Blogocentric Formulations

Hurt

** Image ID #2009874 Unavailable **

Song: "Hurt"
Original: Nine Inch Nails
Cover: Johnny Cash


I actually like the Nine Inch Nails version of this song better, but I had to include it because, well, how often do you have an iconic country crooner covering an industrial metal band rather than the other way around? Trent Reznor wrote this haunting song for 1994's the Downward Spiral, and barely missed out on a Best Rock Song Grammy (lost to Alanis Morissette's "You Oughta Know"). And even though I love the Nine Inch Nails version of the song, you can't deny that there's something extra haunting about the way Johnny Cash performs it, particularly knowing that it's one of the last hits Johnny Cash had before he died.

The song has been interpreted a number of ways and although there are clear references to self-harm and heroin addiction, audiences seem split over whether the song is intended as a suicide note written by the album's protagonist who suffers from depression, or about the difficult process of finding a reason to live in spite of depression and pain. You gotta love a song that can make people literally take opposite and equally valid interpretations away from a listening experience.