"Tears started welling up, I realized it wasn't really my song anymore. It just gave me goose bumps up and down my spine. It's an unbelievably powerful piece of work. After he passed away I remember feeling saddened, but being honored to have framed the end of his life in something that is very tasteful." - Trent Reznor
When Trent Reznor wrote this song, he was singing it from a different place. It was dark and brooding. And then comes JR Cash. It was as though he was singing his eulogy. He knew his time was short, and this was the song to be remembered for all time. The end of this video always hits me pretty hard. When he closes the lid on the piano and wipes it down, it's as if to say "Goodbye" There will never be another Johnny Cash.
Ironic that you mention closing the piano feeling like he's saying goodbye...allegedly, when one of his daughters saw this video for the first time, she said it felt like he was saying goodbye, and his response was "I am."
@@mcpure9083 No I met what I typed. If I remember right he said 'Maybe', then paused a little then said 'I am'. But you know what the only people who know for sure is JR and his daughter
Trent Reznor said it became a Johnny Cash song as soon as he sang it. Nobody can or will do better then Johnny did on this song. The emotion is so raw.
Yes Trent said this is his song now and I have absolutely nothing but respect for Cash’s version but when I heard this song for the first time it had a major impact on my life and I will always hold Trents version a little higher.
@@jeremystanton382 Shouldn't have done it?? It was his dying song and a fitting farewell to the world and his fans or would you rather him cover Gangnam Style instead as his tribute to his life and fans? LOL It was the perfect song for his departure with the slight lyrics alteration.
I must've watched the video over a hundred times and it never fails to move me. It never fails to bring me to tears because it's so raw, and emotional and powerful. And so so honest. So many different emotions that Cash conjured up, while reminiscing about his life. The good things, the bad things, it turns into a maelstrom of different emotions and it simply draws me in. At the end of the song, when he closes the piano it feels like him drawing a line under his life, saying "That's it". And the most impressive part about it: He manages to give the song a whole new meaning without radically changing the lyrics. One word here, one word there and that's it. Truly outstanding
The way the video cuts, I feel like it may have made Beth cry and she didn’t want that in the final edit. Look at her eyes and face right after the cut.
This was his last video. His wife June Carter Cash passed away a little while after this then we lost Johnny. But a farewell better than this won't be found.
No offense, but David Bowie's farewell tunes were pretty stunning. I love this video, I love Johnny Cash and I love Nine Inch Nails. It is really amazing.
I would dare say Glen Campbell’s “I’m not going to miss you”, written and recorded as he was losing his battle with Alzheimer’s is a pretty powerful farewell.
Well I think Johnny Cash added the I wear this crown of thorns, and he also changed a line to you can have it all, my empire of dirt. I don't remember what nin said on that line instead. I've only listened to it a few times, I'm not much of a fan of nine inch nails version to be honest.
@@brandonreder9869 The original line was "my empire of shit". I have never even heard the original, but I read that somewhere that it was the only word changed. I didn't know about the other one.
Just when you think this song couldn't break your heart any more, the video shows him closing the piano, running his fingers over the cover, saying goodbye to an old friend. The sense of finality is shocking. I have never seen another simple gesture that conveys so much. As for the song... it's a perfect farewell from the Man in Black, brilliant artist and storyteller, a good but flawed man. RIP, Johnny. We'll see you again, When the Man Comes Around.
The fact that Johnny Cash could take a Nine Inch Nails song and turn it into his own and make it such a poignant look at life. It’s amazing and Johnny’s voice is so perfect. The end where he closes the piano is heartbreaking. The love of his life, June, passed away shortly after this song was released and Johnny followed her soon after. He knew it was the end and this song was the one that he closed his career and his life out with. Heartbreaking and poignant, but he went out on his own terms just as Johnny Cash would. Legend.
This song builds as it goes. It starts as a simple a tune as his life is passing by in the images in the video. Johnny was a brilliant artist who spoke for the forgotten man.
This is a prime example that music isn't set in stone. Any artist can cross over and tell a different story with a song from another artist. But the FEELS this song hits... Takes it all to another level. And the piano at the very end - killed it.
4:52 “He’s not doing it like Britany Spears. . . “ LOL. Perhaps an unintentionally funny moment in an insightful review of an emotionally nuanced track. Thank you Beth.
Vocal fry is vocal fry. Brittney (and worse) employ the same technique ... It occurs naturally in some languages (Vietnamese, Wu Chinese and Burmese) and even in some ethnicities, but when we intentionally apply it to modern music the origin and the outcome are "the same". A more flaccid, thicker vocal cord movement and the recruitment of the false vocal cords (the muscles that sit above the vocal cords that we use to hold our breath and cough). If you really want to lose sleep over it, think of the NEW use of fry among the younger generation to imply STATUS (Yes it's a real thing)... Listen to Kim Kardashian or Paris Hilton... Most any So-Cal bimbo looking to sound important has suddenly employed an exaggerated vocal fry into their SPEACH patterns and it's caught on... How's that for an instant case of nausea? ;-)
Honestly, it's a song that hits so strong emotionally, that a little joke like that feels necessary to relieve some tension. This one of very few songs that I can not song along to. It absolutely rips me apart.
Trent's and Johnny's versions are each telling two different stories, both highly emotive and deep. I love both and could never decide between the two because each speaks to a different part of my soul. PS Maybe do a review of the original version by Nine Inch Nails. Trent sings it completely differently but still with the "less is more" quality.
I agree. Trent managed to write a deeply personal song that Johnny was able to receive, and then convey in a equally emotive, deep and personal way (though they do have quite a bit in common even as young men if I recall correctly, so perhaps not such a stretch for Johnny). To me, this version of the song is Johnny Cash's goodbye, which might have more power in that he is contemplating the end of his life, his regrets, his greatest loves, with no chance to change anything or stay, but these are still Trent's lyrics and the existence of this version is a great compliment to Trent. How many modern artists can say Johnny Cash not only wanted to cover their song, but essentially make it his eulogy?
