Therapist Reacts to Closer by Nine Inch Nails 

The whole Downward Spiral album is amazing. It tells a story and should be listened to in its entirety.

On a serious note though. He was stating that he has to do these things to escape his depression. And even though after is degrading, but while he is in it he is perfect. So the song is a cycle.

the quiet lyrics at the end... Through every forest Above the trees Within my stomach Scraped off my knees I drink the honey Inside your hive You are the reason I stay alive

The entire Album Pretty Hate machine is a masterpiece in ultra depressive episodes!

Trent is a genius. He has and keeps saving me since 1989. Help me get away from my horrible struggles. Masterpiece. Fun fact he wasn’t going to put this in the record. ❤More NIN please!!!!

NiN is great for this channel’s subject matter. It’s important to understand the context of the album “The Downward Spiral” which this song is in, it tells the story of a man slowly devolving into insanity and eventually doing something irreversible. At this point in the man’s journey he is trying to escape his problems by turning to… what is talked about in this song

Every Day Is Exactly The Same holds a lot of meaning for me. Love Now NIN!

NIN- something I can never have (STILL)

So pumped you reacted to an NIN song! Trent Reznor, thru his music, helped me tremendously in my 20's and basically to this day understand what I was feeling and how to deal with it without ending me. Closer is a good song, but give "Gave Up", "Wish" or "Terrible Lie" to name a few a try.

I've always found how people react to this song to be interesting. Good on ya for putting a positive spin on it.

Nine inch nails - lights in the sky. Thanks for the video!

3:19 - editor is wise. 😂

Good point on noting the Help me cry. Downward spiral is a great album - as the title tells - its a downward fall of a man, whos struggling in life. Album ending with the song Hurt, which is covered by Johnny Cash. You have probably heard that one.

I love how this song has a STRONG sexy vibe.

I've been listening to this song for 30 years and you've had the most insightful response I've ever heard to it and the most accurate. Wow

You absolutely nailed the theme here. This is about feeding an alter ego and putting your pain into (ew) someone else. The act in this song is closer to an expression of violence than love. The imagery of traditionally disgusting things being sexualised is confronting (the carcass being oddly yonic, the eel being phallic, the bound monkey, the lizards and birth etc). It mocks and even completely misunderstands something "sexy". Then there is the sounds... Heavy synth and bass that resembles a pulse drowning out tragic piano that finally breaks through at the end. In fact this whole album is a beast and helped me through the darkest of my days. The algorithm may not permit but this album from start to finish is amazing and tells the story of a depressed man creating an alter ego, succumbing to addiction and self loathing. Definitely check out the closing track "Hurt" if nothing else

I love the little piano piece at the end. I remember listening to this as a kid in elementary school.

oh that was a nice suprise. would like to see more Manson and NIN here! 😊

Whoever is analyzing the data of us for you to keep keeping it engaged to this content is the real winner, thxs dr we need more of these

Thank you. Your perspective/commentary is therapy for me and helps me learn more about myself and others. You are one of the only people that I actually listen to and enjoy hearing your reaction commentary.

It would be nice to react to the whole album The Downward Spiral.

@HeartSupport Other NIN songs to looks at my favorite of all time and most applicable to you. "The Big Come Down" The Fragile, "Right where it Belongs" (With Teeth) for existential crisis, "Becoming" (Downward Spiral), "Mr. Self Distruct" (Downward Spiral), "Gave Up" (Broken) your gonna need lyrics but it is a messed up song, "Something I Can Never Have".

Thank you for doing this! I love these videos! This is extremely helpful in my own maze of life.

Ohh girl, I love how you got it right away, most of the time people just get shocked by the lyrics. You should listen to the whole album! I'd love to hear your therapist perspective on such a dark and intimate album.

NIN - All The Love In The World

I was seriously watching your channel yesterday and looking if you had made one on closer. And here we are!

Very good analysis!You totally get the meaning of the song, wich sadly , many other reactors don't!The song comes from a concept album that describes the complete downfall of soul.I really think an complete album analysis of 'The downward Spiral' would not only perfectly fit into this channel,you also would love the musical artistry and the very well written lyrics of it! It's nothing less than a masterpiece!

