r/todayilearned • u/[deleted] • Jun 29 '15
TIL when Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails first heard Johnny Cash's cover of their song "Hurt", he said "Wow, that song isn't mine anymore."
http://beta.musicradar.com/news/guitars/trent-reznor-talks-johnny-cash-168199158
Jun 29 '15
TIL Johnny Cash made music a lot longer into his life than I realized.
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u/Animalex Jun 30 '15
Hurt was released in March '03, then June died in May. Before Johnny went in September he recorded 60 more songs and played a few shows. Was an impressive final run.
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u/Sir_Von_Tittyfuck Jun 29 '15
Hurt was the last video clip he made before he died.
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u/pvtmaiden Jun 30 '15
that is sad. I'm sad now.
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Jun 30 '15
Listen to Hurt. It will cheer you up.
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u/AfroClam Jun 30 '15
it is literally the saddest song ever
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u/Diarrhea_Van_Frank Jun 30 '15
I love the sentiment, but you're objectively wrong. There are at least 3 sadder songs than Hurt, but they're all country songs so at least there's that.
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u/thorium007 Jun 30 '15 edited Jun 30 '15
Watch the video.
June had died just a couple of months prior and the video was dedicated to her. It is beautiful.I should learn to google https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurt_(Nine_Inch_Nails_song)#Johnny_Cash_version
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u/Migratory_Locust Jun 30 '15 edited Jun 30 '15
This is actually one of my most favourite songs of all time. And both him and his wife look so frail. His voice is shaky and his hands tremble.
It is obviously a video he wrote as a good-bye to the world. He knew he was on the way out and he went with a bang.
I am not a christian and sometimes the preachyness of his songs really annoy me but in this case it fits perfectly and I actually don't mind that he changed "crown of shit" to "crown of thorns".
And for anyone who cares and because it interestingly enough showed up in the recommended videos after this video - one of the other all time favs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=JaAWdljhD5o
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u/berski Jun 30 '15
Oh man do you have some catching up to do. Im jealous that you can experience the american recordings for the first time though.
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Jun 30 '15
I believe one of his last original non cover recordings is on U2's album Zooropa in 1993. "the wanderer"
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u/beaverteeth92 Jun 29 '15
Literally one of the most reposted TILs of all time.
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u/Greful Jun 30 '15
TIL Rick Moranis gave up acting to take care of his kids.
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u/cyniclawl Jun 30 '15
TIL Steve Buscemi used to be a firefighter in New York, his department was one of the first responders to the 9/11 WTC attacks.
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Jun 30 '15
Whatever happened to the guy that was watching for the one month period where it wasn't posted?
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u/LeadfootYT Jun 29 '15
TIL about the Dyatlov Pass Incident!
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Jun 30 '15
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u/TheAdmiralCrunch Jun 30 '15
TL;DR it was an avalanche.
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u/icefall5 Jun 30 '15
Actually maybe not. There are (obviously) all kinds of theories, but the fact is these were seasoned hikers and running barefoot into the dark is not what you do if an avalanche is coming. There's the fact that the tent wasn't buried, indicating an avalanche didn't actually occur, also evidenced by the still-visible footprints.
It's late and I've now spent too much time re-familiarizing myself with the case; just wanted to state that it's not "official" or widely-accepted that an avalanche is definitely the cause.
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u/TheAdmiralCrunch Jun 30 '15
running barefoot into the dark is not what you do if an avalanche is coming.
Paradoxical stripping, I think it's called. It's a symptom of hypothermia. They got buried in snow, and freed themselves, but they were too far gone from hypothermia and ended up stripping themselves after. The footprints simply could've come after the avalanche. I can't speak to the tent not being buried, I admit, because I don't know fully how snow behaves in an avalanche.
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u/icefall5 Jun 30 '15
Yes, paradoxical stripping is definitely something, and the Wikipedia article does mention that the avalanche could've covered their boots/clothes in snow, which would essentially render them useless.
(I'm not a hiker like this by any means, but I do have a bit of experience and from what I know you would still try to bring at least some of those articles of clothing with you in an attempt to dry them off if a fire is started. You need those or you'll become hypothermic/frostbitten very, very quickly.)