@@yourmom-fx4sw Can you read? I said Trent SANG it with a "less is more" quality. Even his composition is very minimal through most of the song, but still hauntingly beautiful.
@@Yu-Fei-Hung John Denver and Johnny Cash, two icons in countrymusic, no doubt, but still, i'll prefer Cash, it's a world and lived life between them. You never would have got a song like Folsom prison blues from Denver. I'm not saying Denver is bad, on the contrary, i love his songs, he cannot be compared to the man in black.
As well as his amazing performance, you have to give acknowledgement to the genius of Rick Rubin in convincing Johnny to do these albums at the end of his career (and life) - and the production in keeping it clean, simple and honest.
The Johnny Cash video for the single was recorded in February of 2003. June Carter Cash, his 2nd wife is, the woman on stairs; also a singer who toured with him and sang with him on several songs and is the person played by Reese Witherspoon alongside Joaquin Phoenix, in the biopic film of Cash and Carter, Walk the line. She had come over to check on her husband that day as his health was not so good. It was her that Cash attributed to rescuing him from his drug and Alcohol addiction when she married him. June Carter Cash passed away a few months after the video recording in May of 2003 and a bereaved Johnny Cash followed her a few months later in the September. The song is by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and is about his battle with addiction and depression. Cash also an addict and alcoholic for much of his early life spending time in Jail on half a dozen occasions for possession. The song encompasses the way both musicians life threads are woven together and entangled across the decades between them, so much so that Trent when he saw the video said it was like loosing his Girlfriend as the song had become Johnny's. Johnny was a campaigner for prison reform and the rights of Native Americans and much of his material reflected his own passions and darker past. Johnny Cash's star declined in the 80s and the Museum to his life with the smashed Gold Disk on the Floor, used as one of the backdrops to the video, ended up being shuttered. In the 1990s Rick Rubin of American Recordings more of a Rap, Punk and Metal, producer sought out Cash to record on their label, and offered Cash complete artistic freedom. With them his career revived and he brought out a his most critically acclaimed albums, the America series, bringing Cash to a new younger audience starring on The Simpsons and Headlining at Glastonbury in 1994. The 4th and penultimate album of the America series from which this is one of several Hit Singles: American IV: The Man Comes Around, was released in November of 2002 and he was still working on his final Album that was released posthumously. The video is composed of metaphors for his story, the closing of the piano brushing his hands to shut the pages on the final chapter of his life.
I remember hearing that Cash covered this Nine Inch Nails song and didn’t think much of it as I hadn’t heard it. The first time I saw the video I wept, hard. And I’m not a particularly big fan of either Cash or Nine Inch Nails but his interpretation and that video is nothing short of a masterpiece to me. When he is spilling his wine on the table, defiling the opulence of the setting whilst looking in the camera exclaiming “my empire of dirt” you can see a man looking back at his life and the smallness of the unimportant when all he wished to have is more time. It is the same look I saw my father give his hospice nurse on the last day of his life when all he wanted was more time. I will never watch this video and not cry.
Thank you so much, Beth, for your react to this heartbreaking song! At the end of the video, I see the piano like a coffin, and I love the way Johnny Cash gently closes it, like if he was saying: « Ok, Death, you can come now. I did something so beautiful that you'll never be able to kill it. »
June Carter Cash, Johnny's wife of 35 years, looks down upon him as an angel in this video. She accepts him despite his transgressions. She died within weeks of this video being released. Truly an angel waiting for him as he died months after. This is an epitaph of true love. How does one vocally express despair? Johnny does it perfectly.
Johnny went out in a way most can never or will never comprehend. A forgotten star, a forgotten rebel, heard a song, recorded a song, validating the song and his life. He brought such experience and life and a sparkle of hope at the end of his life, that suddenly a forgotten star was risen and although Johnny passed away not long after the release of Hurt and of course his wife June, he was validated. Rest in Peace Man in Black. I'll see you some day my friend. Until then, keeping pissing people off and I hope you and June are together again. Thank you for reading.
That one piano note is the constant encroachment of time, coming to a crescendo at the end, marking the end of his story. It builds and builds, louder and louder almost feels like its getting closer and faster as time does and then abruptly its over as is life.
You see his wife. June Carter Cash on the staircase behind him towards the end of the song. They were devoted to each other. She passed in May 2003. Johnny survived her by 4 months, even though he was 3 years younger.
Really hit the nail on the head with that "Less is more" statement. Its not a hard song to play, sure. But to play it with the same feeling and meaning as Johnny, is impossible.
Love this. Would be cool to see a reaction to the original as well. They try for slightly different things but the vocals on that also do very well in conveying pain and self-destruction.
His daughter tells the story of how her mum said ‘be careful’ before she saw it. She was devastated. But also laughed at how her parents could lay it all on the line like that. Great doc about Cash had this in it.
Yep. Like full on sobbing. Doesn't matter the time or place. But I kinda wonder if that wasnt subconsciously it's intent all along....it just pulls something out of people. At least it does for me. And I love it for that.
This song still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and the emotional power of the performance has no equal. My favourite JR Cash song. A true legend
I think it was Rosanne that told him "It sound like you're saying goodbye" Johnny answered "I am" June weren't supposed to be in the video. She was upstairs resting when she heard the crew downstairs and came down to have a look at what was going on.
@@maverickofkain yes, I do. Did you know that Trent Reznor of NIN basically gave the song to Johnny after hearing him sing it? In other news the sky in blue. Film at 11.
@@maverickofkain From what I knew of Johnny Cash, I thought this was his. I don't listen to Nine Inch Nails. Its one of those songs where the cover becomes the baseline against which all others are measured.
