Hurt by Trent Reznor, was first released by Nine Inch Nails but as Reznor himself put it after watching Johnny Cash's music video of the cover "It instantly became his song after that."
The video is a powerful one as it is the last work by Johnny Cash and the video is brutally honest about his short time left on earth. Reznor didn't fully appreciate the cover till he saw it on video and then had this to say of it:
"I pop the video in, and wow… Tears welling, silence, goose-bumps… Wow. 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."
I don't watch music videos often, but this is easily the best music video of all time as far as I am concerned.
Johnny Cash - Hurt
For more of Trent Reznor's perspective here's a good interview by Rolling Stone:
I've seen it many times now, but it still sends a shiver down my spine each time.
0 Replies
Rockhead
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Fri 29 Aug, 2008 06:20 pm
@Robert Gentel,
Not disagreein' neither, private stash...
0 Replies
Diane
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Fri 29 Aug, 2008 07:50 pm
With that ravaged, puffy face and broken voice, it is one of the most powerful videos I've ever seen.
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Nick Ashley
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Fri 29 Aug, 2008 11:18 pm
Apparently you need to know a bit about Johnny Cash to really "get" this video. That, or I'm just completely missing something. All I know about Johnny Cash is hes been a singer for a long time. So when I watched it, all I saw was an old guy singing, with some random black and white footage, and jesus mixed in there.
I guess I'm lightening the mood a bit here (hope that's okay) but here are some of my favorites:
I didn't know anything about Cash before seeing this video. It's poignant because it's a man's parting message before dying and is honest about what it is, showing Cash basically saying goodbye.
"You can have it all, my empire of dirt" (shows flashes of his records and awards) "everyone I know goes away in the end" (his deceased wife fades), "If I could start again A million miles away" (flashes back to his youth)...
And goodbye it was, as he died shortly afterwards.
Quote:
I guess I'm lightening the mood a bit here (hope that's okay)
I bet you are the guy cracking jokes at a funeral aren't ya? ;-)
I bet you are the guy cracking jokes at a funeral aren't ya? ;-)
Hey, you are the one that titled the thread 'best music video ever'. If you titled it 'saddest video ever' or 'most moving video ever' Then I would have steered clear...
You'll grow a sad bone one day. Anywho, I created a new thread for creative music videos, and have some questions about one of yours, post em over there.
0 Replies
hingehead
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Thu 4 Sep, 2008 05:36 am
@Robert Gentel,
This vid has turned up in at least three different threads on A2K.
I think it touches people with a bit more life experience as well as a bit more knowledge of Cash's life trajectory. Empathy helps too. Music appreciation is completely individual, that some of us agree just goes to prove that we really are the same species.
0 Replies
jmcg
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Fri 11 Jan, 2013 02:24 pm
@2PacksAday,
Every now and then I need to see it. Just watched it again today is it amazingly powerful and memorable.
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