My last three songs from Johnny Cash are from the 2003 Hurt Maxi Single; That’s the A & B Sides of a vinyl version plus the Bonus Track only included on a CD version. Track One, Hurt, is obviously the A Side. This should be readily apparent to even the denizens of Rio Linda.

Hurt was the second single released from 2002′s American IV: The Man Comes Around.

I distinctly remember the first time I heard this song. I was leaving for work one April 2003 morning and this song came blaring on O-Rock 104 (RIP,) a truly progressive Alternative Rock Radio Station. This is the same station that introduced me to Cypress Hill, who’ll talk about way much later….

I digress, hearing this song just filled my mind with images of pain and self-loathing that I was taken aback quite a bit. Very rarely is something that powerful in its conveyance that I am left in awe. It is truly a remarkable cover. I am not alone in this feeling. When Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails was approached to get permission to cover his song, he thought it sounded gimmicky at first but later stated in 2004:

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. ^[1]

The Official Video is considered by many, to be his epitaph. Recorded seven months before Cash’s death. His wife, June Carter Cash, predeceased by four months.

I don’t have a copy of the Nine Inch Nails’ original but here is a Live Performance Video that is used as the Official Video hosted by their Official VEVO Channel.

Here is the previously discussed version by Sad Kermit.

I enjoy playing this song on my 12 String.