i hurt myself today...

Jim Dedman says that Johnny Cash's version of Nine Inch Nail's "Hurt" is better than the original because "Reznor comes off as a fashionably depressed brat governed by trendy sadness, while Cash is so much more genuine." I'd have to disagree. I don't know whether Jim owns a copy of Nine Inch Nail's The Downward Spiral, which is the album featuring "Hurt." The Downward Spiral is a concept album, which means that all of the songs build upon one another, making for an evolutionary musical, emotional, and thematic experience from the time one hits PLAY to the time the album finishes. "Hurt" is the final song on that album, and it represents the speaker's suicidal climax. In that context, NIN's version is certainly a more potent, shocking, and sometimes overwhelming experience than is Cash's singular, stand-alone cover of the song. That is not to say that Cash's version is bad. Indeed, I have commented before on it here, praising Cash's version, but also ultimately qualifying that statement by focusing on the impact of the song itself, as opposed to the artist playing it.

"Hurt" represents Reznor's most vulnerable moment in all of NIN's oeuvre, as that is the point where he realizes that all the pain, anguish, disappointment, and brief instances of (self-deceptive) pride are for naught. He is left only with his memories of these disappointments ("try to kill it all away, but i remember everything"). And indeed, those memories have usurped his self-image, making him unrecognizable even to himself ("what have I become?"). He finally recognizes the most haunting consequence of it all: "Everyone I know goes away in the end." He has alienated everyone, all those he loves, even himself. Overcome with regret, he says that if he could start again, "I would keep myself; I would find a way." Of course, that is no longer an option.

The song ends in a burst of sonic chaos, ultimately drowning out the speaker (and hence making his suicide explicit). Because at that point we have already spent over an hour with the speaker as he revealed his innermost thoughts, desires, virtues, and flaws, we are naturally shocked--much more so than had this not been the finale of a concept album. This is why I think Cash's version isn't as shocking or as "authentic." It's like reading the climax of the story without having become intimately acquainted with the characters. And that doesn't sound like authenticity to me--it's more like exploitation.