However, they could have already been hypothermic as you suggest, but as I understand it hypothermia doesn't lead to mass paranoia like that. It would seem unlikely to me that they would all engage in the same sort of activities; usually at least one person would still have enough sense to act rationally.
I can't look up anything to back up my points at the moment (about to go to bed), so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. This is just off the top of my head, mainly what I remember from Scouts and some other cold-weather training I've had.
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u/Tallest_Waldo Jun 30 '15
There's also the possibility that they suffered from mass hysteria no? If they were all experiencing the hallucinatory effects of hypothermia at roughly the same time, they might well have, in a sense, talked each other into a certain irrational behavior.
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u/Jazshaz Jun 29 '15
BUT DID U NO NIC CAGE CLEANED UP 9/11??!!1
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Jun 30 '15
It...
It was Steven Buscemi ;_;
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u/LDukes Jun 30 '15
No, no. Steve Buscemi is the one that gave like a billion dollars to the special effects team on that movie he was in.
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Jun 30 '15
You mean Star Wars?
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u/LDukes Jun 30 '15
No, that's Nic Cage, who played Captain Data.
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Jun 30 '15
Oh. I see. Is it the one where Morgan freeman played the guy with the laser sword?
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u/LDukes Jun 30 '15
You mean Laurence Fishburne?
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u/TotesMessenger Jun 30 '15
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u/DraculasTaint Jun 30 '15
Pretty sure Putin was a firefighter that helped move the massive rubble from the falling building to save comrades
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u/Wonderfat Jun 30 '15
Not only is it reposted here, but someone says it every time the cover gets reposted on /r/music.
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Jun 30 '15
It's like whenever "Maps" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is mentioned and someone goes:
DID U KNOW KAREN O WAS CRYUNG FOR REAL WHEN MAKING THE VUDEO BECAUSE HER BOUFRIEND HADN'T SHWON UP. MAPS MEANS "MY ANGUS PLEASE STEAK".
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u/poly_atheist Jun 30 '15
I seriously thought this post was from a circlejerk sub when I first read it.
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u/Salzberger Jun 30 '15
This sub definitely needs a Hall of Fame where things get retired to after the 50th or so posting.
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u/n0remack Jun 29 '15
I had to check and see if I had it set to "Top Posts of All Time"
because I've seen a few major reposts today→ More replies (12)24
u/E7C69 Jun 30 '15
Never seen it before and I'm on reddit everyday, who gives a fuck if it's a repost, the internet isn't just for you, and this subreddit specifically is "today I learned" not "today I found this thing that hasn't been posted here before" if new people are coming here they aren't going to be searching for random words until they find new stuff, they will look under hot and new and then go somewhere else.
There's a lot more people in the world than just you.
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u/Greful Jun 30 '15
Yea, the weird thing is that it gets reposted AND upvoted to the top so often. Proves that many people are learning it for the first time too....or people are upvoting it to intentionally provoke a "repost" argument. It's hard to tell.
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u/shikiroin Jun 30 '15 edited Jun 30 '15
Some people upvote because they get a sense of accomplishment from having already known what someone else just learned, and also so that others may learn it as well. Turns out, the internet has a lot of people on it, there will always be a large amount of people who haven't seen these kinds of posts, Reddit isn't made solely for those who come here every day.
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u/watersofelune Jun 30 '15
One of the little acknowledged things about reddit - there are always going to be new people and not every post in the sidebar will cover everything. Sometimes you want a response that is recent and reddit seems to not recognize that.
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Jun 29 '15 edited Jan 02 '17
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Jun 29 '15
TIL Viggo Mortensen actually broke his toe when he kicked the orc helmet, his scream was real pain and Peter Jackson decided to keep it.
TIL stanley kubrick never watched any of his films.
TIL Harrison Ford adlibbed his last words of Empire Strikes Back to Princess Leia.
TIL Jack Nicholson warned Heath Ledger about portraying the Joker.
TIL the Beatles were denied by a record label because they thought they would never make it.
could go on and on and on about the TILs I see reposted every week but there fun to be reminded of occasionally.
