Lyrics Double Header: Johnny Cash - Hurt

I hurt myself today
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

What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
You could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you Hurt

I wear this crown of thorns
Upon my liar's chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
Beneath the stain of time
The feeling disappears
You are someone else
I am still right here

What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
You could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you Hurt

If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way
-----------------------------------------
Yeah, I know, it's not Johnny Cash, it's Nine Inch Nails. Yeah, I don't care. I only listen to the Johnny Cash version.

The music video is touching. It shows him eating and drinking, alone, surrounded by wealth, remembering his life on the road, and more importantly, his wife (who'd recently passed away).
It's desolate and sad and it really is the picture of a man at the very end of his life. Very sad. I think, watching it now, that he would've given everything he had, and everything he'd ever been, to have his wife back again.

The way the song is played, it's completely haunting. Just that guitar, the piano, and his voice, all building to this crescendo at the end. It's relentless, just keeps driving. Meanwhile, the video goes into overdrive showing scenes from his life interspersed with scenes of crucifixition. Strange, but it works.