MIDTERM PART II

Section A:

Johnny Cash’s cover of this Nine Inch Nails song is particularly resonant when his

personal life and struggles are brought to light. His bass-baritone voice is soft yet heavy, full of

pain and resentment. When paired with the key of A minor, the song takes on a tone of a bluesy

lament, with regret pouring out of each lyric. I am reminded of old-soul ballads from early

country music, dripping in whiskey and anger. Indeed, the acoustic guitar paired with Johnny’s

vocals present a stripped-down feel to the music, no glitz or glamour, only raw emotion. Contrast

this with the music of today, inundated with references to drug use, excessive drinking, and a

grand-party lifestyle, where getting stoned in someone’s basement and putting on a record is

simply a vibe. This music is loud, flashy, dripping with bass and colours, an audio-rave for your

psyche. Johnny’s rendition removes the hype and excitement, leaving only the bitterness that

comes after the high has worn off, like a bad tequila hangover. “Hurt” is an ode to those in silent

pain, reaching out, but alone.

Addicts are people too, coming from a background that is never perfect. On that note, it’s

not like society is ever perfect anyway, so why are we so quick to judge those who struggle with

addiction, especially when taken into consideration that the majority of those with addiction also

have a mental illness of some kind. Now in recent years, we have seen the rise of the mental

health movement and how it is just as important to take care of your mind as it is your body, yet

addicts, who deal with these same issues, get socially ostracized. “I will make you hurt” is no

longer Johnny Cash singing to himself about his pain, it’s society’s response to his struggles.

This quote by Theorou showcases Johnny’s need for an audience to listen and emphasize with

his struggles: “It takes two to speak the truth. One to speak another to hear.” Johnny has been

trying to speak his truth for a long time, but society has traditionally shunned him for doing so.
Perhaps that’s why “Hurt” did so well when he released his cover, as he finally had an audience

who would listen with an open mind and heart.

Now that you have taken some time to reflect on that hot take, lets move into the tonally

inappropriate section of this essay, where I contradict the beginning of my last paragraph and

analyze “Hurt” for its connection to the addictive cycle, with my pedantic music major approach.

We begin with the section: “I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel. I focus on the pain, the only

thing is real.” Based on my personal experience, I see the speaker has hit an emotional low,

becoming numb to everything, to cope and push away the overwhelm of feelings. To deal with

this, they self-harm, with the physical sting both acknowledging their suffering and provide an

outlet for feeling. I also see this as a moment of relapse after a stint of sobriety. The way Cash

annunciates the first line, speaks of brutal honesty and a low so intense, there was no where else

to turn to. Next, we have “The needle tears a hole, the old familiar sting. Try to kill it all away,

but I remember everything”. Yes, I can make the argument that this is intravenous drug use, but

on a deeper level I see at as the moment he opened himself up to explore his trauma, but it has

been to much too bare and he spirals, hence the “try to kill it all away, but I remember

everything”. His trauma and his addiction have become intertwined and it perpetuates a vicious

cycle, making every heroin-soaked memory more painful to digest and process, forcing him to

self-medicate at higher doses, thus preventing actual coping mechanisms being put in place in

favour of substance.