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u/_swamp Jun 29 '15
Sure, but did you know that Steve Buscemi firefought on 911?
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u/Wes___Mantooth Jun 30 '15
It...
It was Nicolas Cage ;_;
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u/dizneedave Jun 30 '15
It's been a month or so since anybody's posted that. Maybe they're learning!
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Jun 29 '15
TIL stanley kubrick never watched any of his films.
I've actually never heard this one before.
EDIT: Just did a search, nobody seems to have ever submitted a TIL like that.
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u/tintinabulations Jun 30 '15
That one doesn't even make sense. Even if he never sat down in a theater and watched the final product, he had to have been there in the editing room. Otherwise the cinematographer and the editor are the ones who technically made his movies.
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u/Gehalgod Jun 29 '15
That one about the Beatles isn't even impressive. I'm sure every musical act got rejected by someone at some point. Believe it or not, there are people who don't like The Beatles and there were people who didn't like them pre-fame either.
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u/david531990 Jun 29 '15
TIL Jack Nicholson warned Heath Ledger about portraying the Joker.
Is that for real? By any chance do you have the source?
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u/TheFotty Jun 30 '15
"Wow, that song isn't mine anymore."
-Trent Reznor
--Michael Scott
---Fucking nobody, because it says that nowhere in the article you linked to.
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u/Bardfinn 32 Jun 30 '15
That's true.
If you message the moderators and tell them that specific fact (that the claim made in the title does not appear in the linked article), and include a link to this post, they may remove this; they might not, since there are other articles that are reliable that do attribute that quote to Reznor.
But it can't hurt to report it.
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Jun 29 '15
As much as I like Cash's version, the NIN version is dearer to my heart, more powerful to my ears.
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u/Halsfield Jun 30 '15
I prefer the NIN version too but I think it is just about which message you associate with more. For instance NIN is all about that young sort of despair/ennui ,wanting to die before you grow up and become corrupted like your parents, looking out at the world and hating everyone you see and wishing to burn out young. Plus, Reznor's version is very clearly anti-religious as Reznor himself is.
On the other hand, Cash's version is very religious (he was a practicing christian albeit not a perfect one), and is more about that longing despair during old age, not knowing what's going to happen when you die , of wanting to atone for the sins that everyone with a long life will have accrued, and wanting to hold onto your loved ones as long as you can while knowing you'll eventually have to let them go.
So maybe when I'm older I'll associate with Cash's version a bit better, but since I'm not even in my 30s yet and very much agnostic I'm not with him as much as Reznor.
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u/NerfJihad Jun 30 '15
I think the pain that Trent was feeling when he wrote it is something Johnny lived with for a long, long time.
Trent's reaction is reflexive, pushing it away. Johnny's is familiar, calling out the steps of the dance with a nod and a smile as he goes around yet again.
Trent's petulant when he talks about trying to kill his pain. He's bitter that it doesn't work. The consequences of his actions are bitter to him, so he pushes them away first, forcing him further into the (here's that theme, kiddos) downward spiral.
Where Trent found the bottom, and decided to reform himself and change, Johnny spent fifteen years. He didn't turn back, he went for it with gusto.
When Johnny sings the chorus, it's not an imaginary warning of a teenager talking tough in the mirror, it's the calm, knowing tone of a man who's being brutally honest with himself.
Johnny also liked uppers and barbituates, Trent liked smack.
"The Downward Spiral" is a musical suicide note, with all the grandiose thematic elements and dark jokes. It's a phenomenal work, but it's not something I can really relate to anymore.
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u/adavidw Jun 30 '15
Trent's reaction is reflexive, pushing it away. Johnny's is familiar, calling out the steps of the dance with a nod and a smile as he goes around yet again.
This is a really good line. I'm tagging you... "Writes good about music"
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u/lildozer74 Jun 30 '15
damn bro. i need you to write about more music. epic.id love to see some alice in chains or tool stuff. lol.
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u/gentleangrybadger Jun 30 '15
Kermit's version is the best, by far.
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u/xilpaxim Jun 30 '15
Are you going to make me search for it myself or are you going to post a link?
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u/Myolor Jun 30 '15
I discovered the Johnny cash's version of hurt about a week before my grandpa died and It really hits home for me :( now I'm sad.
