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Marissa Mayborg

Prof. Kretzer

English 1201

5 April 2020

Hurt

Originally, “Hurt” was written by Nine Inch Nails in 1994 and covered by Johnny Cash in

2002. This song has very strong lyrics that make you feel a certain way about the people who

wrote them. One lyric included that really stood out to me was “Everyone I know goes away in

the end”. This was extremely powerful because in the song you know they hurt themselves due

to their sorrows. In Johnny Cash’s video you see his wife, seemingly a ghost, looking down at him

all alone in his closed down “House of Cash”. In the Nine Inch Nails video, he thinks of his

woman who is gone. The main claim within the lyrics is how horrible it is when you hurt the

woman you love.

Johnny Cash had battled with different drug addictions and drinking problems which led

to many conflicts in his relationships in all aspects of his life. He was hurting himself little by little

with drugs and it eventually led him to also hurting the people around him. Hence the saying that

everyone he knows eventually leaves. On the other hand, Nine Inch Nails included this song in

their album that primarily talked about self harm and suicide. That is what is believed about this

song. Trent Reznor, lead singer, song writer, and producer of Nine Inch Nails suffered with major

depression that eventually spiraled into abuse of drugs and alcohol. Both men used the lyrics to

describe how their actions not only hurt themselves, but also the people around them.

In Johnny Cash’s music video he is the main character. He is in his “House of Cash'' which

is a museum/house commemorating the life of Mr. Cash. It has all of his awards, albums, records,
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pictures, big achievements and history that he has been through. As a genre he is most famously

known for, Cash turns this original rock song into a country song. As he is old in this and his

health is declining, you can really see him set the mood for the music video. Like mentioned

before, his drug and alcohol abuse has troubled a lot of his relationships and life in general. You

can see his elderly state shows that. June Carter Cash, Johnny's wife, dies nearly 3 months after

the production of this song and himself only 7 months. It was a true representation of his life and

almost his goodbye words.

The Nine Inch Nails music video shows a similar representation. This one was a bit more

confusing to follow. The main character is not someone we know. He is a young white man with

a beautiful dark haired white woman. The video seems to be set int the 1930’s because of the

setting being a run down house and the fields behind it. It is all in black and white. This character

seems to be fighting between the good and evil within him and struggles with the fact that he

could hurt the woman he loves. You see this when he says “I will let you down, I will make you

hurt.”

The rhetorical appeal in both of these videos is pathos. This is due to the core of the

lyrics and how both videos portray them. These videos both make you sad and feel bad for the

artist. Johnny Cash’s broken records and awards make you feel as though he may think he is a

failure even though he has awards that prove success. Also the shaky voice he uses makes it

apparent that he is sad. In the Nine Inch Nails version, he is sitting on his bed imagining his

woman hanging around his neck and kissing him. The man gets upset because he knows he will

hurt her and that he does not deserve her at all. It makes you feel for him because everyone

wants love in their life, but he isn’t capable of it. His type of love is toxic. This song pulls at your

heartstrings.
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Overall this song is not inspirational as most songs are. It does not make you want to fall

in love or dance around your room or sing to the top of your lungs. This is not that type of song,

rather it is a real song. It tells about real emotions and hardships and how things do not always

work out. As sad as it may be it is very powerful to hear. It does it's job of pulling out emotions

and making you feel for the writer. As both videos are seemingly different they definitely portray

the same message. Both men know their mistakes and feel them deeply and they seem to grow

throughout. This is a very strong song.