you know you’re old when you’re salty about kids thinking the cover version is the original
That said, Cash absolutely fuckin nailed that cover. I think it’s way more emotional than the original. I’m sure Trent was proud as fuck at what Cash did to his song.
I know it’s not a popular opinion but I don’t think Johnny cash understood Trents original meaning of the song and turned it into a self aggrandizing song. Especially the change from “I wear this crown of shit” to “I wear this crown of thorns”.
It just doesn’t hit like the NIN version which clearly came from a very personal place.
He absolutely did and it’s an unpopular opinion because you’re positing that a song man who’d been in the business for 50 years couldn’t understand the meaning.
He changed the line because of his faith, mostly.
Johnny Cash always nailed covers. He makes songs I thought were average sound great, and you believe every word he sings.
I’m old enough to have bought Downworld Spiral on release day, and I think Reznor wrote that song for Cash. It just took him and the the rest of us 20 years to realize it.
there are tons of covers that i love better than the original (if i like the original at all). just one example is lacuna coil’s enjoy the silence
Reznor is on record saying it’s cash’s song now so op is only mostly wrong :)
People say this a lot and I believe it’s based on this quote:
I pop the video in, and wow… Tears welling, silence, goose-bumps… Wow. [I felt like] 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. [Somehow] 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.
Many people seem to interpret “that song isn’t mine anymore” to mean “that song is now Cash’s”. But here’s another quote:
Then I got a CD in the post. I listened to it and it was very strange. It was this other person inhabiting my most personal song. 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.
To me, that doesn’t sound like he’s saying it’s Cash’s song now or that Cash’s version is better. It’s more that Cash proved to him that even though this was a deeply personal song about his own life and struggles that he’s not the only one capable of doing it justice. He realized that other talented artists can take that song about him and transform it into a song about them. The song’s not his anymore because it could be anyone’s song.
Perhaps Tent Reznor thought the same.
I agree, kind of annoying that the person that wrote the song doesn’t get credited for what was said.
In fairness I do believe Johnny somehow managed to do it better, but credit where credit is due.
Said this before on this platform, opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. It’s your opinion that you think Johnny’s version is better.
I like both versions of the song. They have a different delivery.
There’s a lot of those. Patti Smith’s “Because the Night” is better than Bruce Springsteen’s performance of the same. Leonard Cohen has a voice that’s something of an acquired taste, so most people prefer Jeff Buckley’s version of “Hallelujah”.
Patti Smith also had an excellent version of “Teen Spirit”, but it’s more of a different take than better, I’d say.
Vermiculture is a perfectly legitimate hobby and I’m not weird because of it!!!
And now I need to go cry.
Thanks op
Because you’re upset at the meme implying Johnny Cash wrote the song, right?
Considering how much the Cash version changed the meaning and vibe of the song, yeah this is canon now.
