A Nine Inch Nail Through My Heart

I remember it like it was yesterday. The day new Nine Inch Nails record, The Downward Spiral, came out. I skipped English class so I could spend more time studying the lyrics. We were studying Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. Who needed an oblique, albeit, witty take on Shakespeare when you had the musing of the dark twisted soul of Trent Reznor? See, I had my heart broken a few months before and it hurt bad. And one of the only things that made me feel any sort of better was listening to Pretty Hate Machine and Broken over and over. I literally wore out my cassette copy of PHM.

"Wish there was something real, wish there was something true, wish there was something real in this word full of you!"

"Don't take this away from me. I need you to hold on to!"

Simple? Yes. But it hit me in the gut. When you're twenty, sometimes it's the simple, direct passionate proclamations that hit you the hardest. You exist in the realm of the purely emotional. You're just starting to put your head out their on the chopping block of relationships, and it's bound to get cut off. Everything is raw and bleeds like a fresh cut. Having lyrics around like Trent's prevents permanent scaring. So of course I couldn't be expected to wait an extra hour to read the latest NIN lyric book. I wasn't disappointed.

"I hurt myself today to see if I still feel. I focus on the pain the only thing that's real."

Before Johnny Cash envisioned "Hurt" as an anti-drug ballad, the Nine Inch Nails original was one of the most poignant and sad testaments of self-loathing ever set to music. I'm not knocking the Man In Black's cover, but the original will always be my first choice. You could make the argument that some of the lyrics on The Downward Spiral are misogynist ("Closer," "Reptile" and "Big Man With A Gun", specifically), but for me it was all about the catharsis and those were the songs I listened to least anyway.

I have since grown past this and now enjoy more reflective, metaphorical lyrics. I may like lyrics that deal more with mood now than emotional absolutes, but I'll still study the lyrics for the new Nine Inch Nails record, With Teeth, when it comes out in May. After all, I can still remember what that first heartbreak felt like.

Brad Filicky