BonesOfTheMoon
Hurt
I just don’t get the appeal and have never figured out what his version brings to the table…he wasn’t exactly a tortured artist and the music video is half him looking sad at a piano, half archival footage of all the cool things he did in his life.
I feel like if Johnny Cash wasn’t The Man In Black, that recording would have stayed in the studio.
I’m not a huge Cash fan but dude had some rough times with addiction. Alcohol, amphetamines, barbiturates…
It likely cost him his first marriage and he struggled with it his entire life. The movie “Walk the Line”, about Cash, features his substance abuse quite prominently.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Cash#Personal_life
Throughout their marriage, June attempted to keep Cash off amphetamines, often taking his drugs and flushing them down the toilet. June remained with him even throughout his multiple admissions for rehabilitation treatment and decades of drug addiction.
Dude also died less than a year after filming the music video, shortly after his (second) wife, June.
Reznor and Cash both struggled with addiction and guilt for the damage their addiction caused to those they cared about.
I think the perspective is very valuable. When Trent wrote the song, he was still young. It gives time to atone, to grow, to do better. When Cash covered it, it was near the end of his life. He doesn’t have the luxury of time to make up for his shortcomings. It’s a lot more fatalistic.
To answer your second question, no. I don’t think it would be as big without his name attached. Johnny Cash was so big, so iconic, that of course anything attached to him would get more attention. And the fact that more people are familiar with his life story and why this song would resonate so deeply with him definitely helped to spread the cover as well.
To answer your unasked third question, personally I prefer the original. I do appreciate Cash’s cover though, and am glad he made it.