In March of 2003, six months before he passed away, Johnny Cash released “Hurt”, the final single of his career. Cash’s “Hurt” is a cover of a song first released in 1995 by the rock band Nine Inch Nails. It appears on American IV: The Man Comes Around, Cash’s last album that he released while he was alive.
A poignant song for Cash, “Hurt” says, ”I hurt myself today / To see if I still feel / I focus on the pain / The only thing that’s real / The needle tears a hole / The old familiar sting / Try to kill it all away / But I remember everything What have I become / My sweetest friend? / Everyone I know / Goes away in the end / And you could have it all / My empire of dirt / I will let you down / I will make you hurt.”
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It was Cash’s producer, Rick Rubin, who suggested Cash cover “Hurt”.
“When you’re 20 years old talking about regret, it’s heartbreaking,” Rubin later explains. “But it’s heartbreaking in a different way because you have a whole life to figure it out. When you’re looking back at the end of your life with regret, it’s brutal.”
What Johnny Cash Said About Recording “Hurt”
In one of Cash’s final interviews before he passed away, the Man in Black credited Rubin with finding “Hurt” for him, even though Cash initially turned it down.
“It was Rick Rubin’s idea,” Cash tells TIME. “We were looking for a song that we felt had an impact. He found this one, and he asked me what I thought of it. I said, ‘I think it’s probably the best anti-drug song I ever heard, but I don’t think it’s for me.’ And he said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘Because it’s not my style, it’s not the way I do it.’ And he said, ‘What if it were?’ And I said, ‘Well, I could give it a try.’ So I went out and recorded it. When I listened to it, I felt it came out all right.”
By the time Cash recorded “Hurt”, he was, of course, a seasoned performer. Still, he admits it was not easy for him to get it right in the studio.
“I would just get down and do it until I felt like I was doing it with feeling,” Cash says. “I probably sang the song 100 times before I went in and recorded it, because I had to make it mine.”
“Hurt” earned Cash a Grammy Award for Best Music Video. He also won two CMA Awards, both Music Video of the Year and Single of the Year, for “Hurt.”
Photo by Harry Langdon/Getty Images
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