HURT - Johnny Cash and Nine Inch Nails versions

Original Nine Inch Nails song Johnny Cash's cover  

 

 

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
You could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

I wear this crown of shit
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
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

 

I found this song highly emotional since the first time I listened to it not more than two weeks ago. Its original author is Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails), and the first video in this post is a live performance at the band's Self Destruct tour in 1995. A gigant screen was dropped on stage showing different images, such as war atrocities, nuclear bomb explosions, animals and a fox decomposing in reverse. This pictures provoke in me a sense of loss, guiltiness, nostalgia,inevitability and other similar reactions that have a lot to do with the lyrics of the song. "If I could start again / A million miles away", "Everyone I know / goes away in the end" and other quotes from the song fit with the photographs, allowing the listener and watcher to grow a feeling inside themselves, a feeling that's different in everyone, but finally reduced to the emotion which the song gets it's title from: HURT. The second video is the cover version by Johnny Cash, who depicts his own feelings of the song in the video, showing important moments of his own life. I recommend you watch both videos.