Hurt - by Johnny Cash
In my work as therapist, I’ve often referred to this song for clients suffer from issues related to substance abuse, violence, and depression can play in their lives. It is also a way to help connect with some adolescents. Last night as a meeting with an adolescent, we talked about who wrote this song and that struck my interest somewhat. I said it was written by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, but that I preferred the Johnny Cash version and the video for Cash’s version.I was thinking about it and so I looked the video up this morning to watch again. Check out this video. Johnny Cash’s Hurt.
My response to the video was one of respect and admiration for Cash’s openness and honestly regarding the fame and fortune that he had attained in life, but when the end of life nears there are some things that matter more than the money, fame, records. He refers to his love of June Cash, who had died just prior to their deaths the following year. He loved her so much. Johnny died 3 months following June’s death in 2003. We loved the movie “Walk the Line” with Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix. I just read that their home that they lived in for over 20 years, which was being renovated by Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees, burned down. Hurt was filmed there.
I also read this about Trent Reznor’s response to the video by Johnny Cash. I thought it was cool.In an interview with Alternative Press, Reznor admitted that when Rubin first asked if Cash could cover his song, he was “flattered” but worried that “the idea sounded a bit gimmicky.” The power of Cash’s cover didn’t fully hit Reznor until he saw the video:
“I pop the video in, and wow… Tears welling, silence, goose-bumps… Wow. I just lost my girlfriend, because that song isn’t mine anymore… It really made me think about how powerful music is as a medium and art form. I wrote some words and music in my bedroom as a way of staying sane, about a bleak and desperate place I was in, totally isolated and alone. [Somehow] that winds up reinterpreted by a music legend from a radically different era/genre and still retains sincerity and meaning—different, but every bit as pure.”
See Trent Reznor’s version here.