@@LordDarque wrong, he didn't like the song when he first heard it. It only resonated with him when he saw the video and could hear it without his own personal feeling about song.
One of the most powerful videos ever made. Johnny didn't want to do this cover but caved-in to Rick Rubins. He didn't want to release the video but finally agreed based on his daughter, Rosanne's urging. Trent wrote a powerful song and cried when he saw the video; he admitted that after he saw it, it became Johnny's song.
Beth does cry. Miss Diana Ankudinova made Beth cry. Beth I would love it if you would do more of Diana Ankudinova's songs. She is still a force of nature. She even sings some songs in English.
Just awe-inspiring, this is beyond fantastic. The crescendo at the end and the closing of the piano keys and soft caress, just so moving. If I had to guess... the video clip of him saying "You stay the hell away you here" when he turns and looks upward is him speaking to death as he knew it was coming. One of my favorite remakes of all time right here.
You have hit the nail on the head with your comments, and the Man is telling his story of closure, its closure on a life that has had its highs and lows and yet it's from the heart. The closing of the piano lid brings me to tears.
This song is arguably one of the hardest songs in the world to sing because its one of the few songs that isn't about the singing ability its about the emotion behind it
Nice reaction......"Less is more." I completely agree Beth. A mentor told me years ago regarding the guitar, "It's not about the quantity, it's about the quality." Also, regarding vocal technique and performance, "It is less about the technique, and more about the passion."
This is one of the most powerful songs I've ever heard. As you say, the single note octaves on tbe piano comes through with an exceptional intensity, juxtaposed with the crucifixion in the video - like nails. This stops me in my tracks every time, but the closure of the piano lid, the context of Cash's impending death, his certainty in reviewing his life - all the imagery and the vocal delivery - create an outstanding and important piece of art.
When I listen to the NIN original version, it's a piece of music that I can identify with, but doesn't move me the way Johnny Cash's version does... his version can bring me to tears in under a minute and keep me there for the duration...
While Cash may lack technique, he is a master at using art to tell a story, to evoke emotion from even the most stoic. It took me a long time to realize what a true artist he was. When I saw this video as it came out, it became the only music video, before or since, that I purchased as a DVD. I am revisiting all his work now.
We all end up at the same finish line. That is what we all have in common. If we could only realize this before the race is done, the things we could do. Lots of emotions listening to this. Brought back memory’s of driving with my dad when I was much younger and putting in Cash in the 8 track on a warm summer day.
@@Sweet.Mother.of.Cheesus I'm a ginger. But I've also experienced a lot of loss and death in my life. I'm an emotional wreck every time I listen to this song, to the point of needing to pull over and stop driving.
Even after all these years, this is the absolute best and most amazing cover of any song I've ever heard, it still brings me to tears when i hear it. I remember hearing the original from nin and identifying with it, but being older and hearing Johnny's version, i can truly feel it
Trent's version is about a young man fighting addiction, inner demons, and the regret that his behavior has had on his life as well as the people who cared about him, while Johnny's version is about an old man looking back on his life and realizing that his legacy is just an "empire of dirt" in the grand scheme of things. 2 totally different songs using the same song. Thanks for another amazing reaction!
I really cant listen to this without crying... One of the best covers ever made! A whole new song from the original, so much more emotion! (no hate on NIN)
I wouldn’t say more emotional at all, they are just completely different dark emotions. Cash was old sick and dying and he knew it, it was his goodbye. Trent’s was a deep dark pit of dispose and longing pushed deeper by drug addiction. Both are totally amazing and emotional, but in two different ways. Trent’s will always be more relatable to me
As others have chimed in and said, the images/video that accompany the song, are genuinely connected. The song itself was released a year before his death, this video was released by Johnny Cash, 3 months before June's death, and he would die 4 months later.
HURT is about addiction to me and what it does to you, your family and everyone you know. This has special meaning to me as I lost my daughter to drugs, mental illness and homelessness. You start by coming down on them , then thinking they will grow out of it, if we did this but it ends with accepting they have to want the change and nothing you matters until they do. Its hard to watch someone you love die each day and you can't do anything about it. The song HURT describes this tortured life better than anything I've heard. Thanks Johnny.
6:54- Okay finally. Somebody in a reaction mentions that sledgehammer of a piano. That one note that keeps striking you in the heart. As if the song isn't sad enough. That continuous note that keeps getting louder is major to me.
Mr. Cash, made me want me to sing, but I, joined the military and yelled alot. Now my voice is all messed up. Lol Great react. I always learn something.
US Marine here, sang all my life, sang again after getting out. You can still sing, brother; just pick a style that uses the roughness to tell the story. 👍🏻
Brilliantly produced track. Spare - full of space. The single note piano in the chorus is a touch genius. It also shows how strong the original sing is
Ranks with Glen Campbell''s "I'm not gonna miss you" (about descent into Alzheimers), Eric Clapton's Circus (about the circus he took his son to the night before the accident), Verve - The Drugs don't work (father dying of cancer) among the most powerful songs.
That piano part is like a ticking bomb of bitterness and sadness, it's PERFECT for that part of his life, his tone and the music lyrics It's like that music was created by him and the original is the cover, exactly the same sensation as in 'Changes' by Charles Bradley
Interesting perspective, since the song was written by Trent in his 20's, about realizing his drug addiction caused him to hit rock bottom. Originally a NIN song, written by Trent Reznor, which will be on Song Exploder 12-15. The video was also produced/directed by Rick Ruben, who also did NIN's closer music video. Trent is highly under-rated singer, please do a NIN live reaction (Not Closer!) - Anything off of their Tension tour on their youtube channel, even Hurt for the original version. Just inducted in RRHOF as well.
