By all logic, this should not have worked.
I read about this cover before I ever heard about it. Just reading the words in the order they were presented forced my mind to wrap itself around a pairing so incongruous and unlikely that I had no idea how it would sound. Turned out I was making a mountain out of a mole hill - it sounded fantastic and natural. While yesterday's cover coverage was about improving on a flawed song, today's subject is about simply making the song yours. In this case, Trent Reznor ceded his old, wounded ballad 'Hurt' to the dying Johnny Cash, after the Man In Black made his mark on the harrowing song.
I still struggle to listen to Cash singing this song without being reduced to tears. His inflection, his weariness and resignation in the face of the world are so heartbreaking and beautiful that I can hardly stand to hear it. The video for the song only makes it harder, seeing the legend past his prime, a fading specter of the once-vibrant force that gave the middle finger to the world in his younger days. At its most affecting and personal moments, it's a stark reminder that all good things must come to an end, that we all go eventually. At its most serene its a song that reminds us that we take our lives for granted, that people are seeing their own lives fade before their eyes every day while we complain about spotty Wifi or bad traffic.
Hard to beleive I get this grandiose and self-indulgent emotional roller-coaster from a Nine Inch Nails song. I always enjoyed Reznor's iteration of the final track on The Downward Spiral, though more so from the quiet and contemplative nature of the song in light of the more combative and unsettling sounds surrounding it. As a conceptual coda I loved 'Hurt', although I understood it to be a step outside of his wheelhouse at the time. It was haunting and beautiful, if bleak and overly dramatic.
When Cash covered the song for his album American IV, the last of his series of standards and covers before his passing, the world of pop music (and music in general) sat up and took notice. This was something rare, something worth paying attention to. What could have been 'a gimmick' (as Reznor worried) became something astounding. Cash transformed the song into something larger than the original artist could have hoped; he added layers and layers of life, the years and experiences of Cash painting the song in new light. What had previously been a denoumount to a dark concept album became an achingly gorgeous letter to a world that was slipping out of Cash's grip.
I can't even make it through the song now, as I write this. It's too much. It's nice to know such significant moments like this can happen in my life, but at times it seems like to much to deal with, as though moments of such personal and human relevance are so rare as to be jarring. Listen, please, if you can. It's every bit as wonderful as it's told to be, and more.
I read about this cover before I ever heard about it. Just reading the words in the order they were presented forced my mind to wrap itself around a pairing so incongruous and unlikely that I had no idea how it would sound. Turned out I was making a mountain out of a mole hill - it sounded fantastic and natural. While yesterday's cover coverage was about improving on a flawed song, today's subject is about simply making the song yours. In this case, Trent Reznor ceded his old, wounded ballad 'Hurt' to the dying Johnny Cash, after the Man In Black made his mark on the harrowing song.
