Johnny Cash: Hurt Meaning
Song Released: 2003
Hurt Lyrics
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
[Chorus:]
What have I become
My sweetest...
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1TOP RATED
#1 top rated interpretation:I think this song is the musings of an old man who regrets the life he lived...
As his friends pass away and death approaches him he is realizing how much he lied to himself over the years. He realizes that he built an "empire of dirt" and valued all the wrong things. Now he feels he has nothing but pain. "I focus on the pain, the only thing that's real". He still tries to numb his pain with drugs but it is futile ("the needle tears a hole, the old familiar sting. Try to kill it all away but I remember everything").
The drugs can be a metaphor for any kind of unhealthy escapism... fame, food, workaholism, pornography, fake friends, game addiction for the young generation, etc. If you aren't careful you will waste your life like he did and have an empire of dirt left behind.
This song makes me think of Erik Erikson's stages of psychosocial development. Our development can be broken into different stages, starting when we are born and ending when we die. https://www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html. When Johnny Cash sang this he was at the final stage of his development - ego integrity vs. despair - and he felt despair.
"Everyone I know goes away in the end", "You are someone else, I am still right here" means all the people who he once used as comfort for his ego have grown past admiring him, but he has not grown with them. He was likely referring to his fans and the people who orbited him when he was popular. But now they've stopped fussing over him and he sees how little he has without their adulation.
"I wear this crown of thorns upon my Liar's chair. Full of broken thoughts I cannot repair." During his life he became a liar, to others but first to himself. He deluded himself that he was proud of who he was and living his best life, when really he was just escaping from the life he wanted. The thing about a crown of thorns is that it slowly tears away at your head until it gets into your skull and destroys your ability to think straight again. After years of deluding himself he realizes his thoughts, his entire way of seeing the world is "broken", and his brain has lost the ability to fix it. The crown of thorns could also be his dementia.
"If I could start again, a million miles away, I would keep myself, I would find a way." The moral of the story is that Johnny didn't hold on hard to himself. Likely, he was so caught up in receiving external validation and escaping from his pain ("I focus on the pain") that he couldn't get in touch with his inner self and build a life he valued. He built an empire based on shallow validation of his stage self, instead of solid connections based on an appreciation of his true self. He lost himself to dirt and if he could have his time again, he would do his life differently and be honest with himself (instead of kidding himself on the Liar's Chair and doing drugs). From that he would be able to build a real empire instead of a dirt castle.
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2TOP RATED
#2 top rated interpretation:Johnny Cash was a drug addict. This song is about his regrets in life. In the 1960s, Johnny was hardly around for his wife and daughters and soon got a divorce due to his non-attendance. He was found nearly dead due to a drug overdose and had lost the most important thing: himself.
Cash's cover of "hurt" is about his fame, his family, and his drug abuse. At this point in his life, he realizes he has nothing. His life has been wasted and there isn't anything he can do. He spent all his time chasing fame to make him happy, but it never happened. The only thing he feels is "the old familiar sting" of his memories and empty shell of himself.
"Everyone I know
goes away in the end". He has lost everyone due to his life choices, although he has remarried, his ex-wife, his children, and even his current wife are all different people and grew to be better people in their lifetime, while Johnny has nothing but an empty shell of himself.
"And you could have it all
my empire of dirt" All of Johnny cash's fame meant nothing. He still is facing the same thing everyone else faces (old age, death, and depression). You could have all of what he had. His talent, his wealth, his popularity, but in the end, it isn't going to mean anything. He still feels empty.
"If I could start again
A million miles away
I will keep myself
I would find a way" Johnny cash wants desperately to live a different life. Away from the drugs. Away from the importance. He wants to live a life where he remembers where his values should lie. Where he's there for his loved ones and himself.
He wants the listeners to know the mistakes he had made and wants us to learn from them. -
3TOP RATED
#3 top rated interpretation:Seeing as the song was recorded well before his wife died, I don't think that is the inspiration. The NIN version is much more directly about drugs (heroin to be specific). For Cash, the inflection is put more on the idea of mortality, getting old and, slowly, watching your friends die. The key line is 'everyone I know...goes away...in the end'. The video has him on a throne, yes, but more importantly it 'takes place' in the Johnny Cash Museum, symbolizing a type of 'storehouse of memory'. If you look closely much of the setting contains old pictures of him performing with Elvis, etc. So what is clear in the song, and moreso in the video is the idea of a retrospective on your life, memory in the shadow of inevitable death. The acceptance of your life, and a bit of foreboding for the inevitable.
