When Johnny Cash sings Hurt, the song connects with you at a spiritual level. I can't help but cry every time I hear it especially when I watch the video.
Getting old sucks just being honest totally get what JC is talking about. Health goes, what looks you had go, You gain life experience only highlights the poor decisions you made at a younger age. He had lot to be proud of most of us live in a 9-5 50 hour week job for 30 years life becomes a blur of time wonder what happend to the last 10, 20 years can't even remember one year from another.
""Trent Reznor says about the Cash version of Hurt: "I'd been friends with Rick Rubin for several years. He called me to ask how I'd feel if Johnny Cash covered Hurt. I said I'd be very flattered but was given no indication it would actually be recorded. The idea sounded a bit gimmicky. Two weeks went by. Then I got a CD in the post. I listened to it and it was very strange. It was this other person inhabiting my most personal song. I'd known where I was when I wrote it. I know what I was thinking about. I know how I felt. Hearing it was like someone kissing your girlfriend. It felt invasive". Johnny played this song over 100 times before he recorded it. He called it "The best anti-drug song I ever heard." The song was released as a single in 2003. "One Hour Photo" director Mark Romanek said: “I begged Rick Rubin to let me shoot something to that track” being instantly enamored of the rendition, he offered to shoot the video for free. Universal eventually agreed to the music video, but with 71-year-old Cash’s health declining and being unwilling to stay long in the cold Tennessee weather as he was going on holiday to his ranch in Jamaica that coming Saturday, Romanek had only days to make the video and after scouting in Nashville, he decided upon Cash’s home and museum in Hendersonville, Tennessee, The House of Cash. "Arriving on Friday with no idea of what I was going to make" Romanek said. "I looked around the house and made a few suggestions of where we might film Johnny performing. I was making it up off the top of my head. Then I went to the House of Cash Museum and found it in total disrepair. There was no time to clean it up so I decided that I'd just film it, and Johnny, exactly as they were. He was no longer in his prime - he was fading and that was what I wanted to show. The place was in such a state of dereliction. That’s when I got the idea that maybe we could be extremely candid about the state of Johnny’s health - as candid as Johnny has always been in his songs. While I was filming the opening segment of Johnny playing guitar in his living room, his wife, June, came down the stairs and watched. The look on her face was so complex: full of love and pride and concern for her husband. So I asked her if I could film her too and she agreed. But the most important element was when we discovered a film archive in the museum. When we looked back at the rushes we'd filmed at the house we thought they were good but not great. But once we dropped in the archive footage of Johnny we realized that was the soul of the video. The whole thing was so spontaneous. It's made me realize that sometimes you can be too prepared and that there's some value to urgency." The music video speaks about the transience of life, the gracelessness of death, the Ozymandian crumbling of an oeuvre and the decline of a genre, an era and an attitude. The ‘closed to public’ sign on the museum. The cracked platinum records. The caviar and lobster banquet with no diners. The clips from earlier in Johnny’s career. His wife June looking on. The closed piano lid. The video was so intimate that Cash's management didn't think it should be released, and Johnny was leaning in that direction. According to Rick Rubin, it was his daughter, Rosanne Cash, who convinced Johnny to let it go. June died May 15th, 2003, three months after filming, Johnny died September 12, 2003 four months after his wife. Rick Rubin said of the video: “I cried the first time I saw it. If you were moved to that kind of emotion in the course of a two-hour movie, it would be a great accomplishment. To do it in a four-minute music video is shocking. I think the hurt video is a historical document, it's like looking back across a life." Trent Reznor was sent the video while in the studio with Rage Against the Machine’s Zach De La Rocha, and, when the pair sat down to watch it, any doubts he had about the cover were long gone. “We were in the studio, getting ready to work and I popped it in,” said Reznor. "Tears started welling up. I realized it wasn't really my song anymore. It just gave me goose bumps up and down my spine. By the end I was really on the verge of tears…there was just dead silence. There was, like, this moist clearing of our throats and then, ‘Uh, okay, let’s get some coffee.' It really, really made sense and I thought what a powerful piece of art. I never got to meet Johnny but I'm happy I contributed the way I did. It felt like a warm hug. It's an unbelievably powerful piece of work. After he passed away I remember feeling saddened, but being honored to have framed the end of his life in something that is very tasteful. For anyone who hasn't seen it, I highly recommend checking it out. I have goose bumps right now thinking about it. Having Johnny Cash, one of the greatest singer-songwriters of all time, want to cover your song, that's something that matters to me. It's not so much what other people think, but the fact that this guy felt that it was worthy of interpreting. " There will NEVER be another Johnny Cash, and there will NEVER be another video like this. A sad footnote to a sad story, Cash’s home of nearly 30 years in which the video was shot, burned down in 2007.""