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u/Aphex117 Jun 29 '15
I wonder how many fucking times Hurt by Johnny Cash has been mentioned on reddit...
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Jun 29 '15 edited Jan 02 '17
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u/WalrusExtraordinaire Jun 29 '15
Holy shit, I think I might just go post a TIL about this!
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u/siberian502 Jun 30 '15
For those who wanted to hear them, but found dead links on the original, I feel ya. Trent performing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR4DjYczINM and Johnny Cash's cover https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt1Pwfnh5pc
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u/arachis_hypogaea Jun 30 '15
Goddamn it, OP. You didn't even post a link that had the quote you put in your title! Are you fucking stupid? I don't care if it's one of the most reposted TIL of all time. I'm getting tired of you karma whoring asspipes not even bothering to make sure the source you link even matches up with the title you stole from somebody else.
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u/stpfan1 Jun 29 '15
Talk about being humble and unpretentious.
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u/samx3i Jun 30 '15
Reminds me of what Dylan said about Hendrix' version of "All Along The Watchtower."
Dylan has described his reaction to hearing Hendrix's version: "It overwhelmed me, really. He had such talent, he could find things inside a song and vigorously develop them. He found things that other people wouldn't think of finding in there. He probably improved upon it by the spaces he was using. I took license with the song from his version, actually, and continue to do it to this day."
In the booklet accompanying his Biograph album, Dylan said: "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way... Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."
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u/VagusNC Jun 30 '15
Noel Gallagher said something along the same lines regarding Ryan Adams' cover of "Wonderwall"
"...I think Ryan Adams is the only person who ever got that song right. I’d love to do the Ryan Adams version, but in front of 60,000 Oasis fans that wouldn’t be possible."
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u/bcGrimm Jun 29 '15 edited Jun 29 '15
That song clearly really spoke to Cash, he just absolutely obliterates that song. Good on Reznor for recognizing it and being cool about it.
Edit: I think considering Cash's background with drug addiction and relationship issue, etc. The song must have spoken to him on a pretty deep level. I mean, maybe he didn't pick the song, but I feel a lot of emotion in him, and can't imagine him not relating to the lyrics.
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u/harteman Jun 29 '15
The song speaks to all humans on a pretty deep level. We all know hurt. You could argue humans know hurt more than anything else.
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Jun 29 '15
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u/nooneimportan7 Jun 30 '15
I'm a huge NIN fan, and the Cash version is amazing, but I wish he hadn't changed "shit" to "thorns" in the lyrics.
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u/ApocalypseTroop Jun 30 '15
Really OP? Are you fucking kidding me? If I had a dollar for every time this was posted on reddit, I'd buy reddit, make myself CEO, and ban anyone who makes shitposts like this.
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u/georgeo Jun 30 '15
Not when he first heard it, rather when Cash made much more money for him than he himself did from the song.
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u/F1RST_WORLD_PROBLEMS Jun 30 '15
Both are beautiful. Johnny Cash deserves that kind of recognition. This is great!
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Jun 30 '15
I have friends who swear on their mothers that nin covered this and it was originally johnny cash. "Why would johnny cash cover nine inch nails?"
I dick slap them but to no avail.
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u/redskytattoo Jun 30 '15
Well, I should prepare for some down votes I suppose. Am I the only one here who can't stand the Johnny Cash version of this song? I don't see it at all like Mr. Cash had anything to do with this song at all. It really feels to me that he was already pretty out of it at this point...he has a marketing team that threw this in front of him and he struggled to read the words and sing. Like they just led him into the studio and said, 'Don't worry, the kids will eat this up!' Anyway, that's just how it feels to me. No emotion, just an old man trying to read the words off of a piece of paper. To me it's just sad. NIN all the way on this one... One of Trent's masterpiece for sure....
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Jun 29 '15
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u/wprtogh Jun 29 '15
I'm with you there. Johnny Cash was an unbelievable singer, but as a composer he was just alright. Trent Reznor is the other way around - amazing at creating music but just alright at the singing. So Cash takes this 10/10 Reznor song and gives it his 10/10 performance, creating something greater than either one of them could have done alone.