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So I see a lot of interpretations of the song's meaning, so i'd like to give my take on it. First off, it's definitely not a suicide note. A lot of people have confused it for that because of the sonically somber tone of the original. Whilst I don't doubt suicide is a thought that's crossed Trent's mind during the writing of this song, I'm fairly confident it's not that.
To be honest the song really means different things to both artists; Trent's is that of more of a confused, lost, self doubting, hurting man who's struggling with who he is and who he's become, how he got here, the things he's had to do and who he's hurt along the way. This version to me is about his feelings when he reflects on it all, which (again to me) is this self doubt filled violent swing between nihilism, self indulgence and self pity, leading him to self destructive behavior that effects himself and the people around him deeply.
Johnny's version can be interpreted as more reflective, an old man looking back on his life, knowing that the clock has almost run out and seeing or doubting the man he thought he was. Regretful, to a certain extent acknowledging it without really apologizing either, resigning himself to the fact that there's nothing he can do about it and it no longer matters.
The lyric though that causes confusion for most (particularly because it changes across several different versions) is the crown and the liars chair. First off, the "crown of sh*t" Trent mentions I feel is him acknowledging to himself that he deserves this, wallowing in self pity that he's "got what he deserves", and I say that because he sings "I wear this crown of thorns", there's no reference to it being put there by an external force; he doesn't wear it proudly, but it's his choice.
Secondly, the "liars chair", is often one of the most confused lyrics in the song, and my own reading of it is it's just simply a paraphrase, a "you made your bed, now lie in it" sort of thing. But he wanted it to be more visceral than that ... and also needed something that rhymed better with repair.
So to summarise those couple of lines, to me he's saying "Look; THIS is what I deserve and I know it, I made my bed and I guess I'll go lay in it". The "broken thoughts" he mentions before are all his feelings about those two lines.
Johnny's version gives you a new appreciation for what was an amazing song, you see now why it was nominated for awards at the time of first release.
Hope whoever reads this enjoyed my take. -
Man of learning and wisdom !
Gathering a plenty experience in this life of
Test and knowing that's life is not ever lasting
Longing for a real and eternal Bless of a life as
a Garden of knowledge and belief in God and all His Messengers from Adam to Muhammad
Peace and Mercy be upon Them All !
Amen. -
I was at an event and a band member covered this song.Taking the lyrics in …It hit me hard how SAD to see that Jonny’s reflection of his life expressed in this song he couldn’t see all the good he did and forgive himself for his past. Then again, hopefully his music can be an expression to heal.
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Making up a song about Coraline (referring to how the Beldam made up this world for Coraline)
She’s a peach (referring to how the Beldam wants to feed off of Coraline)
She’s a doll (referring to the doll the Beldam uses to spy on the children and find out what’s wrong with their lives)
She’s a pal of mine (referring to how he wants to help Coraline escape)
She’s as cute as a button in the eyes of everyone who ever laid their eyes on Coraline (referring to the Beldam wanting to sew buttons into Coraline’s eyes)
When she comes around exploring (Other Father is trying to tell Coraline that The Other Mother knows what she likes to do via the doll)
Mom and I will never ever make it boring (telling Coraline that The Other Mother is able to change the other world for Coraline’s pleasure)
Our eyes will be on Coraline (This line has two meanings. It is saying that their button eyes will be sewn onto Coraline, while also saying again that the Other Mother is spying on her through the doll.) -
I think it can be related to several different perspectives.
The one I see is the narcissist. A narcissist often see what is wrong but in unbelieve. The Sting the pain. Pain can be just the one thing a narcissist believes to be the only through feeling there is because he or she is lacking emotion's.