I interpret this as two men, with similar struggles, staring at each other on the timeline of life. Reznor singing to the future; Cash singing to the past. These two men were very much alike.
You missed maybe the most touching part of the video, where Cash closes the piano - symbolically for the last time - and gives it a final loving caress.
Trent Reznor's reaction to this cover says it all. After hearing it, Trent said something along the lines of "this isn't my song anymore, it belongs to Cash. It turns out that I wrote it for him and didn't ever know it"
@@kenyonsgirl415 he didnt burn it, well atleast no one really believe he burn it, it just burn, barry and linda bought the house to restore and actually live there to write songs and stuff.
So, a little trivia about this song: While filming this video, Johnny Cash refused to taka any of his pain medication. He wanted to feel everything for this song.
The song is amazing but the visuals in the video are amazing too, he's sitting in a palace of his own making, set before a feast, surrounded by mementos of a rich life and he doesn't care about any of it because everyone he loves is gone. Shit makes me tear up just thinking about it.
This is why music matters, why art matters, and this is absolutely crushing to watch. The worst part is that as I get older, this song is going to get harder and harder to listen to. What a powerful song and video.
I thought I understood this song when I was in my twenties and Trent sang it. I'm in my fourties now and it breaks me every time. I try not to regret all the shit and focus on good things and the future but Johnny and this song just shatter me now.
He was gravely sick when he recorded this. His wife died soon after and then so did he. This was a perfectly poignant, dark, and real goodbye to a turbulent yet wonderful life.
God, what feels like a million years ago now, I had a writing teacher who knew them both. I don't remember how it came up, but he said then that he didn't think one would live long without the other.
A Finnish music journalist once said about this song: "all you Death Metal and Black Metal bands, listen to this song. This is heavier than anything you'll ever write ."
@High_ Voltage Been a Metallica fan since '84 and Ride the Lightning was the very 1st album I ever bought so yes, I have. While I completely agree with what you are saying, the original quote wasn't mine so I really hope this isn't gonna turn into a debate about heavy songs.
@High_ Voltage The said journalist was a metal music journalist and he wore a death metal band t-shirt when he said it but I think his point was that an acoustic song by a country singer, when all stars align, can be heavier than the heaviest of the heaviest. And in this case Johnny's life, his voice along with the meaningful lyrics make this song especially heavy.
I’m 51 years old now. I’ve lost my grandparents, my dad, my stepdad, my godfather, a very close cousin, many others. This song hits home on so many levels. Wasted time on things that weren’t important, regrets in life that make me cringe when I think of them, hurts that don’t go away. Reznor and Cash paint a picture of things we all go through. Time is fading. Wishing you all well.
Honestly, he wasn't very old. Hard livin', booze and pills took their toll on Johnny. My father is 77 this November, and he looks 10 years younger than Johnny does here. My father at almost 80 looks 65, tops. When you live hard, you die hard. Nobody regretted the mistakes he made and the pain that he caused others more than him. God rest his soul, he's finally at peace in death. The man was so tormented in life.
@@neilpeartspurplenose8739, yes. I don't think Johnny doing this song was so much about saying "sorry" as it was about simply expressing his sorrow and regret.
My first thought when I saw the alert for this video pop up was "Oh no! Rebecca is going to melt!" His wife June had come down the stairs to see if he was OK. Her look of concern was genuine. She passed not long after the shoot, before Johnny did a few months later. Sorry if this seems a bit morbid, but when Johnny closes the piano cover I originally had a feeling of Johnny closing his own musical casket.
I never saw it as a casket. I saw him wiping the cover down, as if to say "goodbye" to a dear friend while he had the chance. John knew his time was short. He gave all of us one last gift.
@@HvyMetal4Ever Yeah, I don't think it was intended to give a "casket" impression, it just brought up that image in my mind. Definitely it felt like a metaphorical "closing". Like a goodbye.