Seriously solid take. I’m so glad I found you on here. I’ve seen NIN in concert 7 times it is amazing. Now with kids I’m shocked we used to listen to this on the radio. It’s wild

One of the best concerts I have been to was Nine David Inch Bowie Nails. They did both of their individual sets. Then did some songs together. Friggin awesome!

Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll. I've done all 3. The whole "escaping myself" feeling is very, very real. When I had that rush on stage, when I sniffed a line, when I got with a woman, I'm not me for a while, I'm my own ideally perceived version of myself. A short while when I didn't need to be me. I was someone else. I acted different, talked different, moved differently. I was someone else.

I’ve enjoyed these videos and music breakdowns. Feel like some Pearl Jam would be relatable to people as well, rearview mirror, in my tree, and deep are a few tracks that come to mind. Thank you for doing these and I do believe this does help people out there either dealing with or folks that have overcome and help inspire them to help others and spread positivity, through the power of music.

You’re so great at this!

Well this should be interesting never saw this reaction coming,😂 I understand its sort of seemingly taboo song but artistically I kind of like the raw kind of slightly disgusting way this song makes me feel, it's got a great sound

I swear I wish I could make those faces you make so freaking cut! Thank you for what you do.

I hope you do more Nine Inch Nails, not just the popular stuff, but the rest. The lyrics get dark, deep, and honestly very relatable to a lot of people.

I've heard this song a million times and never thought about it like you explained. Wow. Thanks! ❤

Taylor, you're a genius! Great reaction to this video. You're also a feast for the eyes. May you have a great week!

The fact that this video comes up right under the video for the song tells you everything you need to know about this song.

"No one tell her about Broken" had me literally laughing out loud 🤣😭💀

I remember the day this was released... the music world went momentarily awestruck and then the all the discussions.

Everyone need a bad ass therapist like you .

Trent was destroying himself with his addictions around this time iirc. The "help me" bit links in with many of the other tracks on the album... he became friends with Bowie around this time, and Bowie tried to help him off his drugs. Bowie went through the same spiral in the 70s.

The entire album is a masterpiece, I would love to see more from it.

The song is pretty straightforward and uncomplicated: it's simply about a guy with low self-esteem in a sexual relationship of some sort with someone, and uses it as an escape instead of dealing with his issues, at the expense of others. Also, this is the edited video because the unedited is filled with nudity and drawings of genitalia.

This man has always been well ahead of the curve, Legend

I dont know if you have reacted to the amity affliction- drag the lake but id love to see your reaction to it. It hits me hard emotionally and you go so deep into the lyrics and in this case the video clip as well

Another NIN music video that's interesting from a psychological perspective is the music video for Burn which was recorded for the soundtrack of Natural Born Killers.

I wish other nin songs would get requested for these videos. Songs like "right where it belongs" " the great below" "every day is exactly the same" and "something i can never have" would do more to get people interested in Mr. Reznors music than the harder favorites like "closer" or "wish". It can be a bit much for some at first.

And now he's doing soundtracks for Disney movies. Love NIN.

Pleeeease do more Nine Inch Nails!!!!!🖤🖤🖤

Cant believe someone so easily impressionable is a therapist😂

One of the best songs to watch certain, athletic, women, dance to while tackling a pole obstacle....

Thank you 🙏🏻💜

Also I’m a Trent OBSESSED with nine inch nails fan, and the live version of this with the “ Within the forest, above the trees, you are the honey inside your hive, you are the reason I STAY ALIVEEEEEEEEEEE” anyone who’s seen Trent live knows what I’m saying 🤘

This video was shot on a vintage camera with vintage celluloid at the time, given to Reznor as a gift. The image rotation/flipping is a real mechanism on the front of the camera, being moved by someone's hand on the spot.

