Question

Watch the videos of the song “Hurt” sung by Johnny Cash on the Module 4 playlist. This song was written and originally performed by Nine Inch Nails and refers to young people who cut themselves. Watch the video "Hurt" by Nine Inch Nails. How does the iconic performer Johnny Cash transform this song into masterfully authentic storytelling, which is a hallmark of a successful country song?

Answer 1

I look at this song as a reflection of someone who is addicted drugs out of negligence and poverty. He feels left alone at the end because everyone had already left him. He says that his empire is dirt and he means to mention there is nothing worth living for as he is forced into desperation. The lines ‘The needle tears a hole, the old familiar sting. Try to kill it all away, but I remember everything’ proves that the person is addicted but drugs do not help him either. At the end, he is trying to console himself by saying that if he get a chance he would try change thing and start afresh.