Johnny Cash (Photo by Alan Messer, courtesy of Universal Music)
Johnny Cash Didn’t Want To Cover “Hurt”
Johnny Cash’s version of the Nine Inch Nails song, “Hurt”, might be one of the best covers of all time, but it almost didn’t happen.
Producer Rick Rubin was responsible for showing Johnny the song, but Rick had to send it to him THREE times.
Rick would send him a burned CD with a bunch of songs that he thought Johnny should cover, and each time he would put the Nine Inch Nails song FIRST on the CD.
But Johnny didn’t think he was right for it and kept ignoring the song.
It wasn’t until Rick finally got Johnny into the studio and sang the song to him in person, that Johnny finally understood how good it could be.
The rest is history, and the song, and especially the music video for “Hurt”, is so good that Trent Reznor once admitted that it, quote, “wasn’t his song anymore.”