While it is a Trent Reznor written and performed song...she is reacting to the Johnny Cash version...so don't be an ass and then spew off all of nine inch nails songs.
I always enjoy your reaction video's. Today I think you outdid yourself, because the music clearly got to you. As happens to us all, when we listen to this absolute masterpiece of a song
It's not a NIN song anymore ;) "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."
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The imperfection in Johnny's singing in this song, is what makes it perfect. The frail-sounding emotional wavering in his voice. If he sang it perfectly and with strength behind the words, it wouldn't have the same power.
Aside from the context of this person's life, I don't think its possible to really plumb the depths of this message. This is a man who was out in the fields picking cotton at five years old. He lost his older brother, his North star, his role model in life, to a gruesome and horrifying work accident, at a very young age, and was haunted by it all the way into old age, even to the grave. The house he is visiting and peering into through the windows, that is his childhood home in Dyess, Arkansas, the fields where he labored as a young child. I don't think we can appreciate the magnitude of this gift without understanding those things.
It makes me cry, every time. Masterful, and I believe the best he ever did as it affects everyone so powerfully. This is the most powerful emotional performance I've ever seen. I wish even 1 of my recordings was even close.
I have heard this song 100's of times over the last what... 18 years? 20? I still can't hear it with out crying. And it seem like the older I get, the more poignant the song gets.
There are songs that make you happy. Songs that make you smile, or dance. Songs that make you think, songs that make you drum your fingers, even songs that make you angry. And then - then there are songs that are a sledgehammer to the gut.
"Tears started welling up, I realized it wasn't really my song anymore. It just gave me goose bumps up and down my spine. It's an unbelievably powerful piece of work. After he passed away I remember feeling saddened, but being honored to have framed the end of his life in something that is very tasteful." - Trent Reznor
Tip of my hat to you sir/ma'am, for showing me that quote.
Reznor and Cash are really on another level. That's the Pro league.....
You Forget a "little" detail. . He actually Rejected Johnny's version, the first time he admitted it. . Hmm
To me, the original is way better, darker, tortured. Just as it's ment to be.
"Crown of thorns"... yeah, right...
@@madasta3207 What he disliked was an audio CD The full impact of this is only achieved when you watch the video
When Trent Reznor wrote this song, he was singing it from a different place. It was dark and brooding.
And then comes JR Cash. It was as though he was singing his eulogy. He knew his time was short, and this was the song to be remembered for all time.
The end of this video always hits me pretty hard. When he closes the lid on the piano and wipes it down, it's as if to say "Goodbye" There will never be another Johnny Cash.
I trust he’s in the arms of a loving God
Trent, “That’s not my song anymore.”
Ironic that you mention closing the piano feeling like he's saying goodbye...allegedly, when one of his daughters saw this video for the first time, she said it felt like he was saying goodbye, and his response was "I am."
And see as he closed the lid , I thought As the music ends.
It was a goodbye in that when you saw him close the piano he apparently never opened it again...
When his daughter Roseanne first heard it she said “it sounds like you’re saying goodbye” Johnny replied “I am”
😥
I think he actually said something like "maybe I am"
@@maribethspence9458 you mean like “i am”?
@@mcpure9083 No I met what I typed. If I remember right he said 'Maybe', then paused a little then said 'I am'. But you know what the only people who know for sure is JR and his daughter
J.R never would have been that candid. I never believed this.
As far as his vocals go, sometimes imperfection is perfection.
This. x40000.
He was also very sick by this time. He had a syndrome that caused loss of muscle control, including his vocal cords.
This is ine of those songs that every time i listen i shed a few tears or come close, its like a automatic response.
I concur. I am actually Johnny Cash’s second cousin and the song means a little bit more to me because of that. But I tear up every time.
Yup every damn time tears
More of a "knot in my throat" response, but yeah. Hits me every single time.
Trent Reznor said it became a Johnny Cash song as soon as he sang it. Nobody can or will do better then Johnny did on this song. The emotion is so raw.
Yes Trent said this is his song now and I have absolutely nothing but respect for Cash’s version but when I heard this song for the first time it had a major impact on my life and I will always hold Trents version a little higher.
@@oscarrios6048 Trent dismissed Johnny's version because his notoriety kinda stole it from NIN. I'm a Johnny fan but wish he wouldn't have done it.
@@jeremystanton382 Nobody stole anything. Stop being dramatic.
@@OriginalWhiteDevil lol, well it feels like it😏
@@jeremystanton382 Shouldn't have done it?? It was his dying song and a fitting farewell to the world and his fans or would you rather him cover Gangnam Style instead as his tribute to his life and fans? LOL It was the perfect song for his departure with the slight lyrics alteration.
I must've watched the video over a hundred times and it never fails to move me. It never fails to bring me to tears because it's so raw, and emotional and powerful. And so so honest. So many different emotions that Cash conjured up, while reminiscing about his life. The good things, the bad things, it turns into a maelstrom of different emotions and it simply draws me in. At the end of the song, when he closes the piano it feels like him drawing a line under his life, saying "That's it". And the most impressive part about it: He manages to give the song a whole new meaning without radically changing the lyrics. One word here, one word there and that's it. Truly outstanding
One word. He changed one word. Completely different song. Both versions, the title says it all.
Oh Beth!! You cut off the most poignant moment of the whole video! When he shuts the piano and rubs his hands across it...
^^ This ^^
Agreed...others have said elsewhere that the moment the piano closes is like the closing of his coffin.
SOOOOOOOOOOO much this! To me, that makes the entire video. I waited to see it, and was completely let down.
Yes, I totally agree. Closing the piano is the climax of the whole video, Johnny Cash telling his farewell to music and to the world.
The way the video cuts, I feel like it may have made Beth cry and she didn’t want that in the final edit. Look at her eyes and face right after the cut.