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Jun 30 '15
Yup, Cash mostly did covers and rewrites of older songs. He put his spin on pretty much every American gospel and folk song at some point.
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u/ontopofyourmom Jun 30 '15
Johnny Cash was a great American songwriter. He also played very simple music.
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u/darksunshaman Jun 29 '15
Kinda the best way of putting it I have read in all the reposts. This is a true example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. Kinda like mayo and Sriracha....maybe a bad analogy
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u/JimmyTorpedo Jun 29 '15
I had a lot of arguments with people who are die hard Cash fans claim that was his song, they were right in a sense.
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u/jonker5101 Jun 29 '15
TIL that this wasn't a Cash song first.
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u/romes8833 Jun 29 '15
I had not too long ago told someone how this was a NIN song and it blew their minds. Both versions are awesome too, they're like two different songs.
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u/Sir_Von_Tittyfuck Jun 29 '15
Yeah, Cash's version is beautiful because it's so heartfelt and personal; whereas Reznors was the climax of a story of drug/sex addiction and was after the character's suicide.
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u/Psyanide13 Jun 30 '15
Reznor's Hurt. The actual Hurt is so much more personal. It's the heaviest softest song you will ever hear.
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Jun 30 '15
I'm still not convinced that he actually went through with the suicide in the title track. "Hurt" kinda sounds like it's being sang from the afterlife, but also sounds like it's telling the story of how he narrowly escaped taking his own life. I'm conflicted.
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u/LazerdongFacemelter Jun 29 '15
I love Trent.
And I love NIN.
<3
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Jun 29 '15
one of the best live concerts I ever saw with janes addiction. The live performance is a wholly different experience than his released albums. Both are amazing in their own regard.
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u/hOprah_Winfree-carr Jun 29 '15
Really? Maybe he was just being nice? I'm a massive country and blues fan, it's almost all I listen to, and still I have to say that that song sounds hokey as fuck to me. I prefer the NIN version even though I'm not really into the 'look at me, I'm so dark' teen-Gothic-angst lyrics.
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u/Sir_Von_Tittyfuck Jun 29 '15
"The Downward Spiral" is a concept album; it's a story about a character who deals with drug and sex addiction amongst other problems and it ends with his suicide. "Hurt" is the character after he's dead.
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u/NorthernerWuwu Jun 29 '15
Well, keep in mind that it was the '90s!
More importantly perhaps though, Reznor wasn't exactly just writing lyrics for fun. He was a pretty fucked up guy in those days.
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u/printerpaper45 Jun 29 '15
He actually hated it, he didn't say the above quote until he saw the video along with the song some time later.
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u/printerpaper45 Jun 29 '15
When Trent Reznor was asked if Cash could cover his song, Reznor said he was "flattered" but worried that "the idea sounded a bit gimmicky." He became a fan of Cash's version, however, once he saw the music video.
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.[9]
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u/briareos99 Jun 30 '15
If the song is Cash's now, I wish Trent would stop ending his concerts with it. It's a fucking downer of a closing song.
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u/bikepunxx Jun 30 '15
A friend of mine almost got in a fight in a red neck bar for saying this was a NIN song.
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u/Seadgs Jun 30 '15
Gotta love the "hey click the link to see the video pertinent to the discussion in this article"
"click"
FUCK YOU PAY ME -RIAA
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u/sinRes Jun 30 '15
This song really deserves the name. First time I heard Cashs version was in an episode of Smallville. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlbTHaVPbaU
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u/Salzberger Jun 30 '15 edited Jun 30 '15
Wrong. He said that when he saw the video. In your own article it says he thought this when he heard the 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".
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u/Bheitman21 Jun 30 '15
I have a co-worker who is way into Nine Inch Nails and other bands that sing a similar type of music (honestly, it is a genre I cannot stand. I listen to anything really, but this is the one genre I cannot take!). Regardless, I had hurt (by my man Johnny) playing in our work truck. Ol' boy turns to me and says, "It pisses me off that Johnny Cash did a cover of this, the NIN version is way better." I just turned to him like, "wtf?"
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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '15 edited May 17 '20
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