Corbin Holzapfel

Professor

Composition 11

28 June 2020

How “Hurt” Exposes What Time Can Do

In the original 1994 song “Hurt” by In Nine Inch Nails, the lyric “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?” explains that the singer is reflecting what they

have become and the decisions that cannot be repaired. This also is a central theme in the remix

version by Johnny Cash but Cash goes deeper by giving visuals that he does not have the time to

fix what he can now. 

The difference first starts in the genre of music. The first video with Nine Inch Nails

shows a stage with images displayed on a slideshow screen. There are guitars and the singer has

a raspy voice. This genre leans more toward soft rock and you can hear the audience reacting.

Meanwhile, Cash’s version is slower and his voice drowns out the guitar he is playing. This

genre is country. Cash’s voice is raspy as well but he shows himself sitting in different places

rather than interacting with an audience. The way that each genre presents the music is different.

Cash uses more personal references as artists usually do in the genre with visuals of his wife in

the video and images of his trophies. The Nine Inch Nails singer uses images from around the

world like snakes to represent religious images, footage of world events, and a fox rotting in the

earth. The Nine Inch Nails singer named Trent Reznor can relate to the audience but for those

who know Cash’s life story, we know that he is giving up change. The singer in Nine Inch Nails
attempts to be relatable by bringing his stardom down in order to show his flaws in his character

as shown in the lyrics.

The artists are also physically very different. Age plays a factor as well in this video.

Cash uses his age by using close up shots of his wrinkles and up-playing his raspy voice to put

more emphasis on words like “Everyone I know goes away in the end” and “try to kill it away

but I remember everything.” Cash puts extra emphasis on the word “everything.” The video then

shows various images of his star career and him driving a train in his youth. The video comes up

to focus on his hands as he plays a piano when the word “pain” comes up. This refers to arthritis

in his hands several times.  For Johnny, the pain is the only way to know that the body is still

good for experiencing life at his age. Meanwhile, in the Nine Inch Nails video, he reflects on this

lyric of “Everyone I know goes away in the end” with images of Christ and a snake

contemplating the afterlife for that religion. This singer is younger and is reflecting what the

world is thinking generally and what many think about at a younger age. 

This appeal to an audience allows both singers to be using pathos. Cash is using his age

to allow others to feel sorry for his fingers and he shows images of his past for others to see how

great he was. This audience most likely remembers Cash’s early years. The Nine Inch Nails

singer also shows Pathos in the images of destruction around the world for the audience to care

and uses the beat of the music to get the audience to clap along. Some of the images shown are

gruesome and should be powerful to get the audience to care about the destroyed buildings and

children being gunned down. The Nine Inch Nails singer Trent Reznor has a different effect on

the audience based on this lyric: “The needle tears a hole, that old familiar sting.” In this lyric the

audience knows the singer is speaking about being regretful about drugs. This is evidenced by an

interview around the time of the 1994 album in which Reznor “has previously admitted that he
went through one of his darkest periods of addiction and self-destruction when he toured the

1994 album The Downward Spiral.” Meanwhile, Cash could be speaking about the needle that

goes in his arm for hospital visits at his age. Also, the lyric, “The old familiar sting” hits home

with the audience letting them know that both singers know what metaphorical emotional pain

they are going through personally. 

Also, the images used in the videos are different. When the singer in Nine Inch Nails

says, “You can have it all, my empire of dirt” he is meaning actual dirt. This makes the audience

think of death and being buried. The singer making religious references and showing the fox is

thinking about his life having any meaning. He shows this in the lyric, “I wear this crown of shit

upon my liar's chair.” He is saying that he doesn’t know if his existence meant anything or was

enough. Cash also says this when he reflects on his “empire of dirt.” His empire is referring to a

closed down building full of dusty Johnny Cash memorabilia. Johnny Cash is reflecting back on

his choices also. However, Cash is going deeper by adding in, “What have I become?” to the

song. This shows that Johnny Cash is not the same man as before in his older age with not being

able to play like he used to or be known like he was when he was younger. He is reflecting on

who he is without the attachment to his fame. The singer in Nine Inch Nails is reflecting on his

choices that he is making in general and knows they need to change. Cash changes the lyric,

“crown of shit” to “crown of thorns.” This puts a different image of Jesus and the general story

of a crown of thorns being used as a symbol of Jesus’s sacrifice. This is putting Cash’s

perspective as a sacrifice for his mistakes meanwhile Reznor sings about how this crown is not

worth anything. 

 
 The Nine Inch Nails video shows destruction that has gone on in the world with dead

bodies and bad choices. He is almost apologizing and summing it up to be human nature with the

snake and religious references of making bad choices being a part of human nature. This video

ends with a reversal of the fox decay rising from the dirt. He wishes life could be different as

evident in most of the lyrics “if I could go back” and the fox rising indicates that there is hope for

this. Cash starts spilling the wine all over the table of food and gold items. The scene ends with

Johnny’s youthful image being faded out and his wrinkled hands are shutting the piano cover and

resting his head.  

Another perspective to these lyrics, “I would keep myself, I would find a way” shows

that the singers have regrets but ultimately possibly would/could not go back to change who they

are. Johnny Cash got his fame, showed his true colors and made some bad decisions along the

way. The same happened for Trent Reznor in Nine Inch Nails. This is evidenced at the ending of

the Nine Inch Nails video when the bird snatches the fish and they both land in the water. This

had some bad consequences but life happened for both of the singers. The lyric, “What have I

become?” means two different things to this singer. Cash has aged and has become a different

person physically and mentally. The other singer in Nine Inch Nails has a different mindset and

still wants to change. Both singers own up to their mistakes, but one has the time to be

different.  
 Works Cited

Garate, Cesar. Nine Inch Nails Hurt Official Video. Youtube, 1994.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbHz9p7Z4OU 

Cash, Johnny. Johnny Cash- Hurt (Official Music Video).  Youtube, 2002.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AHCfZTRGiI

Trendell, Andrew, and By. “Trent Reznor Opens up about the Impact That Drugs Had on
His Life: NME.” NME Music News, Reviews, Videos, Galleries, Tickets and Blogs | NME.COM,
13 Sept. 2017, www.nme.com/news/music/trent-reznor-opens-impact-drugs-life-2140263.