Johnny’s version is more about regrets looking back on his life

Funny how same lyrics from old man and young man can hit so different.

Johnny's goodbye song, his wife died shortly after the song was released and he died shortly after her.
I think Trent compared listening to Johnny's cover like finding your woman in another man's arms. This had always been Johnny's song, he just got to hold it for a time. Trent is a very deep person.

Great reaction to one of the saddest and greatest covers. 😥

Just a heads-up: the video you shut off at the beginning was the official music video for NIN's Hurt.

The last words in the song -  "if I could start again a million miles away, I would keep myself. I would find a way" coming from Johnny is of the most wrenching expressions of regret I"ve heard.  I think Trent's addiction and self-hate were the themes at the time he wrote it.

For me, Hurt (Reznor) and Hurt (Cash) aren't the same song. Logically, I know one is a cover of the other, but emotionally they are SO DIFFERENT that my brain categorizes them as completely separate

Trent being in his late 20's writing and performing Hurt definitely hits. Addiction and other mental health struggles really did a number on him, and it definitely came through. But to hear Johnny do his own take as an old man looking back on an entire life less than year before you die... well that just hits in a really different way. Idk how people can watch that video and hold it together. I cry literally every time.

Addiction definitely. You hear him say "the needle tears a hole, an old familiar sting. Try to kill it all away, what have I become". Trent and Johnny both struggled with Addiction and depression issues. The song as a whole takes on a little diffrent meaning coming from two diffrent perspectives, both absolutely amazing.

One of the interesting things is the perspective shift between different artists versions despite practically no change in lyrics outside of swear words, the original is story of pain of someone coming of age at a low point in life, and the Cash cover is someone nearing end of life looking back.

Funny, your perspective of Johnny's perspective. You're saying his life is so successful and he's saying it's all worth dirt. He's saying that none of his success matters, but that it's how he treated people and his relationships that are what really mattered.

Johnny's version is a goodbye letter to the world in a song, it's like watching a funeral.

Trent, after hearing the cover, said “this is Jonny’s song now”! Also, the part at the end of the video with Johnny Cash closing the piano is allegedly the last time he ever closed his piano. 😥

That one note on the piano in the Cash version that just builds and builds is so haunting!

That´s two time Academy Award winner Trent Reznor,ladies!

A simple lyrical change by Johnny Cash, one single word in one unrepeated line, set the central theme entire song on its ear.

I'm not sure you even caught it. Trent sings, "I wear this crown of shit upon my liar's chair." Johnny sings, "I wear this crown of thorns upon my liar's chair." Cash was never shy about his Christian faith, and the allusion to the suffering of Christ in a "crown of thorns" is starkly ironic statement. He chose his suffering, but unlike Christ, his suffering served no purpose. Instead of bringing healing to others, he only brought pain. More, in this context, sitting on a "liar's chair" almost implies Cash is closer to hell than heaven. That idea is in keeping with the heavy regret that runs through the rest of the song.

Johnny was a drug addict too! In and out of rehab clinics!

I´m a NIN Fan from Day One but Trent was absolutely right when he said "This is Johnny´s Song now." I can´t hear it a single Time without tearing up. So emotional.

Both versions of this are incredible!

So there's a difference between the two the nin version is talking about fighting drug addiction and the Johnny cash version is him saying goodbye because not long after Johnny cash did this song he would pass away I was 1 year old when he passed

Both hit extremely hard, but Trent's still somehow hold  shard of hope in it. He was very young when he wrote it. Plenty of years to regret and still overcome. Cash's version was performed with the agony and pain and regret and loss and inevitable end of a man who had gone through the lowest lows and highest highs and -- even still -- had to lose it all and say goodbye afterward. One is a bookend at the beginning of the series' volumes. The other is a bookend at the other end of the series' volumes. Growing up a good little goth in the 80s and 90s, I had a great love for both NIN/Reznor and Cash (having met Cash in Oregon when I was twelve, also). They're also different songs, because if we're careful, we can walk a path that avoids the pain of Reznor's original version. But there is nothing we can do to avoid the pain of Cash's at the end of our life, when we survey everything we did or didn't do. our triumphs and failures. Our loves and losses. And the worth (or lack of) it all.

Also, while Cash's version was obviously not about drug, both he and Reznor struggled with addition. Reznor especially with heroine and Cash especially with alcohol and amphetamines.