Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor has revealed that hearing Johnny Cash's cover of his song 'Hurt' for the first time felt "like someone kissing [his] girlfriend".

Reznor added that the 2002 cover matters much more to him than industry accolades like the Grammys.

Speaking to The Sun's Something For The Weekend, the frontman said: "[Producer Rick Rubin] called me to ask how I'd feel if Johnny Cash covered 'Hurt'. I said I'd be very flattered but was given no indication it would actually be recorded.

"Two weeks went by. 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. Hearing it was like someone kissing your girlfriend. It felt invasive."

Reznor also hailed Cash's cover as a great honour, saying: "Having Johnny Cash, one of the greatest singer-songwriters of all time, want to cover your song, that's something that matters to me. It's not so much what other people think but the honour that this guy felt it was worthy of interpreting.

"He said afterwards it was a song that sounds like one he would have written in the 60s and that's wonderful."

Is that being wishy washy? HUM.....

No I really don't think so Patsy. Its just how a songwriter must feel about a deeply personal song (Reznor initially wrote it about his own troubled life) when someone else puts their own interpretation on it. And an interpretation with the accompanying video, even he has admitted, even stronger than the original.
And when he calls Johnny one of the greatest singer-songwriters of all time, thats pretty clear cut.
This was a recent interview but very much in line with those he has given in the past on Hurt and Johnny Cash. The word that keeps cropping up is "honoured" and I really believe he was and still is.
In the interview he's saying that all the praise, all the plaudits and awards, do not compare to having Johnny Cash cover his song, thats pretty strong praise.


Paul

Trent is like any other singer-songwriter (just like Johnny), having someone covering your personal songs, or any of your songs is like taking your baby to them.

Okay, I understand.. Just wonder why they LET people record their songs and then feel like that?

trent reznor phone my house once and im gutted that i did not ask him about 'hurt'. at the time i had never really heard of him, i thought he was a song writer and did not know who wrote 'hurt' at that time. Oh well. We live and learne.

johnny could have any song I wrote, it would absolutley be an honor, he is the best! no one else has been honored for his country, rock and gospel.

I think Reznor's comments in this aritcle (and others) are a sincere admiration for Johnny. As Paul pointed-out, "Hurt" was a very personal song to Reznor. Most every song is personal to the person who wrote it, but when a writter of Reznor's stature writes and records an extremely personal song (that literally tells the world about something most folk would rather keep hidden), and especially when the song gets very popular (meaning that millions know of your private failures), then I think it's even more of a shock when someone else records it and even in the songwriter's own mind that person "said it better than me." I think Reznor is genuinely impressed, perhaps overwhelmed, by the power of Johnny's rendition of "Hurt.".....If we know it, there's little doubt that Johnny's songwriting peers also know it: when Johnny recorded someone else's song, it was very likely that "your" song would henceforth be more tied to Johnny Cash than to you. It's one of those proverbial "facts of life."

I also think its wishy washy.

Invasive is one of the words he used to described it I think he didn’t like Johnny covering the song. He makes it clear its nothing personal against Johnny but just would have preferred john not to cover it. Because Johnny dint only kiss his girlfriend he stole her away.

People wont remember Hurt as a Renzor song but a Johnny Cash song

I think Reznor has said enough about Johnnys cover that most people would not doubt he liked it. And of course he felt it was invasive. Any songwriter who writes an autobiographical song must feel the same way when someone else records it. Remember it was Reznors life in that song, much more than it was Johnny's. Remember that at the time Johnnys closeness to the lyrics was greatly exaggerated, Johnny and Mark Romanek both gave interviews afterwards talking about that side of it. And remember how Rosanne first felt when hearing it, imagine how much worse you'd feel if it was about you.
I do not wish to feel I am defending Trent Reznor at all, primarily because there is nothing to defend. Your comment about people remembering Johnnys version more than Reznors is perhaps the truest of all. In fact its so true that Trent Reznor has said so on many occasions.

But do you think Renzor would have preferred Johnny not touch his song.

I think Trent loved Johnnys version very much. As far as I know Trent Reznor owns the rights to all his songs and could have refused permission for Johnny to record it. In fact he instantly gave permission. I doubt he'd have it any other way.

