That's What I Get

Let's be honest. I think everyone can relate to this song.

While I agree that this song is a little "whiny," what do you expect? Mental pain is often, if not always, a lot harder to get over than any physical wound. Cuts will scab over, scratches will heal, and there's always the option of taking a painkiller if it starts to get too intense. But you don't always have that option emotionally. Emotionally, you just have to sit there and take it. You have to suffer through every second of melodramatic hell (because it does feel like hell when you're going through it), pondering your own sanity and your ability to get through a situation that you had hoped and prayed you would never have to find yourself in--and you have no choice but to bitterly endure it.

And so, you do the only thing you can do to keep yourself sane: you acknowledge your own torment and you find a way to try and deal with it.

This is how Trent did that.

god, trent reznor is a fucking god. its almost as though.. hes the only person in the world who understands how i feel. Pretty Hate Machine is a fucking work of art. shrug to me, yeah its about being heart-broken. but "thats what i get" its like.. thats what i get, for putting my trust in someone, and thinking it was okay to love someone. and you get comfortable, and you're happy. and then the other person fucks you over. and thats what you get.

This song is about feeling overwhelmingly sad because someone, the one you loved and trusted, has betrayed you. You blame yourself for your hurt feelings because looking back, you realize how naive you were. How could you have let someone hurt you so bad? "That's what I get." ::sniffle:: Yes, I can relate to this song.

This song is based on a heartbreak (obviously). Right when everything had come together for him and started working out right, his lover threw it all away, and he's saying that's what he gets for falling for someone who would do that.

This song exposes a more vulnerable side of Trent Reznor- it's beautiful

I think it's funny how he calls himself a boy when he's what, 20-something when he wrote this?

I agree with Perky's interpretation.

At first I liked this song, then I didn't, then I really listened to it and I like it again. Heh.

This song is hilariously cheesy and whiny. One of the few cringe-worthy moments in NiN history, which is alright considering it's on his first album...

Catchy beat tho.

I don't think this song is about putting your faith in just anybody it's about the fact that the person you put it in wasn't as trustworthy as you'd like to believe and deep down you knew it. "Whys it come as a surprise to think that I was so naive" for me it's about a total loss of faith in humanity because of just one person that you really wanted to believe in more than anything, because that's what love is. All or nothing, and at least for me it's about accepting that maybe you don't know everything right out of the gate in life and you just have to admit you screwed up. Moving on and rethinking your criteria for a significant other so it doesn't happen again to you in the future (or me haha). Anyways it's not whiny if you take it in context instead of indulging in your own ability to separate yourself from other people's emotions. It may not ever hold as true for me as it does right now in my life, but hey that's kinda why I like it. It got me through one of the biggest obstacles I've ever had to overcome.

heart being broken yet again

promises made and then broken.

Not always intentionally.

Why is it always that what I get ?