Caryl Chinn

Johnny Cash’s “Hurt” is considered one of the greatest cover songs ever. Its back story is incredible. Released in 2002, Cash worked with Rick Rubin to adapt the 1994 Nine Inch Nails song. The pair met in 1992 after Rubin saw a then 60-year old Cash perform at a Bob Dylan concert in NY. Cash was decades removed from his country peak and recently dropped by his record label. Rubin felt Cash still had more music to make and told him, “What I would do is let you sit down before a microphone with your guitar and sing any song you want to record.” When Rubin first pitched “Hurt” to Cash, the music legend balked. “I can’t do that song,” said Cash. “It’s not my style.” By 2002, though, Rubin and Cash had made 3 critically-acclaimed “American Recordings” albums and were working on a 4th. On the music annotation website Genius, Rubin explained their process: ➡️ “There were a lot of songs that he needed to be convincing about. Eventually, he trusted me enough that if I felt strongly about something, he’d do it. I would send him compilations of CDs of songs to listen to, and I remember that on several compilations in a row, “Hurt” was the first song. There’s just something about it. I imagined him saying those words being very powerful.” ⬅️ When Rubin told Trent Reznor — his friend and Nine Inch Nails lead singer — about the cover idea, Reznor was “flattered” but felt it was “a bit gimmicky”. Everything changed after Reznor saw Cash’s iconic “Hurt” music video (clip below). ➡️ “A CD shows up with the track…the song in particular is straight from the soul…it was a good version and surely wasn’t cringey or anything. But it felt like I was watching my girlfriend kiss somebody else. […] A few weeks later, a video tape shows up with Mark Romanek’s [music] video on it…I pop the video in and wow…tears welling, silence, goosebumps. Wow, I just lost my girlfriend because that’s not my song anymore. Then it all made sense to me. It made me really think about how powerful music is as a medium and an art form. I wrote some words and music in my bedroom as a way of staying sane…Some-f**king-how that winds up reinterpreted by a music legend from a wildly different era/genre but still retains sincerity and…every bit as pure. Things felt even stranger when he passed away [in 2003]. The song’s purpose shifted again. It’s extremely flattering as a writer to have your song chosen by someone whose a great writer and a great artist.” ⬅️