I must admit I first heard Cash’s version of the song during a powerful episode of Person of Interest, “The Devil’s Share.”
The emotion of the death of a central character accompanied by this majestic track was quite moving.
I didn’t know at the time it was a Nine Inch Nails original.
In an interview with GQ, Trent Rezner described his feelings about Cash’s cover.
Reznor remembered, “It seemed weird. I assumed they’re probably doing 100 songs, so. Then I get the recording of it a little bit later, and that felt weird, because that’s my song, you know? That big voice in there — it felt weird at the moment. I remember I was in the middle of [1999’s] The Fragile when I heard it. [I said] ‘I’m not ready to process what this is right now.'”
He continued, “The thought of: ‘Here’s a thing I wrote from a very intimate place, and it’s connected with someone else with a larger-than-life personality, and then oddly becomes a kind of epitaph for his life that happened to be filmed by one of the greatest directors ever [Mark Romanek] and presented in such a beautiful way,’ it reminds you of the power of music and how important it is.”
Open thread away.