This was his last video. His wife June Carter Cash passed away a little while after this then we lost Johnny. But a farewell better than this won't be found.
No offense, but David Bowie's farewell tunes were pretty stunning. I love this video, I love Johnny Cash and I love Nine Inch Nails. It is really amazing.
@@warmongerel9743 I am both a Johnny and David fan, and I came to add this about Black Star too. His goodbye letter to us.
Blackstar hits me the same way American IV does. There's just something about the singing of a person who knows the end is near.
He was meant to sing 'Till Kingdom Come with Coldplay too, but passed before it happened.
I would dare say Glen Campbell’s “I’m not going to miss you”, written and recorded as he was losing his battle with Alzheimer’s is a pretty powerful farewell.
The ability to sing every word of the original song, and have it mean a completely different thing, is just unbelievable.
Well one word was different but yeah
I think Trent said the Johny Cash owns this song now.
Well I think Johnny Cash added the I wear this crown of thorns, and he also changed a line to you can have it all, my empire of dirt. I don't remember what nin said on that line instead. I've only listened to it a few times, I'm not much of a fan of nine inch nails version to be honest.
@@brandonreder9869 The original line was "my empire of shit". I have never even heard the original, but I read that somewhere that it was the only word changed. I didn't know about the other one.
Best cover ever. Reznor was darkly angsty but this goes out and gut punches you in the feels. Have a hug everyone. We'll get through this.
Just when you think this song couldn't break your heart any more, the video shows him closing the piano, running his fingers over the cover, saying goodbye to an old friend. The sense of finality is shocking. I have never seen another simple gesture that conveys so much.
As for the song... it's a perfect farewell from the Man in Black, brilliant artist and storyteller, a good but flawed man.
RIP, Johnny. We'll see you again, When the Man Comes Around.
Everytime I hear the Cash version of this song tears well up in my eyes.
Been listening to this song for 18 years, goosebumps and a lump in my throat every time I hear it still
I can't watch this song without the tears flowing. It's just not possible.
The fact that Johnny Cash could take a Nine Inch Nails song and turn it into his own and make it such a poignant look at life. It’s amazing and Johnny’s voice is so perfect. The end where he closes the piano is heartbreaking. The love of his life, June, passed away shortly after this song was released and Johnny followed her soon after. He knew it was the end and this song was the one that he closed his career and his life out with. Heartbreaking and poignant, but he went out on his own terms just as Johnny Cash would. Legend.
This song builds as it goes. It starts as a simple a tune as his life is passing by in the images in the video. Johnny was a brilliant artist who spoke for the forgotten man.
This is a prime example that music isn't set in stone. Any artist can cross over and tell a different story with a song from another artist. But the FEELS this song hits... Takes it all to another level. And the piano at the very end - killed it.
4:52 “He’s not doing it like Britany Spears. . . “
LOL. Perhaps an unintentionally funny moment in an insightful review of an emotionally nuanced track. Thank you Beth.
Vocal fry is vocal fry. Brittney (and worse) employ the same technique ... It occurs naturally in some languages (Vietnamese, Wu Chinese and Burmese) and even in some ethnicities, but when we intentionally apply it to modern music the origin and the outcome are "the same". A more flaccid, thicker vocal cord movement and the recruitment of the false vocal cords (the muscles that sit above the vocal cords that we use to hold our breath and cough).
If you really want to lose sleep over it, think of the NEW use of fry among the younger generation to imply STATUS (Yes it's a real thing)... Listen to Kim Kardashian or Paris Hilton... Most any So-Cal bimbo looking to sound important has suddenly employed an exaggerated vocal fry into their SPEACH patterns and it's caught on... How's that for an instant case of nausea? ;-)
Honestly, it's a song that hits so strong emotionally, that a little joke like that feels necessary to relieve some tension. This one of very few songs that I can not song along to. It absolutely rips me apart.
Nothing truer has ever been spoken, than that line.
Trent's and Johnny's versions are each telling two different stories, both highly emotive and deep. I love both and could never decide between the two because each speaks to a different part of my soul.
PS Maybe do a review of the original version by Nine Inch Nails. Trent sings it completely differently but still with the "less is more" quality.
Johnny only changed one word. And one note. The last one. Yet it's one song telling two stories.
I agree. Trent managed to write a deeply personal song that Johnny was able to receive, and then convey in a equally emotive, deep and personal way (though they do have quite a bit in common even as young men if I recall correctly, so perhaps not such a stretch for Johnny). To me, this version of the song is Johnny Cash's goodbye, which might have more power in that he is contemplating the end of his life, his regrets, his greatest loves, with no chance to change anything or stay, but these are still Trent's lyrics and the existence of this version is a great compliment to Trent. How many modern artists can say Johnny Cash not only wanted to cover their song, but essentially make it his eulogy?
The fuck, Cash is less is more. That dude just has a guitar and sings. Trent had go build sounds with his synth and more. Are you dumb?
@@yourmom-fx4sw Can you read? I said Trent SANG it with a "less is more" quality. Even his composition is very minimal through most of the song, but still hauntingly beautiful.
@@Mreffs101 nice bullshit. He sang it very intricately. The amount of emotion is crazy and good luck coming even close to how he sang it
Johnny will always be the greatest country musician. RIP
What about John Denver? Is there a version of Country Roads with Cash?
@@Yu-Fei-Hung Yes th-cam.com/video/2mArB_EOIPI/w-d-xo.html
@@Yu-Fei-Hung John Denver and Johnny Cash, two icons in countrymusic, no doubt, but still, i'll prefer Cash, it's a world and lived life between them. You never would have got a song like Folsom prison blues from Denver. I'm not saying Denver is bad, on the contrary, i love his songs, he cannot be compared to the man in black.
