A couple of days late...
Johnny Cash
26 Feb 1932 to 12 Sept 2003
RIP Man in Black - I wish I could have met you
I hurt myself today
to see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
the only thing that's real
the needle tears a hole
the old familiar sting
try to kill it all away
but I remember everything
what have I become?
my sweetest friend
everyone I know
goes away in the end
and you could have it all
my empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
I wear this crown of thorns
upon my liar's chair
full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
beneath the stains of time
the feelings disappear
you are someone else
I am still right here
what have I become?
my sweetest friend
everyone I know
goes away in the end
and you could have it all
my empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
if I could start again
a million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way
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.[2]”
Reznor still occasionally refers to "Hurt" as "a song that isn't mine anymore."
***********
I cry every time I watch the video. I also have a bootleg of Johnny's final performance (after June had passed) - a very emotional show to listen to.
26 Feb 1932 to 12 Sept 2003
RIP Man in Black - I wish I could have met you
I hurt myself today
to see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
the only thing that's real
the needle tears a hole
the old familiar sting
try to kill it all away
but I remember everything
what have I become?
my sweetest friend
everyone I know
goes away in the end
and you could have it all
my empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
I wear this crown of thorns
upon my liar's chair
full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
beneath the stains of time
the feelings disappear
you are someone else
I am still right here
what have I become?
my sweetest friend
everyone I know
goes away in the end
and you could have it all
my empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
if I could start again
a million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way
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.[2]”
Reznor still occasionally refers to "Hurt" as "a song that isn't mine anymore."
***********
I cry every time I watch the video. I also have a bootleg of Johnny's final performance (after June had passed) - a very emotional show to listen to.