Chords for The Greatest Cover Song of All Time?

Music isn't as simple as a songwriter getting one message across to the listener of a song.
People bring their own backgrounds, their own viewpoints, their own opinions to form
their own interpretation of a piece of music.
Born in the USA can be a patriotic American anthem [A] to some, and it could be an anti-war
song to others.
But rarely does it become so obvious where two versions of the same song can have entire different meanings.
_ [Am] In 1994, Trent Reznor produced a deeply dark and disturbing piece of music that reflected
his mindset at the time.
It was a bleak look into the psyche of a young man desperately struggling with identity,
drug addiction, and depression.
A few years later came a cover of the song, but it wasn't another young up-and-coming
rock band with their own version.
It was a man near the end of his life, a man who had largely faded from being the country
music icon he once was.
What was unexpected was the new meaning this man brought to Trent's original lyrics,
and even more so, how much extra weight and emotion this man added.
The man was Johnny Cash, and it became his own interpretation [C] of the song, Hurt.
[D] _ _ _ [A] _
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By the early 90s, [G#] Johnny Cash had fallen from grace.
He spent much of the 1980s increasingly marginalized, chasing trends instead of setting them, and
ultimately, Columbia, his record label of 25 years, dropped him.
At the same time, he was recovering from a drug addiction relapse, and health problems
started creeping in.
Johnny's future in the music business was looking bleak.
It was after a show in 1992 where Johnny was approached by a young and hot record producer
with an [F#] idea to help revitalize his career.
Def Jam Records co-founder [N] Rick Rubin was at that show and saw a still-vital artist
who didn't deserve an early sunset.
Rubin offered to sign him, but Johnny was cynical at this point.
Why would Johnny sign with this rap-rock producer?
Well, Rick had an idea.
And he said, what I would do is let you sit down before a microphone with your guitar
and sing every song you want to record.
And I said, you're talking about a dream I had a long time ago.
What came of the relationship was the spark that led to a set of four albums throughout
the 90s and early 2000s known as the American Recordings.
They were all critically acclaimed and gave Johnny relevance to a new, younger generation.
Johnny's wish to record any song he wanted meant that he did a lot of covers.
By the early 2000s, him and Rick had developed a method in which they decided together which
ones they would end up recording.
I would send him a CD of 20 songs or 25 songs.
I had hurt on one of the [G#m] ones that I sent him, and he didn't respond.
And usually if he didn't respond, _ _ we didn't go back to it.
And that one, I remember I sent it again, and I put it first on the next _ CD.
When he listened to the CD again, he didn't respond.
I said, check out that first song, and I really feel like that one could be good.
That song Rick was so insistent on was from Nine Inch Nails.
It was their hit from 1994, Hurt.
In the early 90s, Trent Reznor rented out a Los Angeles house to write and record a new album.
It was the famous house where Sharon Tate and her friends were murdered by the Manson
family in the 60s.
Reznor was not in a good spot emotionally.
He was struggling with his newfound fame and his sense of identity.
To cope with his depression, he wrote a brutal depiction of self-loathing and emotional numbness that begins_
Hurt _ myself [Bm] today _ to [Dm] _ _
see [E] if I [Bm] still feel.
[G] Reznor later called the song a valentine to the sufferer.
He sings the verses [B] quiet and intimately, followed by the chorus where it feels like
Trent's releasing all the pain he feels inside of him.
The bleak chorus was a reflection of how Trent valued his self-worth at the time and his deep loneliness.
I've always had a sadness and a sense of abandonment, I [G] think, haunting me and never feeling like
[D] a fit-in anywhere.
Always feeling like an [A] outsider.
It's not rational, it just happens often.
When Trent was later approached with the idea of Johnny [B] Cash covering [F#] the song, he [D] was understandably unsure.
Not only was [E] Hurt an extremely vulnerable peek into [F#] his insecurities, but [Dm] having an
old country music singer doing it [E] might feel gimmicky.
Ultimately, Trent [Dm] was still flattered a man of Johnny's stature [D] would do it, [E] so he gave
the go-ahead.
[Bm] Johnny's version [Dm] was more bare-bones.
Acoustic guitar with tasteful touches [G] of organ and piano allowed Johnny's aged [F#] and weathered
voice to cut [D] through.
But it's clear that [G] age didn't take anything away from Johnny's [Bm] greatness.
[Dm] His weakened voice allowed him to convey emotion [E] in a deeper way, and you believe the [Bm] wisdom [Dm] he's espousing.
When you're 20 years old talking about regret, it's heartbreaking, but it's heartbreaking
in a different way because you have your whole life to figure it out. _
When you're looking back over your life at the end of your life with regret, it's brutal.
By the end, Johnny's vocal becomes distorted.
As you feel him get louder and more passionate about regret, his weakened voice becomes [G] shaky.
[Am] If I could _ start [F] again _ _ [G] a million _ miles away.
_ What changed the meaning of Hurt, and what would lift it to a whole other level, [F] was
the music video.
Directed by Mark Romanek, it unfolded like a mini-biography, blending archival footage,
home movies, and a performance as strong as the song itself.
Aware that [G#] he had little time to shoot the video, Mark flew to Tennessee to meet Johnny
[Em] and found the perfect location, a decaying museum built in Johnny's honor, the House
of Cash Museum.
In it, Mark uncovered [G] stacks of old footage.
A light bulb went off when one of the first reels he watched showed a young Johnny riding a train.
There was something about the footage of Johnny as a young, vibrant man, cut to him near the
end of his life in a weathered old museum, that was powerful.
It really upset me, and it really affected me, and I thought it was beautiful, but it
was so unlike any video I'd seen before, and so [C] extreme, that it really took my breath
away, [D] and [Am] _ _ not in a good [C] way.
I didn't know [G] how to handle [Am] it. _ _
Three months after the video shoot, [F] Johnny's wife, June Carter [G] Cash, died.
Johnny himself died months later, just under a year after the release of that album, with
Hurt on [Am] it.
It would end up being Johnny's first album [F] to achieve gold status in the US in more than
[C] thirty years, but it's Hurt that has [G] continued to stun listeners to this day.
[Am] Hurt is a prime example of how powerful music can be.
[F] What was originally intended to be [C] morose, insecure, and intimate, [G] was a song juxtaposed
with a country legend that was [Am] beautiful, emotional, and introspective.
Even though an industrial [F] rock band like Nine Inch [C] Nails penned this dark song that read
like a suicide note, it [G] transcended genre to prove that ultimately this song only [Am] deals
in one currency, genuine, heartfelt emotion.
_ [C] At the end of the video, Cash, silhouetted by a harsh [G] yellow light, closes the lid of
the piano and rests his wrinkled hands on top of it.
At that point, Trent's Valentine to the Sufferer _ became Johnny's Swan Song.
What I wasn't prepared for [Am] was what I saw, [C] and it really then [Gm] wasn't my song anymore.
[Am] _ [G] I would find _ a way _ _ _ _
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