@@ZSAZSS09 these were different kinds of country.
My favorite will always be Waylon. I also love Buck Owens and Jerry reed. There are just too many great country singer to list
As well as his amazing performance, you have to give acknowledgement to the genius of Rick Rubin in convincing Johnny to do these albums at the end of his career (and life) - and the production in keeping it clean, simple and honest.
"Johnny Cash is not doing it like Britney Spears".
Now THIS is the expert analysis i keep coming back for. Love this channel
She just debunked it.
Understatement of the year
Comparing the two is Blasphemy!
Johnny will forever hold a peice of my heart. He did build a empire on his grit and pain!
When Johnny Cash covered this song Trent Reznor recognised & said that it wasn't his anymore; it was Johnny's.
Err no he didn't. Not until he saw the video. He didn't like it when he first heard it.
@@yomo1690 There's an interview with Trent that says otherwise, bud.
@@christianwelker7383 you haven't watched all the interviews then or read the articles. He didn't like it UNTIL he saw the video. Look harder.
The Johnny Cash video for the single was recorded in February of 2003. June Carter Cash, his 2nd wife is, the woman on stairs; also a singer who toured with him and sang with him on several songs and is the person played by Reese Witherspoon alongside Joaquin Phoenix, in the biopic film of Cash and Carter, Walk the line. She had come over to check on her husband that day as his health was not so good. It was her that Cash attributed to rescuing him from his drug and Alcohol addiction when she married him. June Carter Cash passed away a few months after the video recording in May of 2003 and a bereaved Johnny Cash followed her a few months later in the September.
The song is by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and is about his battle with addiction and depression. Cash also an addict and alcoholic for much of his early life spending time in Jail on half a dozen occasions for possession. The song encompasses the way both musicians life threads are woven together and entangled across the decades between them, so much so that Trent when he saw the video said it was like loosing his Girlfriend as the song had become Johnny's.
Johnny was a campaigner for prison reform and the rights of Native Americans and much of his material reflected his own passions and darker past. Johnny Cash's star declined in the 80s and the Museum to his life with the smashed Gold Disk on the Floor, used as one of the backdrops to the video, ended up being shuttered.
In the 1990s Rick Rubin of American Recordings more of a Rap, Punk and Metal, producer sought out Cash to record on their label, and offered Cash complete artistic freedom. With them his career revived and he brought out a his most critically acclaimed albums, the America series, bringing Cash to a new younger audience starring on The Simpsons and Headlining at Glastonbury in 1994. The 4th and penultimate album of the America series from which this is one of several Hit Singles: American IV: The Man Comes Around, was released in November of 2002 and he was still working on his final Album that was released posthumously.
The video is composed of metaphors for his story, the closing of the piano brushing his hands to shut the pages on the final chapter of his life.
I remember hearing that Cash covered this Nine Inch Nails song and didn’t think much of it as I hadn’t heard it. The first time I saw the video I wept, hard. And I’m not a particularly big fan of either Cash or Nine Inch Nails but his interpretation and that video is nothing short of a masterpiece to me. When he is spilling his wine on the table, defiling the opulence of the setting whilst looking in the camera exclaiming “my empire of dirt” you can see a man looking back at his life and the smallness of the unimportant when all he wished to have is more time. It is the same look I saw my father give his hospice nurse on the last day of his life when all he wanted was more time. I will never watch this video and not cry.
Reznor said that he wrote the song for Cash - he just didn't realise it at the time...
This performance was sooooooooo well done!
Amazing production too. Love the way everything starts to distort slightly as the build increases at the end. So simple... but so effective
The Man in Black, will forever reign. Rest In Peace
Thank you so much, Beth, for your react to this heartbreaking song! At the end of the video, I see the piano like a coffin, and I love the way Johnny Cash gently closes it, like if he was saying: « Ok, Death, you can come now. I did something so beautiful that you'll never be able to kill it. »
June Carter Cash, Johnny's wife of 35 years, looks down upon him as an angel in this video. She accepts him despite his transgressions.
She died within weeks of this video being released. Truly an angel waiting for him as he died months after.
This is an epitaph of true love.
How does one vocally express despair? Johnny does it perfectly.
Kris kristopherson once said in a interview if June had survived her surgery Johnny would have stuck around as long as she did
I don't think I've ever listened to that song all the way through with dry eyes
Same.
Johnny went out in a way most can never or will never comprehend. A forgotten star, a forgotten rebel, heard a song, recorded a song, validating the song and his life. He brought such experience and life and a sparkle of hope at the end of his life, that suddenly a forgotten star was risen and although Johnny passed away not long after the release of Hurt and of course his wife June, he was validated. Rest in Peace Man in Black. I'll see you some day my friend. Until then, keeping pissing people off and I hope you and June are together again.
Thank you for reading.
That one piano note is the constant encroachment of time, coming to a crescendo at the end, marking the end of his story. It builds and builds, louder and louder almost feels like its getting closer and faster as time does and then abruptly its over as is life.
You see his wife. June Carter Cash on the staircase behind him towards the end of the song.
They were devoted to each other. She passed in May 2003. Johnny survived her by 4 months, even though he was 3 years younger.
I'll admit it, I cried the first time I saw the video. My grandpa was from that era and it brought up a lot of memories. That is true art.
Really hit the nail on the head with that "Less is more" statement. Its not a hard song to play, sure. But to play it with the same feeling and meaning as Johnny, is impossible.
Love this. Would be cool to see a reaction to the original as well. They try for slightly different things but the vocals on that also do very well in conveying pain and self-destruction.
His daughter tells the story of how her mum said ‘be careful’ before she saw it. She was devastated. But also laughed at how her parents could lay it all on the line like that. Great doc about Cash had this in it.
This one guts me every time. 😭
Absolutely, every time. It's the combination of song and video that makes me openly sob.
