HURT (QUIET)

Hurt (Quiet)

by

Nine Inch Nails

.....tis Christmas Eve..........I hurt........ouch.....alone

"I hurt myself today

To see if I still feel"

Hurt. Pain. Loss. Guilt

"I focus on the pain

The only thing that’s real"

It's a constant reocurrence in life
a constant source of interruption
...the tick against time
the loss of our life's grounding wires

"The needle tears a hole

The old familiar sting

Try to kill it all away

But I remember everything"

I remember dieing once before

Almost ten years ago

I still have yet to get a tattoo symbolizing that death

the storm before the new beginning

and yet nearly a decade later,

I'm lost in the wilderness again

"What have I become?

My sweetest friend

Everyone I know

Goes away in the end"

How many have lingered?

to grow with

those ones to see your training wheels loosed

your sores to become scars

wounds swollen from infection

"You could have it all

My empire of dirt"

I'd trade it all for a lifetime of peace

solitude

love

safety

naivety?

"I will let you down

I will make you hurt"

Beware of the man

with the dirty halo

Old King Might-As-Well-Be

and his touch of cold

"I wear my crown of shit

On my liar’s chair"

I once new a man

who could do no wrong

everything he touched

turned to gold

never a failure

loss was not an option

"Full of broken thoughts

I cannot repair"

Where has he gone?

Lost in the undertow

Swept out to see

the dark on the horizon

"Beneath the stain of time

The feeling disappears"

Those who stood before me

change through their vocations

words once spoken

have turned to dust

"You are someone else

I am still right here

What have I become?

My sweetest friend"

If I had a nickel

for every soul I've lost

I'd be a rich man

a man the weak would cling to

to rob me of my wealth

"Everyone I know

Goes away in the end

You could have it all

My empire of dirt"

Take everything I own

share it with those in need

bless my soul

I can't use it anymore

"I will let you down

I will make you hurt"

Beware he says

"this crown will only cause you pain"

seven years bad luck

doing double time

"If I could start again

A million miles away

I would keep myself

I would find a way"

Oh to find myself again

the man with the midas touch

he who can do no wrong

a winner in the end!

An interesting side line concerning this song. Trent Reznor when asked to comment on Johnny Cash's version of "Hurt" said the following: "Tears welling, silence, goose-bumps… Wow....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" --Trent Reznor

Hallelujah! You can download a copy of both of these versions to listen to at the following links:

Nine Inch Nails - Hurt (Quiet)

Johnny Cash - Hurt (Video Version)