MoDoug
Minister of Fire
One of Johnny Cash's most moving songs was a remake of a Nine Inch Nails (NIN) song that won a Grammy Awards nomination for best rock song in 1996. NIN was an industrial rock band and far from the style of Johnny Cash.
Trent Reznor, of NIN and the writer of the song, was unsure of Johnny’s version to begin with, telling Alternative Press in 2004: “I was flattered, but frankly, the idea sounded a bit gimmicky to me."
Having said that, his mind soon changed after he saw the music video, after which he said in the same interview: “Tears welling, silence, goose-bumps... Wow. I just lost my girlfriend, because that song isn't mine anymore. It really made me think about how powerful music is. I wrote some words and music in my bedroom as a way of staying sane, about a bleak and desperate place I was in.”
“Somehow that winds up reinterpreted by a music legend from a radically different era and still retains sincerity and meaning - different, but every bit as pure.”
Trent Reznor, of NIN and the writer of the song, was unsure of Johnny’s version to begin with, telling Alternative Press in 2004: “I was flattered, but frankly, the idea sounded a bit gimmicky to me."
Having said that, his mind soon changed after he saw the music video, after which he said in the same interview: “Tears welling, silence, goose-bumps... Wow. I just lost my girlfriend, because that song isn't mine anymore. It really made me think about how powerful music is. I wrote some words and music in my bedroom as a way of staying sane, about a bleak and desperate place I was in.”
“Somehow that winds up reinterpreted by a music legend from a radically different era and still retains sincerity and meaning - different, but every bit as pure.”