Yep. Like full on sobbing. Doesn't matter the time or place. But I kinda wonder if that wasnt subconsciously it's intent all along....it just pulls something out of people. At least it does for me. And I love it for that.
This song still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and the emotional power of the performance has no equal. My favourite JR Cash song. A true legend
I think it was Rosanne that told him "It sound like you're saying goodbye"
Johnny answered "I am"
June weren't supposed to be in the video. She was upstairs resting when she heard the crew downstairs and came down to have a look at what was going on.
Every time I hear This, I'm blown away. It is one of his best songs ever.
Did you know its a cover?
@@maverickofkain yes, I do. Did you know that Trent Reznor of NIN basically gave the song to Johnny after hearing him sing it?
In other news the sky in blue. Film at 11.
@@maverickofkain From what I knew of Johnny Cash, I thought this was his. I don't listen to Nine Inch Nails.
Its one of those songs where the cover becomes the baseline against which all others are measured.
@@LordDarque wrong, he didn't like the song when he first heard it. It only resonated with him when he saw the video and could hear it without his own personal feeling about song.
@@yomo1690 OK Mr Reznor.
One of the most powerful videos ever made. Johnny didn't want to do this cover but caved-in to Rick Rubins. He didn't want to release the video but finally agreed based on his daughter, Rosanne's urging. Trent wrote a powerful song and cried when he saw the video; he admitted that after he saw it, it became Johnny's song.
What made Johnny Johnny was that he is an incredible storyteller. These lyrics and this song was perfect for him.
I love how this amazing woman never cries, otherwise i'd cry with her.
Beth does cry. Miss Diana Ankudinova made Beth cry. Beth I would love it if you would do more of Diana Ankudinova's songs. She is still a force of nature. She even sings some songs in English.
I really dont know how she didnt cry for this song.... so powerful and sorrowful as his own eulogy to himself should be. RIP Mr. Cash
@@justafreethinker I wish she would have finished the video.
Just awe-inspiring, this is beyond fantastic. The crescendo at the end and the closing of the piano keys and soft caress, just so moving. If I had to guess... the video clip of him saying "You stay the hell away you here" when he turns and looks upward is him speaking to death as he knew it was coming. One of my favorite remakes of all time right here.
Til the day he died he never stopped growing as an artist.
You have hit the nail on the head with your comments, and the Man is telling his story of closure, its closure on a life that has had its highs and lows and yet it's from the heart. The closing of the piano lid brings me to tears.
This song is arguably one of the hardest songs in the world to sing because its one of the few songs that isn't about the singing ability its about the emotion behind it
Johnny is speaking and singing to US. He's delivering his own eulogy with the greatest love.
Nice reaction......"Less is more." I completely agree Beth.
A mentor told me years ago regarding the guitar, "It's not about the quantity, it's about the quality."
Also, regarding vocal technique and performance, "It is less about the technique, and more about the passion."
I've lost everyone and everything I ever had. I cry like a baby every time I hear this beauty.
At the time of Johnny's passing ,he had the No1 Song and Video through out the Land ,what a way to leave on Top .
This is one of the most powerful songs I've ever heard. As you say, the single note octaves on tbe piano comes through with an exceptional intensity, juxtaposed with the crucifixion in the video - like nails. This stops me in my tracks every time, but the closure of the piano lid, the context of Cash's impending death, his certainty in reviewing his life - all the imagery and the vocal delivery - create an outstanding and important piece of art.
When I listen to the NIN original version, it's a piece of music that I can identify with, but doesn't move me the way Johnny Cash's version does... his version can bring me to tears in under a minute and keep me there for the duration...
Johnny could sing anything and make a masterpiece from it. RIP legend.
This song brings me to tears every time...
I love both of them,
Cash =Melancholia
NIN =Angry
♥♥♥
Yeah it's angst vs melancholy
The older I get, the more this song hits me.
This is one of the most dangerous songs to listen to when your really down on yourself,your mood won't improve but you'll feel everything
While Cash may lack technique, he is a master at using art to tell a story, to evoke emotion from even the most stoic. It took me a long time to realize what a true artist he was. When I saw this video as it came out, it became the only music video, before or since, that I purchased as a DVD. I am revisiting all his work now.
We all end up at the same finish line. That is what we all have in common. If we could only realize this before the race is done, the things we could do. Lots of emotions listening to this. Brought back memory’s of driving with my dad when I was much younger and putting in Cash in the 8 track on a warm summer day.
"He's just holding it together..."
We all are, Beth. We all are.
Great reaction and analysis, as always!
she doesn't seem too effected. most people break down in tears first time they see this video. i guess gingers really do not have a soul..
@@Sweet.Mother.of.Cheesus I'm a ginger. But I've also experienced a lot of loss and death in my life. I'm an emotional wreck every time I listen to this song, to the point of needing to pull over and stop driving.
@@Sweet.Mother.of.Cheesus - Or because she's a professional and didn't let her reactions show.
@@Sweet.Mother.of.Cheesus That's
Even after all these years, this is the absolute best and most amazing cover of any song I've ever heard, it still brings me to tears when i hear it. I remember hearing the original from nin and identifying with it, but being older and hearing Johnny's version, i can truly feel it
Trent's version is about a young man fighting addiction, inner demons, and the regret that his behavior has had on his life as well as the people who cared about him, while Johnny's version is about an old man looking back on his life and realizing that his legacy is just an "empire of dirt" in the grand scheme of things. 2 totally different songs using the same song. Thanks for another amazing reaction!
Johnny Cash had his demons too, the same...
There are very few perfect songs. But this version of this song is one of them. Great reaction.
