Hurt

I’ve been continuously working on recording songs; cover songs, in hopes that I will get my brain in the right space to start writing my own songs again.

It’s not working yet. I mean, I’ve written some music. Nearly 2 complete songs, including the one in my last post. But they’re just sitting there, waiting for lyrics. Still, I’m not giving up yet. Today I saw a psychiatrist and got some meds changed. That might be just what I need.

Since my last post, I’ve recorded two more cover songs. One of them is a cover of Tally Hall’s “Never Meant to Know”. The other is a cover of Johnny Cash’s version of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt”. You can play the latter just below and the former is embedded at the end of this post.

Although I’d always been familiar with NIN’s version of the song, it wasn’t until Johnny Cash released his cover that it finally struck a chord within me. I first heard Johnny Cash’s ‘Hurt’ while at my friend Sara Fulton’s house. She was very much a broken person, herself. This song touched us both very much — so when I decided to do a cover of it, she was looking over my shoulder the entire time.

I decided to use an image of her for the cover art and make a double entendre out of the cracks. One, to reflect the cracks in her (and myself, for that matter) but also, the cracks portray a particular anxiety for me right now; being afraid my ceiling is cracking and will fall down on me. This fear has been crippling for weeks, even while working on this song.

It’s kind of a long story but just know I’m not completely insane. The apartment next to me had their ceiling cave in unexpectedly. In my mind, there’s not much evidence to support the theory that mine WILL NOT be next. The bitter cold we’ve had, plus the warm-ups in between have been causing pops and snapping noises in the wood and plaster. So far, there’s not been any good explanation for the ceiling coming down except that the materials used were “sub-par.” It’s been absolutely nerve-wracking.

So hopefully I captured some of that energy and put it into the song and out of my head.

Anyway… Sara was one of the best singers I ever knew. She died back in 2004. If you search this blog, you’ll find references to her scattered around. I never did anything to commemorate her, so I thought she’d appreciate this. She’d probably have wanted to remain anonymous, so I covered her eyes.

{Insert Bad segue}

Now here’s my version of Tally Hall’s “Never Meant to Know.”

Coz

Create until nothing is left to create.

Leave a Reply