I love your reactions, they feel so genuine. I would have originally not liked this song but your explanation actually makes the song more relateable. Although I am not a particular fan of it, I am not hating it. The lyrics are deeper than the vibe the video gives. If you read this, could you react to Citizen Soldier - "This Is Your Sign"? I think you would have a lot to say about it too. Although I wish I could help others, I am still not in a good place myself. A lot of shit has happened to me. But I know that others out there have it worse. I know I am not supposed to feel that way but I do. I know my situation could have been worse. However, that does not make it any better. It makes me feel weak. And I feel so disappointed in myself that I am the way I am compared to what my mother went through. She had it far worse than me but she pulled through. Although she has some issues still remaining, she pushed through it and became a woman I truly admire. However, I am also disappointed of the way she acted when something happened to me. I felt no one around me exept my mother's friend who came to visit saw straight through me and knew that something was wrong. Although I wasn't close to her than I wanted to be, she was able to tell when no one else in my family could. I am still affected by the way my mom handled the situation. I can no longer open up to her about what I am going through, and it hurts cause she used to be my rock. Right now, all that is keeping me here is my fur babies and the music I have discovered. I have so many problems that I can't fix alone with effort. There is a band that has helped me let off steam or relate to. I discovered it last year and every time they post a new song, I have to listen to it. The band is called Citizen Soldier. The singer is a therapist, who attempted suicide but was reborn in 2016. I love that his songs, even if they have no correlation to me, feel so relateable. One of my favorite songs of theirs is "This Is Your Sign". This was the song that was able to make me cry when I thought I couldn't. And now every song I have listened to has gave me emotions I thought were long dead. If anyone needs a good song to listen to I would highly recommend this song. Not only that, I would highly recommend sharing it with others as the message in this song can bring someone from the edge.

Great analysis of this song! A LOT (if not most) people totally miss the point of it! … another GREAT song from this era (mid 90’s) that touches on this topic of “excess to escape the self” is TOOL’s “Stinkfist” , highly recommend it!!!

5:23 everybodys face when the little girl pops up 😂 always hilarious

This is one of my favorite reviews of this song because you actually got the message. Everyone else who does this just thinks it's a sex song or this man is a pervert, and its annoying. So thank you very much for this good review.

I would really love for her to make a video reacting to the video of Corey Taylor doing a therapy session with Siri Sat Nam Singh

Well explained!

Oh man the amount of emotion in the lyrics and imagery in so many of his works. Please do "Something I can never have" for more emotion from NIN

That’s always been the message

This song is so relatable as a recovered dating site addict and a porn addict that is slowly harming reducing to hopefully one day being completely sober of it.