I really cant listen to this without crying... One of the best covers ever made! A whole new song from the original, so much more emotion! (no hate on NIN)
I wouldn’t say more emotional at all, they are just completely different dark emotions. Cash was old sick and dying and he knew it, it was his goodbye. Trent’s was a deep dark pit of dispose and longing pushed deeper by drug addiction. Both are totally amazing and emotional, but in two different ways. Trent’s will always be more relatable to me
As others have chimed in and said, the images/video that accompany the song, are genuinely connected. The song itself was released a year before his death, this video was released by Johnny Cash, 3 months before June's death, and he would die 4 months later.
Trent Reznor was born to write “Hurt” ... Johnny Cash was born to sing it
both are good. just different. a case where the cover really takes on a life of its own
So true. I love the the story that he adds to the lyrics.
Well said.
Johnny went out with a bang here like the superstar he truly was !!
No one will ever sing this song like Johnny has.
Beth, the emotion you show during this song shows your true passion for music... thank you
This song in the hands of Johnny Cash has the power to emotionally unlock people.
I"m not crying, You're crying!
Cash passed away 7 months after releasing this song just over a year after the love of his life had passed, he used it as his good bye to the world.
This song is pared down to its essence-brilliant in its simplicity, a performance for the ages.
Beth: "makes videos"
Me: I think im going to fall in love right now 👌
Yea, that happens
HURT is about addiction to me and what it does to you, your family and everyone you know. This has special meaning to me as I lost my daughter to drugs, mental illness and homelessness. You start by coming down on them , then thinking they will grow out of it, if we did this but it ends with accepting they have to want the change and nothing you matters until they do. Its hard to watch someone you love die each day and you can't do anything about it. The song HURT describes this tortured life better than anything I've heard. Thanks Johnny.
Actually, while we're on the subject, Johnny Cash also did a real awesome cover of Soundgarden's "Rusty Cage".
He did a great cover of Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus" too
6:54- Okay finally. Somebody in a reaction mentions that sledgehammer of a piano. That one note that keeps striking you in the heart. As if the song isn't sad enough. That continuous note that keeps getting louder is major to me.
oh god, now i have johnny cash singing toxic in my head!
It really shows the brilliance of Rick Rubin, to have the vision to join the artist with the song.
Mr. Cash, made me want me to sing, but I, joined the military and yelled alot. Now my voice is all messed up. Lol
Great react. I always learn something.
Thanks for your service......
Respect👍😎🤘
US Marine here, sang all my life, sang again after getting out. You can still sing, brother; just pick a style that uses the roughness to tell the story. 👍🏻
@@Dvergenlied thank you brother, Semper Fi, like always.
Brilliantly produced track. Spare - full of space. The single note piano in the chorus is a touch genius. It also shows how strong the original sing is
"He's not doing it like Britney Spears." I almost choked to death on my tea.
"Crown of shit" became "Crown of thorns" which fits the lyrics more than ever!
Ranks with Glen Campbell''s "I'm not gonna miss you" (about descent into Alzheimers), Eric Clapton's Circus (about the circus he took his son to the night before the accident), Verve - The Drugs don't work (father dying of cancer) among the most powerful songs.
That piano part is like a ticking bomb of bitterness and sadness, it's PERFECT for that part of his life, his tone and the music lyrics
It's like that music was created by him and the original is the cover, exactly the same sensation as in 'Changes' by Charles Bradley
Interesting perspective, since the song was written by Trent in his 20's, about realizing his drug addiction caused him to hit rock bottom.
Originally a NIN song, written by Trent Reznor, which will be on Song Exploder 12-15. The video was also produced/directed by Rick Ruben, who also did NIN's closer music video. Trent is highly under-rated singer, please do a NIN live reaction (Not Closer!) - Anything off of their Tension tour on their youtube channel, even Hurt for the original version. Just inducted in RRHOF as well.
While it is a Trent Reznor written and performed song...she is reacting to the Johnny Cash version...so don't be an ass and then spew off all of nine inch nails songs.
@@ericaclark9155 I mean, gawd forbid a fan requests a reaction content creator to react to a song. 🤣😅. ❤🖤🙏
I always enjoy your reaction video's. Today I think you outdid yourself, because the music clearly got to you. As happens to us all, when we listen to this absolute masterpiece of a song
This is a cover of a Nine Inch Nails song, and while this version is great the original is as well (though very different).
It's not a NIN song anymore ;) "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."
@@GranZhadu Trent agreed with you.
this comment was made 2 months ago? how?
@@Bronkodile copy and paste
@@Bronkodile I am a member of her Patreon.
I love the way you pay respects to this....so proper. Johnny Cash in his later years...a legend.
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Ohhh gawd shush
The imperfection in Johnny's singing in this song, is what makes it perfect. The frail-sounding emotional wavering in his voice. If he sang it perfectly and with strength behind the words, it wouldn't have the same power.
Johnny Cash was a legend. Will never be another like him.
Aside from the context of this person's life, I don't think its possible to really plumb the depths of this message. This is a man who was out in the fields picking cotton at five years old. He lost his older brother, his North star, his role model in life, to a gruesome and horrifying work accident, at a very young age, and was haunted by it all the way into old age, even to the grave. The house he is visiting and peering into through the windows, that is his childhood home in Dyess, Arkansas, the fields where he labored as a young child. I don't think we can appreciate the magnitude of this gift without understanding those things.
My favourite song
It makes me cry, every time. Masterful, and I believe the best he ever did as it affects everyone so powerfully. This is the most powerful emotional performance I've ever seen. I wish even 1 of my recordings was even close.
I have heard this song 100's of times over the last what... 18 years? 20? I still can't hear it with out crying. And it seem like the older I get, the more poignant the song gets.
There are songs that make you happy. Songs that make you smile, or dance. Songs that make you think, songs that make you drum your fingers, even songs that make you angry. And then - then there are songs that are a sledgehammer to the gut.