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Hurt
One of the best cover versions i know
- ScottyTM, Bonn, Deutschland, 30.10.2005
Johnny Cash
2002 |
vs. |
Nine Inch Nails
1995 |
| Click on the cover for listening |
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Click on the cover for listening |
Comments about Hurt:
Cash has turned the song into a ballad. just talking line after line making me more and more pissed off. NIN perform the song perfectly changing the vocals with the music and mood. Cash and his shit crackly monotone voice Fucked it.
- Shagga, Brisbane, Australia, 22.02.2007 |
NIN!!! I love Cash but, that album of covers is depressing. He sounded old, frail and dying (which he was). I perfer to remember him in his glory days. Kudos for picking great covers though.
- Badphish419, Atlanta, United States, 21.02.2007 |
Everything that JC did in the final years has a ring of authenticity in it that few, even the authors of the many songs which could be questioned (In My Life, Hurt, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, etc.) could muster. Johnny was an artist from the time when a previously released song wasn't considered a "cover" because the recording industry was young, and the music industry until just a few decades earlier was about sheet music, and therefore ABOUT interpretation. Many of his early covers (It Ain't Me, Babe, etc.) were crap because it was just a popular song, and he didn't have the depth or flexibility to pull it off. In his later years, he was so deep a presence that he could pull off even a trite and cynical song like "Personal Jesus" and make it sound like a weathered old hynm... because to Johnny Cash, it was. He picked songs that he could apply Johnny Cash to, and therefore brought his history, personality and depth to.
As far as the criticism about the lyric change, "crown of thorns" is not just a Christ reference. It is a personal tweaking of the self-loathing tone of the original lyric. It does not suggest sophomoric (and dare I say it EMO-ish) wallowing in your own filth, but suggests a more profound self-punishment combined with actual justice for wrongs done. The piercing of a hundred thorns also rhymes strongly with the hundred track-marks of the heroin addict, and to me is a brilliant revision.
Finally as a personal preference, the building guitar drone in the NiN version seems to be a reference to the Velvet Underground's "Heroin" which is not only appropriate, but the effect in both songs annoys the hell out of me and makes both nearly unlistenable.
- entre nous, denver, United States, 09.02.2007 |
Can you say "Elvis"? Can you say "Beatles"? Okay now, let's all say... "Johnny Cash".
Don't compare these guys to Johnny Cash.
- David, Grapevine TX, United States, 04.02.2007 |
its gay lol...
- ricky, sayre ok, United States, 12.01.2007 |
The song itself is packed full of emotion, I just prefer the hear Johnny Cash sing it. Very powerful song. I heard the guy from Bauhaus do it with Reznor and it was incredible as well
- Martin, Atlanta, United States, 25.12.2006 |
I love both versions of the song. BUT. As much as this will "hurt" me to say this, as I love NIN, I have to give it to the Man in Black -- raw emotion and pain. However, I do not like the change in lyrics (crown of thorns instead of crown of shit).
- Todd B., Buffalo, NY, United States, 12.12.2006 |
I prefer Johnny Cash's version far better, from both a historical and aesthetic viewpoint.
Both Cash and Reznor were addicted to drugs and alcohol, had depression, and trauma from the death of a loved one but at different times. This song was written during Reznor's suffering and he deserves praise for writing a moving and near-perfect song, but Cash's recording has far more suffering etched into it.
Cash was born in 1932 and worked in the cotton fields as a youth. One of the greatest influences on him was the death of his older brother Jack in 1944. His brother was pulled into the table saw at a high school and was almost cut in half. It took Jack a week to die. Remember that Cash would be 12 at the time.
For pretty much the entire 60s and 70s, Cash was addicted to alcohol, benzedrines, and amphetamines. His drug addiction led to the divorce of his first wife. His second wife helped him face his drug addiction.
In 1983 he was kicked in the stomach by an ostrich on his farm breaking five ribs. He then got addicted to the morphine he was given. It was another three years to get rid of that addiction.
In 1997 he was diagnosed with autonomic neuropathy and diabetes. In 2002 he recorded and released Hurt at the age of 70 and after many years of pain.
- Kirby, Belleville, Canada, 11.12.2006 |
Amy, for your comments you should be raped , killed, and brought
back for an encore you moron
- Tom, New York, United States, 09.12.2006 |
Johnny Cash deserves to be brought back to life and then killed again in the more "hurt"ful way. Yes, I *loathe* Mr.Cash with a burning passion of a thousand fires. :)
NIN all the way \m/
- Amy, Saskatoon, Canada, 08.12.2006 |
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