I used to dance to this in clubs when it came out.🔥

Please do Thoughtless by Korn. *This is going to be long but please bear with me as today was a hell of a stumbling block. * Everyone likes to think they had it rough growing up. Imagine you discover it was even worse than you remember or knew..... Today I met up with a guy that graduated with me and wound up in the same industry as I am now. We both came from the same crappy tiny rural Ohio farm school in late the 1990's. Again were from the same class of 70 kids that year, So it was great to see him and this is about as close to a class reunion I ever intend to ever have since school alone left me with some severe deep issues/trauma. It was great to see him, but he gave me insight I didnt have back then.... (foreshadowing here) So take the video you did for "falling away" and you more or less had my homelife only there was no savior coming out of a magical box to save me. Add thoughtless and you got an almost complete picture of more than half my life. My father was an alcoholic and emotionally, physically abusive. Even more so when I was younger (say age 5-10). My older Brother is autistic up to the point of almost non-functioning, but at the time no one knew what the problem was so he got targeted for being weird. My sister (oldest in the family) pushed back against my father as much as she could to the point of being self destructive in her rebelliousness. Had a bit of a reputation in my school for a LOT of things to say the least. Myself, I had deep and severe anger issues that I didn't get actual control over till I was 14. Just after my parents divorce (mother just left in the night and left me and my brother with my father), I was put in special ed classes. Specific ones for kids with violent tempers. They tried but putting 7 kids with anger issues and broken homes in the same classroom was about as violent of an environment one could ask for. The beatings and verbal assaults I received pretty much broke any spirit I had and in turn I stopped fighting with the kids (again at 14) (not a bully mind you, just super high strung and raised in a violent home) Because of my siblings reputation and being a non-religious household in an town of 1200 people and 8 churches. I was already pushed out by the community before I was even old enough to know what or why anyone reacted to me the way they did. (when not in school) So i stayed by myself a lot (not that being grounded for 2 years straight changed any of that), add too being in a home 5 miles outside of that tiny town.... Lets just say I only went into town to go to the library. I never properly developed social skills like the other kids due to the combination of circumstances. Self esteem was destroyed. The beatings, social belittling, and isolation.... well I thought I just deserved it for getting into so many fights years before. Like it was karmic debt. So I went from the meanest bastard on the bus to the whipping boy for more or less, my home (especially after my siblings moved out), my town, and my school. I lived with so much guilt for what I had done before. So much self hate. Oh and a twofaced manipulative neurotic stepmother who just wished I went away so she could have her quiet life of her and my dad together and be burdened with with one more kid she couldn't control. See my stepmother had a son that was the golden child. He was a lying, stealing, unmoral AF asshole who was just really good at being charming. So he got attention, help, support and money. I got almost kicked out at 18 after my father and I's last fight. It was something stupid my stepmother over reacted on and had a half understanding of things (details are unimportant as it would make this miles long in text) So we fight, my dad hears us fighting. Come out and starts into me. I knew this would just end with me being told to go to my room, so I was like "This is pointless, ill just go there before they tell me to anyway) I turn around and my father kicks me in the small of my back, sending me down the hallway and onto my face. I threatened to shoot him if he raised his hand to me again. Proceeds to slap me hard enough that it bloodied my nose. I just stared him down. That night it was settled that me and him were not going to talk to each other until I graduated. The weekend of my graduation was the last real time I tried to hug my father. Im in my 40's now. I was a ticking timebomb of rage. The only thing that kept me from going out in "The blaze of glory" was Columbine happened. More or less they beat me too the punch. Also lent me some perspective of what I was about to do at that point. Pulled me back from the edge some. School members all knew it and almost expelled me out of fear with only months to go from graduation. Funny how no one tried to talk to me about anything. Then again, shit was so common I thought that any of the non-prepy kids lived like I did. Didnt know that anything was wrong as I was too young to have perspective or life experience to tell me otherwise. Never fell into drugs or drinking as I never wanted to be anything like my father. So I was cut loose into the world with no support, no community, no real family ( sis moved out of state and my brother has no idea how to make meaningful connections with anyone), I became a work-a-holic and literally tried to kill myself by trying to work to death. No fun nights at bars, no chasing girls, no close friends, no reckless shit. Just a factory job in a dead end city with no hopes of leaving. This is more or less my life from 5 to 28. Every time I try to talk to anyone who knew me from back then (my sister, cousins, my friend from Highschool).... they give me details that I had missed at the time. Each time that happens, a part of my brain rips open a memory. So back to meeting one of my old classmates. He gave me his perspective what I was like back then. It was worse than I remembered as i had over time unintentionally walled off a lot of it. This guy, this kid I called friend.... he tells me I didnt deserve what I got back then. From the school, from how teachers reacted to me. I was hated by facualty and had no idea. I was in survival mode and paid no mind to small things like that. When pretty much people talking, treating you with distain.... it becomes so normal that you dont even realize it. Well all of that shit just hit me in the head today. It was easier to put the past to rest when I thought it was somehow my fault. Helped it all make sense why things went as rough as it had. Now I understand.... there was no reason. They were just cruel and classist. I cant feel more lost and alone than I do now. It just made my suffering pointless and without meaning. Took it from something I overcame to being violated by an entire town. From a story of reform to just being a victim of a broken small town. Not sure if anyone has described that mental pain before. But in my head its the emotional equivalent to scraping metal. It hurts... im hurting and I cant reconcile this... The song lets me find some catharsis. Please, Thoughtless by Korn.

Trent Reznor is an artist. Downward Spiral is a badass album. Recently, he's even done the music for a few movies. Since you are a therapist, I'd love to hear your opinion of Love Hate Love by Alice in Chains.

If you ever get a chance to see a live NiN show, GO! Trent is a genius at his stage shows!