If you don't get emotional at this song, you're a cold human being. On watching you, Becks.....I just want to comfort you.....your emotions are so raw.....bless you honey xxx
I prefer the original's sound myself, but as you say, they're basically two different songs. Both brilliant versions, allthough I'd say this one feels heavier to me. Without that taking away from the emotion of the original.
The original was a young man, in complete despair and willing to die to get away from the pain. The cover was an old man, looking back on a lifetime of regrets and old wounds, not ready but forced into the confronting that mortality. Very different songs, indeed.
It really does. The rasp in his voice, mostly from age, but the stroke did its work on his voice as well. Just about everything that he recorded after that has a little extra somthing to it that just gives shivers.
He's so sharp, clear and labored at the same time. It's crazy to watch him do a rendition like this and give it even more meaning. Super powerful. If you didn't get choked up you're a sociopath.
As a veteran... there was a period of time I ended up in a hospital to deal with things. Johnny's sister would visit weekly and tell us about him... and would always bring up this song and how important it was. Of all things she could have been doing, she would spend time and visit with vets and just tell us about herself and Johnny and just try to help people. This song and the Cash family holds a special part in my heart.
Talking about her self and Johnny? With no context that sounds super arrogant and egotistical. Which I highly doubt is the truth of the matter though. What would she talk about?
@@andyloy7809 "After 35 years of marriage, June Carter Cash passed away on May 15, 2003 in Nashville, Tennessee of complications following heart-valve replacement surgery. Johnny Cash died of complications from diabetes around 2:00 am CT on September 12, 2003, aged 71-less than four months after his wife." While the official cause of death was complications from Type II Diabetes, I prefer to think that he simply wanted to be reunited with the love of his life and there was nothing left in this world for him. Either that, or God himself wanted a private concert.
The tears flow every time I hear this song. He was 70 years old and age and hard living had taking their toll on his voice. But damn what a performance.
Never ever say ur sorry for showing ur heart My granddaddy once told a friend of mine Those that are afraid to show their heart to the world Might as well be dead So show the world not only ur beautiful voice, but ur heart as well Amen
it doesnt matter what kind of music you like...when you know the history of this, its one of the most powerful piecies of music ever made. Its damn near impossible not to cry, watching someone say goodbye so beutifully.
The two parts of this video that always hit me in the feels Seeing him with June, one last time Him closing the lid on the piano, and wiping it down. He knows his time is short, and he is saying goodbye to an old friend. This has to be one of the greatest covers ever done. Trent wrote this about addiction. Johnny wrote this about his entire existence.
When he closed the piano to me he was saying the shows over goodnight and goodbye. And then June passed not long afterward he couldn’t live without the woman who had saved him.
@@aredub1847 not everyone at sturgis wore a mask. Not everyone at the violent domestic terrorist riots wear masks. Covid is much bigger than masks. Even if everyone wore a mask it wouldn’t stop it. And I support peaceful protests. The riots and vandalism are counterproductive and a disservice to the movement. Grow up. Troll.
the lyric in the orginal is: "i wear this crown of shit, upon my liar's chair." Johnny changed it to "crown of thorns" and there's a video on here of Trent performing the song by himself on the piano for a benefit concert, i believe, and Trent sang "crown of thorns" which i think he still does now as a tribute to Johnny.
Don’t ever be sorry for a song that illicits emotion! I am nearly 60 and this song resonates in my heart, and I love when somone can show how a song makes them feel. He is a legend, not was! He is still alive with the recordings he left for the world to hear!
Pure, gorgeous artistry. Cash leaves us with a stark and simple message about life, egoism, and the fact that in the end, in those last moments, each of us will be left alone to confront who we really are.
Johnny led a hard life & he was apologizing & regretting a lot of the choices he made during his life...the drugs, the alcohol, the way he treated June, etc., but he was also very much mourning her inevitable loss in this song as well. You can feel how much he loved her...so much so that it wasn't long after her death that he passed. I fully believe because he couldn't go on here without her...his sweetest friend. 💔 RIP Johnny...you're home with her now 😢
First time I've listened to this song in years. I sob every time, but even more so now. I lost my Dad last month, around the time you put this video out. Normally I'll watch immediately, but this one I just couldn't. I found out yesterday that my Dad refused pain medication for the last 3 days of his life. The opening lyrics broke my heart in a way I didn't know it could still break. Wish I could put something positive right now, all I can say is thank you RVA for still being a positive light in the darkness.