Here's another interview for Rolling Stone Magazine which goes into more detail. Give the interview a chance, it becomes clear at the end how he feels.
How did you first find out that Johnny Cash wanted to record "Hurt"?

I've been friends with Rick Rubin for quite a while, and he asked me how I would feel about Johnny Cash doing one of my songs. I thought, "Wow," because my songs have been my therapy, a vehicle for me to keep sane. I've never really thought about writing songs for other people, and I've never tried to pitch my songs to people. And that song in particular came from a pretty private, personal place. So it seemed, well, like that's my song.

Johnny Cash had always been this mysterious figure to me. My grandfather had listened to him. I'd never paid that much attention to him. But he was one of the few greats left, a real individual persona.

Rick sent me a CD of it. I listened to it, and it seemed incredibly strange and wrong to me to hear that voice with my song. I thought, "Here's this thing that I wrote in my bedroom in a moment of frailty, and now Johnny Cash is singing it." It kind of freaked me out.

Did you say any of that to Rick?

Rick asked what I thought, and I said, "You did a very tasteful job with it" -- which I did think and do think. It was a big juxtaposition for me to hear it as someone else's song now. It instantly became his song after that.

Then I heard that Mark was campaigning to do a video for it. If I had to list the people that I had the most respect for in the music business, Mark and Rick would be on that list. I saw the video and it took my breath away. Immediately my throat had a lump in it, and at that point, it really struck home. It was heartbreaking. I had goosebumps, which I have right now even thinking about it. It became really inspiring to me.

What did you find inspiring about it?

It reminded me of the power of music. Something that I made in my room, that came out of my little private backyard -- to have an icon like Johnny Cash juxtapose it into something that now, especially with the aid of that video, gives it a whole different set of scenery and a backdrop and a context to listen to it in. It works. And it probably works better than my version.

I was sad about the context with Johnny, but I felt honored to be a part of it. I spoke with Mark about this the other day, when I heard that he died. This artist deserves and demands respect from a new generation that wasn't that aware of him. It's nice that we were able to present him to a new world of fans, even though, unfortunately, it's the end of his life. The MTV exposure, even though they were cowards to not give him the awards he deserved, might open a lot of people up who weren't that aware of Johnny Cash, or of his importance. I felt honored to have been involved in that in any way, but I'm sad that it's a eulogy almost.

When you say it felt "wrong," what felt wrong about it to you?

It felt invasive. It was my child. It was like I was building a home, and someone else moved into it. When I write a song, I'm only considering myself as the one narrating it. It's my voice. So it did seem very odd at first. Also, as soon as you hear his voice, you go, "That's Johnny Cash." How weird is that? Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would write a song that Johnny Cash wanted to sing. I never thought that our paths would intersect.

How has all this affected your own relationship to "Hurt"?

I haven't listened to my version since then. I've been so proud of what they've done with it that I haven't thought that much about it. I'm over my initial shock, and I realize that's what music's all about. I've thrown some things in the pot, and now it's turned into something else. It's a pretty powerful thing.

Having Johnny Cash do "your" song was kind of a catch-22 situation----Chances are, your song is going to get some very powerful publicity. Also, chances are your song will forever be tied to Johnny Cash. Reznor made some truly great comments about Johnny. Johnny main strength, aside from all of the talent, was that he was a flawed human being and he was not afraid to admit it. Perhaps Reznor experienced this first-hand when Johnny covered his song. Reznor wrote a really great song, but I believe he knows that when Johnny recorded it, the song moved from "great" to "legend."

Paul's quote from Reznor says it all. "I haven't listened to my version since then. I've been so proud of what they've done with it that I haven't thought that much about it. I'm over my initial shock, and I realize that's what music's all about. I've thrown some things in the pot, and now it's turned into something else. It's a pretty powerful thing." As I understand it the song is about the hurt caused by drug abuse. In NIN's version when the Reznor sings "what have I become" it sounds to be like a real question...like where is this taking me what hell next? When Cash sings the same line it is the voice of experience in his reading the voice knows well all the hell already lived. Reznor's version asks the question "what have I become" while Cash's version answers the question.