The Telepathic Kid wrote:but I understand where Rodheh is probably coming from.
Here's where I'm coming from.
That track is the culmination of a concept album that touches on some pretty deep depths. It's a tearjerker, an angerjerker, a lovejerker and a whole lot more. If you've heard it several times as the one piece of music it essentially is when put together as a whole, you'll probably find something in the story you can relate to. I can relate to almost all of it, and it describes elaborately a few emotions that apply in very specific manners throughout its whole story, meaning certain contexts need to be maintained to in turn maintain the message.
Hurt, specifically, comes in after an apparent destruction of any form that the album had left and starts up from a sea of industrial ambience. It's not melodically sound because it isn't supposed to be. It's not vibrant and filled with imagery like the cover because it's not supposed to be. It's a void. Nothing. The point is that it was the subtle post-analysis of the protagonist's irrational behavior after he kills himself and after self-destruction ends...and like the entire sequence started, it ends with harsh guitars, harsh synths and white noise devoid of any life. In terms of the album it resides upon, it has a pretty serious effect at the end of the road.
Now, some years later, an older, more traditional country singer comes along and covers it. He removes the ambience. He removes the instability. He changes the instrumentation to be stable and melodic and then performs it in a different style. As is common with covers.
I have no problem with this. I'm not anti-cover whatsoever and I support freedom of expression.
What I have a problem with is really simple and it boils down to two things, both personal, subjective feelings of mine that may not bother others:
1. His video and in turn interpretation of the song included a bunch of Christian references. The song is used in a Christian tone, by a Christian. The word "shit" is also changed to "crown". This, in my opinion, is horseshit. The album the original version is on directly condemns Christianity and organized religion SEVERAL times. This is one of the things that makes me feel as though it's not really a cover and kind of its own song. It's so different in message.
2. Many people do not know of the original and often attribute the song to Cash. Fine. However, when informed they act defensive and say things like "FUCK YOU IT'S CASH THE CASH VERSION IS THE BEST WHY DO YOU LISTEN TO THE NINE etc." which is a very arrogant mood to take. There are also people who take the same attitude against the Cash version in support of the NIN version -
I do not support behavior like this in EITHER case, period.
So that's about it. This song is a greater example I think of any cover where people act like that. It's so prominent over the internet and it's really stupid.
Now personally, my feelings are that I don't really like the Cash version very much in terms of musical taste. I find his voice to be whiny and annoying in that particular song and I don't like the instrumentation. However, this is just me. I by no means am going to tell someone who prefers the Cash version that they're wrong and they can't have that opinion, provided they are aware of the original context the song was written in and respectfully acknowledge the importance of both the original and the cover.
