Epic breakdown as always! When you said, "Everything that we build it's all just like really complicated sandcastles" hit me deep. Truer words were never spoken in that statement. Thanks, and peace!

This is a quote from Trent Rezner ...
"Reznor said that when Rubin first asked if Cash could cover his song, he was "flattered" but worried that "the idea sounded a bit gimmicky." He became a fan of Cash's version, however, once he saw the music video: “I pop the video in, and wow… Tears welling, silence, goose-bumps… Wow. I just lost my girlfriend, because 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. 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.”

This reviewer is so impressive.  He's articulate, concise and insightful.  50 times better that almost all reaction hosts.

This was definitely Johnny's Swan Song. Video released 7 months before his death. That last moment of him closing the piano gives me chills, it's such a beautiful goodbye.

Trent Reznor wrote this song about his addiction.  Most young people don't realize that Johnny Cash was an addict.  June Carter wouldn't marry him until he was divorced and he was clean.  This is about both addiction and age, Just as drugs take everything away from you, so does age.  
I have loved every time you have come on black Pegasus channel so I am so happy to find your channel and subscribe.

Johnny Cash is one of the very few musicians that are are in a category of their own.

Legend goes that when Johnny closed the piano at the end…….he never touched one again.

The video producer was told he would have to go to Johny to film. Once there he was given access to the film vaults at the closed House of Cash Museum. His use of film clips really strengthens the feels. Huh?

You're the first reactor that made the Solomon connection,  that was my immediate impression early on. Cash lived in extremes and had a lot of regrets,  but he also was a man of faith,  and that won in the end.

I'm impressed that you take it in, think thoroughly, and aren't moved to tears. Cash owns that message so deeply and it hits HARD every time.

Johnny a recovering addict himself, took Trent's song about addiction and beautifully turned it into a story of a man at the end of his life looking backwards.  It was an impressive feat accomplished through the video, made more poetic by the fact that it is both June and Johnny's last appearance in a music video.

Pure raw emotion, its art how he put his everything in this song.

“and you can have it all, my empire of dirt”
I really loved this, the way he sang it, ufff
The message in this song reminds me of Jimmy, from Money Game part 3:
44 inside a palace with a mountain of gold, but those riches turn to rubble when perspective evolves, weighing heavy on his conscience is the value of gold…

Sometimes the value of gold is human conection, human relationships.

I’ve known this song since this came out from both the original and the cover. I am of the Nine Inch Nails generation that was raised by the Johnny Cash generation. Hearing it now means more. Hearing it now through this voice helped me to see my dad as a man who was struggling. Like so many people do. But somehow, when it’s your dad, you don’t think about them listening to music like this and relating to it. But I know my dad loved this song. He loved the whole album that Johnny Cash did with this. Strange how you don’t realize those things until they’re gone. But I’m going to share the insight with my husband because his dad is still with us. Thank you for providing a momentary reprieve from the world to to have a shift in perspective.

This song makes me look back. At my boys when they were little, at when my wife and i were younger. Reminiscing on the good times, and feeling depression over the fact that those moments are gone forever.

This song always grabs me by the soul.

I was firmly obsessed with NIN when the original came out, and I was not much of a Johnny Cash fan. I was suspicious of this version until I heard it and it broke my heart in such a different way from the original. I love them both. I appreciate this now so much more because I'm a lot older & allegedly wiser, but I also saw the original live a couple of months ago and that still blows my mind too.
Love your take as always. You're so fascinating to listen to and give me perspectives that are new to me. Thank you. 🤘🏻

I've heard this song dozens of times, and those opening guitar chords give me chills every time.
Songs of a wide variety of styles can be powerful for all sorts of reasons (just look at Tool's discography). But-- there's a special breed of songs that immediately stick in my mind: the Swan Song-an artist's last hurrah, their final word. Johnny Cash's cover here is the quintessential deconstruction and self-critique of his long, long life and legacy-- one that leaves a listener like me with... a bottleneck of emotions.
I'd compare and contrast that to another Swan Song-- Memento Mori by Architects--written by their late guitarist before his untimely demise at the hands of cancer. A young man's last word, facing a mortality that (in my view) no young man should face.

Johnny Cash truly embodies this song in his recording and performance. Fun fact: this is a cover of Nine Inch Nails' song of the same title. Give it up for Trent Reznor for writing this song.

If you really want to flip your lid, go look at the original meaning of this song and compare it to Cash's interpretation.

We never see what happens to legendary performers or singers... We only hear the news about their passing in the news.
Johnny Cash in 2003 gave a glimpse into what actually happens to legends at the end of their lives... and it's a sad, realistic and somber portrayal. His legacy is in the past... his glories sit forgotten and abandoned ... and he is old, past his prime and looking back w/ longing and sadness, his wife June standing by his side... his audience long gone...
The song itself was written by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails in 1994, depicting his struggles w/ addiction - something Johnny Cash had history with and could relate to... Reznor admitted that Cash took his song and made it his own.

Shortly after this music video was filmed, Johnny Cash's wife June Carter passed away from health issues... Johnny Cash passed away 3 months later after years of health problems in '03.