It's incredible how Johnny Cash was able to take a song and give it a complete different meaning without really changing anything. That man was a genius. It feels very much like drawing a line under his life. No matter how many times I watch this video it always brings me to tears.
you can just hear the pain in his voice. ”Everyone i know, goes away in the end” always hits me. i have lost my mom, dad and both of all of my grandparents before year 15. I really feel this.
Songs of suicide, murder, domestic violence, depression and child abuse use to be themes of radio played pop songs, but people don't want to listen to that.
@@orlock20 yet there satisfied listening to songs about adultery, betrayal, disregarding relationships, takeing the piss out of others, and bragging about how much material wealth they have? Ill take the latter option myself, sure shits dark but its also the most human themes about us, can respect that discussing heavy themes like mortality aint everyone's cup of tea but for folks like me, songs like these were real heartfelt, gave us alot of revelation too, taught us theres more to life then the value of a person or what they have to their name 😑
This song was Cash's goodbye. I was first confused on why he did a cover of a Nine Inch Nails song then I saw the video. Johnny spent nearly all his life as a larger-than-life figure and when he dropped this single it showed him as an old, broken down man and most importantly ... mortal. I don't know if the video was intended to chronicle his life or to show that death comes for us all no matter how rich or poor. It was sobering to say the least. I believe his wife, June Carter, passed away later that year and Cash followed not too far behind. I think the video leaves a lasting impression on all of us.
I do think he was saying sorry but he also knew 'his time' was near so I felt like he was saying Goodbye for the last time too. And I believe Johnny passed not long after June. RIP June Carter & Johnny Cash
@@aryanbianca3189 June passed then Johnny passed 4 months later , he just couldn't live without her and he recorded this shortly after she passed . Hence the raw emotion .
@@aryanbianca3189 The song says in the final verses - if I could go a million miles away where he is unknown and start again without all the pain he brought to others he would love it. Not for the new start but to remove the pain.
I'm not really an empath, but this song really gets to me too. It's a great song, and Johnny's version is just...if it doesn't effect you, you're probably a psychopath. Seriously, I think it could be a diagnostic tool.
@@wordsonice8996 It so interesting how despite being the same exact lyrics in both, they seem to take on a meaning of their own depending on the singer. In Trent's case, he wrote it in a time when he struggled with issues like drug addiction and depression. In Cash's case it's more like a reflection on his life, particularly any wrong he's done to others.
Johnny Cash was a rare specimen. Every "trained "Vocalist would call him crap, but he was to special to place in a catagory . He's just good. He's real. His voice speaks to the soul. He's special. He's 1 in a billion that can talk a song and make you feel it. He experienced real pain in life and made it his voice. God bless 🙌
Every time I hear this it causes tears. this is how he felt at the time and he took us all there. I know the original well but when I heard this I felt sick in my soul and cried, I was in a dark place in life unannounced to me I was getting ready to embark on a 4-year dark night of the soul. I love it as an empath and artist I want to feel what they felt, that hurt but I am sure many were able to purge listing to this.
Part of the reason Johnny Cash was in the emotional state he was in at the time, the emotional state that this song and video so starkly projects, is because his best friend Waylon Jennings had recently passed away ("Everyone I know goes away in the end"). Johnny's son said that Cash looked upon Waylon's death as "the end of an age".
My grandmother died on July 2nd, and it devastated me. But, being the person I am I tried to be strong for my entire family. I didn’t cry about it and I tried my best to ground everyone. But, the day of her funeral, when my family and I were following the hearse to the cemetery, as soon as we were passing by our house, this song started playing on my playlist. Johnny Cash was her favorite. I couldn’t help it and I broke down in the car, I tried to hide it. I took this as some sort of sign. Idk I’m not good with explaining feelings and such, but when this specific song played during that time, everything hit me like a truck. Time goes by in life, people change, people come, people go. And we all take that for granted. I love you grandma and I’m sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye.
Johnny Cash's age and haunting tone in his vocals really added levels of depth to this song that Trent couldn't do. What stands out most is that his vocals add a timeline to the song. It gives you a sense of years of pain, struggle and loss. At the end when he starts to pick up the power it almost feels as if it's too late. He brought this song to a level where it will be remembered.
