Review
Genre and Mood
Johnny Cash was a country singer, and Hurt is a song from a different world: Trent Reznor wrote it for Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral in 1994. Cash’s cover keeps every word and changes almost everything else. Haunting and melancholic is this page’s reading of a recording that a 2014 BBC poll voted the second greatest cover of all time.
Song Summary
Hurt refers to self-harm and heroin addiction, and its meaning is disputed; Reznor said he wrote it in his bedroom about a bleak and desperate place, totally isolated and alone. Cash recorded it in 2002 for American IV: The Man Comes Around, the last album released in his lifetime, produced by Rick Rubin. Like most of the album it is a cover sung in what Wikipedia calls Cash’s own sparse style: Mike Campbell plays acoustic guitar, Smokey Hormel guitar, and Benmont Tench piano, organ and Mellotron.
Musical Breakdown
No source walks through the recording part by part, so this breakdown follows the players the credits name rather than a map of the song.
Intro
Listen for what comes first, and for how little there is around Cash’s voice when it enters.
Main Section
Cash was ill while the album was made and had lost most of his sight; the sessions were interrupted by hospital stays. Listen for how the voice carries the words, and for when Tench’s piano and organ come in.
Outro
Listen for where the song leaves you at the end, and how the last lines sound from a man near the end of his life.
Concepts in Focus
Hurt is a lesson in the cover version as transformation. Reznor first worried that the idea sounded “a bit gimmicky”, and when the recording arrived he found it strange to hear such a familiar voice sing words straight from his own soul. Hear another cover that carries a song into a different genre in Ane Brun – Big In Japan.
What changed his mind was the music video. Mark Romanek filmed it in February 2003 at Cash’s home and the closed House of Cash museum in Nashville, setting images of his youth against decaying fruit and flowers in the manner of vanitas paintings. Cash’s wife June Carter Cash, seen gazing at him, died in May; Cash died on 12 September 2003. After watching it, Reznor said: “that song isn’t mine any more.”
Artistic Context
American IV was the fourth of the American albums Cash made with Rubin, and it won Album of the Year at the 2003 CMA Awards. Romanek said Cash called Hurt the best anti-drug song he had ever heard, and that the sadness in the video was genuine.
Impact and Reception
Hurt won the CMA award for Single of the Year in 2003, and its video won the Grammy for Best Short Form Music Video in 2004; NME named it the greatest video of all time. Listen once, then watch the video, and hear the song change again.
