Hurt (with Nine Inch Nails)

Anyone who has heard this by Johnny Cash but not NIN is cheating themself.

I hurt myself today To see if I still feel I focus on the pain The only thing that's real

(Not depression, though a symptom. See Borderline Personality Disorder and Self-Mutilation, used to escape inner experiences of "I feel dead, empty, numbing nothingness." Blood and pain are preferable to feeling dead.

The needle tears a hole The old familiar sting I try to kill it all away But I remember everything

(Heroin is a cure worse than the disease, and the disease is loss of meaning, isolation and mortality)

What have I become My sweetest friend? Everyone I know Goes away in the end

(More associations with the existential dilemma of death. But who is the "sweetest friend?" Either the last person who is sticking by him, or the Heroin itself. Also use of the needle as metaphorical is common, as in Leonard Cohen's song, "The Butcher," found on "Songs from a Room")

And you could have it all My empire of dirt I will let you down I will make you hurt

(He realizes that all forms of structure and meaning are relative and subject to change. What was once meaningful today may not be tomorrow, and anyway, death takes it all away. He states that if you stick with him you are going to be the one that hurts. But believing this is a defensive strategy employed to avoid intimacy, commitment, giving/receiving love)

I wear this crown of shit Upon my liar's chair Full of broken thoughts I cannot repair

(A reference to Jesus, though in this case the thorns are feces. He is saying you think I'm a saint, but I am not; my self-hatred informs me I am nothing. Broken thoughts indicate both the impermanent and contradictory, or paradoxical, nature of mind; they cannot be repaired, only ameliorated by acceptance)

Beneath the stains of time The feelings disappear You are someone else But I am still right here (there is something deeper and more global than mere memory, where the hurt can disappear, and yet, in his hopelessness feels he will forever be stuck, while loved ones move on)

If I could start again A million miles away I would keep myself I would find a way

(If only I could have had another chance to make better choices, I would not lose myself to addiction, I would have found another way).

*The themes of self-hatred, hopelessness, helplessness and depression are strikingly apparent, and yet there is something more underlying it all, an extremely opaque sense of hope in the form of regret and the courage to admit the past is changeless, but the present is mutable.

I think this song is about self harm or mental torture. Makes me sad when I read it.

Johnny Cash's version was quite good. Was David Bowie actually in this song? I've only heard the Cash version

Yes, AcidSound, David Bowie sings in this song. The song itself is by Nine Inch Nails. It's about the lead singer/lyricist Trent Reznor's battles with drug addiction and self destruction.

ooh kk thanks :D wasn't sure lol

agreed, the original version is fantastic, such a haunting and powerful end to the downward spiral album. johnny cash's version is fantastic, but that doesnt make the original any less powerful.

Interesting NIN song...he sang this with them on the Outside tour...it added a lot of pizzazz.

Personally, being bipolar, and running into depressive states. It mirrors the way I feel on a regular basis. self medication, helpless, hopeless and all....

Johnny Cash did it better