The difference between young angst and old experience and regrets? I'm an old fart, and the original didn't tear my heart out the way this cover did, especially knowing June and Johnny were so close to their end when this was done. Seeing June's look of love despite all in those brief two moments was perhaps the most powerful visual moments of the video.
Makes me cry every time. It is such an overwhelming emotional delivery. I love NIN but Johnny Cash took this song to another level, he made it "his" song.
"Golden leather" is the perfect way to describe what Cash's voice became over time! If this song doesn't make you emotional, doesn't give you the chills, then I'm pretty sure you're already dead.
Johnny cash did this video and it was released in March of 2003. His wife, June, passed in May 2003 and then he himself passed in September. I know that he loved her with all his heart and probably couldn't live without her. I think that in this song you hear the voice of a man who knows he is near death. I think that might be part of the reason he did this song. This man was a great and good person and did many great things in his life and I think that for most of us when we reach a certain age, it is a bitter pill to swallow the realization that it will end. I feel like that is a part of what I see. And, like all great artists, he is a master at relaying those feeling through his art. He always has been.
This song and especially this version has a tendency to make me quite melancholic and introspective. It also feels like it's poking me in my ribs and telling me to put more work in to being happy. It's difficult, but I'll keep on working on it.
Yeah don't feel like your alone I fell the same way right now living in the times we are with this damn virus. All I can do is right a list of what I am going to do as soon as they create a vaccine to this Corona plague and going to live and love as hard as I can.
The guy that wrote this said seeing Johnny sing it was seeing your true love with another man and then realizing he was way better for her than you ever could be. When he closed the piano it was the last time he ever played.
holy shit I was trying to keep myself together until you said "I think he is saying he is sorry". I love Trent's original version but there is so much power on Johnny Cash cover that he truly made this song his own.
That's pretty much the conclusion Trent came too. It just fits so well with Cash, and the video hammers it home. That said, it's also an amazing and somber track to end an album like NIN's the Downward Spiral which is all about a person path to self destruction.
I remember when I first heard the Johnny Cash version of Hurt. It was emotional magic, he took a cover and he made it a Cash original, the raw emotion he put into it made it Johnny’’s farewell masterpiece.
You heard "Je suis malade" by Lara Fabian? Rebecca has a reaction to this song. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dVvlmpo5g9k.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-v8AUvXYkif0.html
The American Recordings were an attempt to revitalize Johnny Cash one more time, but the farther into it you get, the more clear it becomes that, whatever Rubin's intentions, it had morphed into the journey of an old man preparing to die. "Hurt" was, for me, his apology to everyone he wounded during his drug-fueled days, and his expression of regret for all he missed during that time.
When you read the lyrics and think about all Johnny's been through in his last years of living, you understand why he made a cover of this song! Surprises a lot a people to know that this is a Nine inch Nails' song So fuckin sad :/ R.I.P Man in Black
im not surprised. cause trent has a niche for music tastes, and his rendition, didnt do much to break it. cash, totally differnt audience, and the life span got him recognition outside of that. and this song, with his version, was even more non genera specific. a song any one can relate to.
Man this song and video give me chills every time i hear and watch it. The song is so raw and emotional I can't put words to it the only thing I come away with is that life is short and I better live the hell out what time I have left.
And this is one of the many reasons I love your channel. You're not biased with musical styles. You appreciate music for what it is. Keep rocking. You're a Queen !! 🙂
Johnny Cash almost lost his mind and went into a cave near Lookout Mountain, Tennessee about 60 miles from where I live and he said he went in there to kill himself but something brought him out of it... this was about 1967 or 68 and Johnny Cash lived a life of real ups and downs to say the least.
Rebecca, As others mentioned here, Johnny died in Sept. 2003, months after he recorded this video. Sadly that his wife June (shown in the video) died before he did in May 2003. You can see he is suffering from the illness. His daughter wept during this video because it is his swan song. Trent Reznor, creator of the song, stated, "I pop the video in, and wow... Tears welling, silence, goose-bumps... Wow. [I felt like] 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."
No apologies needed if this reaches into your heart and snaps a chord hard. This proves that everyone can identify with these emotions but seeing the Johnny lived them on a grand scale unknown to most people makes it such an emotional experience to hear and see. Great reaction..thank you!
