Ghostwood Farm

Jump, and I’ll catch you, said the person who wrote it on the dock, and I believed them or, at least, I think I did. But now, I’m not sure, because the water is quite cold, and my legs are growing heavy, and I never felt any hands reach out for me. And I’m stuck with the thought, as I drift down the river, do I blame the writer for lying, or myself for believing? We both know whose fault it is, and we both know who I blame.

I was involved in a conversation earlier this week with two new friends, one who is very young and one who is about my age. The conversation revolved around music, specifically the song “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails. That took us to Johnny Cash which took us to the inimitable Nick Cave. I have thought quite a bit about that arc today and wanted to capture it in terms of how it affected my life.

I start with this: Memory is a funny thing. (As an aside, Malcolm Gladwell has a brilliant series on the nature of memory on his Revisionist History podcast that everyone should listen to.) In researching this timeline a little bit, one of the Immutable Facts of My Memory was shown to be dead wrong (I’ll get to that later), so I will only say that I will record these events as I remember them. These memories may not be True, but they will be Accurate insofar as they are what my faulty mind tells me happened.

I. In which Adam meets Trent Reznor (figuratively).

I first heard Nine Inch Nails in Nancy Murray’s car, a cassette of Pretty Hate Machine. At first, I blew it off as “techno”. I was a metal guy then; this was before Chris Baran and Scott Pazera blew my mind with records like Nothing’s Shocking, records that fundamentally changed how I looked at music forever. I saw the first Lollapalooza that year, at which NIN was the first band to perform. Also included was just a ridiculous lineup: Rollins Band, Ice-T and Body Count, Butthole Surfers(!), and of course, the Last Hurrah of Jane’s Addiction (though we didn’t know it was their last hurrah at the time). Nine Inch Nails still didn’t really resonate with me until I got to college that fall.

By the time I was doing my first solo radio shows (fall of 1991), Pretty Hate Machine was in pretty heavy rotation for me. By now I had recognized the importance and appeal of “industrial lite,” music that wasn’t quite as imposing as some of the stuff coming out of Chicago’s Wax Trax! label (Ministry, Revolting Cocks, KMFDM, My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult) but still angry and primarily electronic: Music that pissed you off while you danced to it. It took three years for NIN’s followup EP, broken, which is one of the finest EPs ever recorded. The hate and vitriol on that record, inspired by an ugly breakup with TVT Records, as I understand it, are palpable, and set the stage for The Downward Spiral, where our story really begins.

II. In which Adam cuts his hair and dislocates his shoulder.

The conversation last night brought to light the fact that my new friend and martial arts instructor was at the same NIN concert that I attended on 12 November 1994, in Louisville. The night before, I had been listening to what is still one of my favorite records: Cop Shoot Cop’s Interference. “Any Day Now” came on, and Tod A. sang “One of these days / I’m gonna shave off all my hair…” and at 2am, I said, yeah, and I went in the bathroom and shaved off my very long ponytail.

From this…

To this. Funny how I look happier with hair…and younger…and skinnier…note the Nothing’s Schocking t-shirt.

So we drive from Terre Haute to Louisville. Waiting for the first act to start (The Jim Rose Circus Sideshow), sitting on the floor, the music on the PA was David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs. A cute girl hit on me. After Jim Rose, Marilyn Manson hit the stage. Honestly, of the whole night, I remember snippets: the Bowie record on the PA, the cute girl, and…dislocating my shoulder.

I couldn’t tell you what song NIN was playing, and it wasn’t really a pit–there were too many people for that–but the crowd was swaying in a way that prevented independent motion. The crowd swayed right, everyone went right. At one point, someone tried to sway left as everyone else went right, slammed into my right shoulder just wrong, and popped it out. Excruciating pain. More importantly, the crowd was heading right, hard, and I started to fall. I was thinking, I can’t catch myself, I can’t move my arm: If I fall, I’m going to get trampled to death. Just then, the crowd to my right surged left, and someone slammed into me again. Excruciating pain. But it re-seated my shoulder! I was saved!

III. In which Adam is personally introduced to the fallibility of memory.

I have always told this story in this way: We attended the Louisville show, and the following night, we attended the Indianapolis show. But that is not the Truth. The Truth is, we attended the Indy show two full months later, on 22 January 1995. We were late and got there as Marilyn Manson was leaving the stage. I remember essentially nothing else about the show, and I recall my roommate and I roundly agreed that the Louisville show was far better.

After The Downward Spiral, I never bought another NIN record. More important music was on my radar by then: Morphine. Fugazi. Soul Coughing. fIREHOSE. Archers of Loaf. I was past the Angst and looking for the Noise.

IV. In which Adam finally gets to the damn point.

So my young friend was talking about the song “Hurt” last night. I think she said her marching band is performing it, but I didn’t actually catch that part of the conversation. She indicated that it was a NIN song that Johnny Cash made famous, at which point I had to disabuse her of that notion: After all, “Hurt” was a pretty big hit for ol’ Trent, back in the mid-90s. I never liked it, myself.

Nine Inch Nails has a couple of different approaches to songwriting. There’s the brilliant, angry writing (“Sin,” “Wish,” “Burn“), and then there’s the Smiths-channeling whimpering (“Something I Can Never Have,” “Hurt”). I skip the latter. I’ll go straight to The Smiths for self-loathing whinery: At least they had Johnny Marr.

However, that got us talking about the series of covers that Johnny Cash did late in his career, under the prodding of Rick Rubin. “Hurt” is probably the most famous but it’s nothing like the best. He also covered other songs I don’t particularly like: Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus” is the one that jumps out immediately. BUT, but, he did some absolutely brilliant covers.

My two favorite covers of his are two of my favorite songs by the original artists. It’s hard to pick a more quintessential Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds song than “The Mercy Seat,” and Cash’s cover is amazing. (For an even better version, check out Nick Cave’s version from the live album Live Seeds.)

However, Cash’s best cover of this period is his version of Soundgarden’s “Rusty Cage.” It’s pure magic, especially when you know the original. It’s the best action one can take when covering a song: He has changed it so that it is still recognizable, but he put his own unique stamp on it.

That’s all I have. Give them a listen if you’re not familiar.