" acoustic tour in late 2015, he started including "Rusty Cage" in the set-list, employing Cash's country-rock arrangement of the song.