Hurt

Album: American IV: The Man Comes Around (2002)
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  • 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

    I wear this crown of thorns
    Upon my liar's chair
    Full of broken thoughts
    I cannot repair

    Beneath the stains of time
    The feelings disappear
    You are someone else
    I am still right here

    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

    If I could start again
    A million miles away
    I will keep myself
    I would find a way Writer/s: Trent Reznor
    Publisher: Audiam, Inc., CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 1

  • M Ryan from UsaNo comments yet? I've followed this song since it was first released. Rick Rubin asked Trent if he could try it with Johnny Cash. Trent says sure. When Trent got a copy of the CD from Rick his initial reaction was that didn't like what he heard. "I'd known where I was when I wrote it. I know what I was thinking about. I know how I felt. Hearing it was like someone kissing your girlfriend. It felt invasive." However after seeing the video Trent said "Having Johnny Cash, one of the greatest singer-songwriters of all time, want to cover your song, that's something that matters to me. It's not so much what other people think but the fact that this guy felt that it was worthy of interpreting". He said afterwards "it was a song that sounds like one he would have written in the '60s and that's wonderful." The cover was released to critical acclaim and became a Johnny Cash song.. "That song isn't mine anymore," said Reznor.
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