But then understanding the only thing he brings someone else is pain. Lies and just make believe future. Every one will leave the narcissist at some point.And indeed
a narcissist will only bring you pain and hurt. But in fact that is the only way he can live alongside with lies and promises to the futere. Promises he will not keep. Well..... That's what I see in in. -
I once listened from a very diferente perspective by accident and I will leave here my personal interpretation:
I hear it as if a very sad and disappointed Jesus (Christian God) was singing in the middle of something similar to an existential crisis but in cosmic level.
Finding Himself in a moment when, having the power to make things up from thin air, only pain is real (assuming that maybe He kept the ability to feel pain from when he was human).
Trying to kill all living things, everything, but is pointless because they would still live in His mind since He can literally remember "everything".
Humans where supposed to be his friends in a beginning, so "my sweetest friend" could be humanity listening or a single human, a kid probably.
Everyone leaves because we are not immortal like He is, and because most have stopped believing.
And this one could not be the first humanity he tried but his creation keeps leaving.
Now He feels like all He planned for humanity is as valuable as dirt, and that He left us all down, "hurting" people indirectly.
Still wearing the crown of thorns, metaphorically,and in a throne where people have put Him, a throne of lies since mostly people teach lies in His name beyond repair.
He has lived so much He has seen humanity change era by era but, as he stated once back then, He keeps the same no matter what.
"If I could start again a million miles away I would keep my self I would find a way" sounds like going back to His sacrifice, or maybe even before, back to the creation, and He would keep Himself from dying for people that would not care, or keep Himself from creating humanity, respectively to the time He means.
Keep in mind I'm not against or favoring an specific belief. This is said meaning no offense to anyone. I'm almost sure this is not the actual meaning, probably is just drugs, but I'm a writer, I have too much imagination floating around. Again, no offense, to anyone.
Sorry if typos, not my first language. -
This is my all time favorite. This is the song I wanted played at my funeral when I died. My life was in shambles so I depicted that it would be from an overdose. I wanted it played for my narcissist mother. All I had to give her is my pile of dirt.
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This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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I think this version is initially about regret, guilt and self-loathing, but in the final verse the same lyrics are used in a different light - it becomes a song of acceptance, self-forgiveness, and a reminder to those who have made mistakes in their lives to not let them be the end of you.
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We are one consciousness experiencing itself. Our whole life is but an illusion, an experiment of thought.
I believe Johnny Cash realised this in his later years which is why he chose to sing this particular song.
All of the people that he experienced throughout his life ‘go away, in the end’. These people interacted with him to comfort his ego but were all just an illusion of his own making. Over time they all disappear and all he is left with is himself. Every experience that he’d ever had was just his empire of dirt that he’d created. He’d made all of this, purely to distract himself from the crippling loneliness of his own consciousness. He is his own ‘sweetest friend’. While everything may be fake, he knows he is real.
“I think therefore I am”
He is you and this song was a thought you had in another life.
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Hurt is about self relevation, he believes that he isthe ruler of nothing because of his struggles in life he feels he has no worth of himself
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I think that when he's talking about being hurt its regret. He hade fame, he had money he had everything anyone could ever want. But he still wasn't happy because in the end its still materials. And everything that he held dear to his heart left, taken away by time.
As someone else said earlier he's shown on a "throne". All his past glory is shown in the pictures. And specially when he says "You could have it all... My empire of dirt" its clear that all this that he has means nothing in the longer run. Its just really sad that he couldn't find happiness despite doing everything he could.
Hope you're safe and happy wherever you are Johhny. -
This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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The outro says it all. If I could start over, I would keep myself.it was written as a song about losing yourself to addiction. Jonny's version was more relatable. It was about losing yourself to your base self.
The verse is always the voice of the protagonist. The chorus is always the voice of the "other". Hurt violates this slightly. "What have I become"? Is the voice of the protagonist. Had it been the same voice throughout it would have been, "what have I become, my sweetest friend"? But, "my sweetest friend" was the beginning of the answer to the protagonist's question.
Protagonist, verse 1:
I try to escape my pain.
What have I done?
Base self, chorus:
I will steal your best self, just as I do to most people.
Protagonist, verse 2:
Crown and thrown, trappings of misspent life or transient pleasures.
You are not me, I am me.
Protagonist, outro:
If I could start over, I wouldn't lose myself.
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I have known this song for a long time but up untill now i just understood it the pure pain of it goes right through me yes i am hurt
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