You can never go wrong with more NIN

One of these days I'll find your donation page and send you a request. It's for a song by mudvayne called severed. It is so deep lyrically

3:50 compulsion This was an insane album listening as a 16 year old, went to the tour in 1994. The last album, Pretty Hate Machine is an industrial masterpiece in my book

I don't think I have ever watched this video all the way through before; maybe a long time ago. After paying attention to the imagery, it makes me wonder if Dir En Grey was inspired by this when they made the video for their song "Obscure". (THAT video is basically a four minute horror movie.)

Hello, this song is part of a concept album called The Downward Spiral and it is the fifth song. It would be interesting if you listened to it in full.

She's the best

Also the grotesque lyrics, are kind of a double entendre, while it is something some pervert would say, its also the narrator describing himself with animalistic characteristics, he hates himself so much that doesn’t even see himself as human.

this was my got to work song when i worked at a factory , i hard to get mentally ready for some shit

I love nin! Tool and them were going to make a supergroup together but it didnt work out sadly. I would love for to react to hurt by them.

Help me. Everyone is in pain.

You should do Stone The Crow by Down

I learnt the hard way on how to hear the Help Me, but now, it's deafening at times

Imo the fan made video with sepia-tinted Star Trek footage (Spock/Kirk slash heh) captures the feeling even better than the OMV.

NIN...Trent Reznor is a different kind of beast. There's a HUGE rabbit hole to go down with Nine Inch Nails. Can't wait to see more.

I love evanescence I think it would be awesome if you would analyze one of their songs.

My fav band .... Hope you do more , burn and the entire broken ep are great picks next , maybe heresy , the becoming , ruiner and eraser off of TheDownwardSpiral Terrible lie , down in it , something I can never have , and head like a hole off of Pretty Hate Machine Off the FRAGILE I would highly recommend , somewhat damaged , the frail/the wretched and Into the great below are all excellent choices , looking forward to more NIN , Trent has stated multiple times he really does not like playing Closer as it's his most commercial hit.. Thanks for reading have a good day

I have been looking toward to you finding your way to Nine Inch Nails, to the artist whose nickname is “Mr Self-destruct”. I understand that you will probably do some of the bigger songs numbers (eg “Hurt”, Head Like a Hole”, Everyday is the Same), but I am hoping that you will also look at some of the softer songs that don’t get as much attention (eg … and all that could have been”).

Yeay Doctor Taylor! 👍😃🎉🎉

You did a great job of hearing this song for what it is. The only issue is that this one song is one part of The Downward Spiral. The Discography it is can't trully be appreciated one song at a time. You may do a number of songs from this album before someone convinces you to listen to the CD/Album from start to finish. There is an entire story that gets told and each song literally meshes into the next one brilliantly. If you don't hear it that way you don't know the full story behind each song you hear as you hear it. Could be a fun experiment for you though, listen to each song individually first....THAN listen to the whole album in order to see if it changes your view of it.

2:16 yes. Very very very relatable

The video expresses some similar themes. It's nightmare imagery, but lucid nightmare: The kind of nightmare where there's a compelling logic and symmetry to things rather than raw chaos.

Marion county rep love this as a musician I have been influenced by Trent reznor since well my entire life look up pigface man they are awesome to hear was a member also along with Edsel dope

You should react to “I’m Sorry” by Joyner Lucas.

Listen to NIN version of Hurt, then Johnny Cash back to back. Trent said that Johnny took ownership of the song after hearing his cover.

You’re the best

Hurt would be interesting to see you take apart. Both the NIN and Johnny Cash versions. I feel they tell almost 2 different stories.

These are always so good. Cannot wait until we go down the Falling in Reverse rabbit hole. Popular Monster seems like a good start.

So many art references in this video

yes! this song isn’t about sex. it’s about desperation. finally someone gets it.

You need to listen to the entire album because each song is an intro to the next one

Trent is special ... saludos from latinamerica.

The way it was described to me in a session was when someone is screaming at another what the yeller is actually doing is yelling at themselves. They’re mad at themselves & take their frustrations out on other people. aka bullying