hey, welcome to 12tone!
Nine Inch Nails has always been interesting to me: it was the first time I'd ever heard
of a band that was actually just one person playing all the parts, and the music Trent
Reznor was able to make when he had that sort of creative control was really different from
anything else I'd heard, so today I thought I'd look at one of my favorite of his songs,
Hurt.
now, there's not many good transcriptions of this song out there, but as far as I can
tell, it starts like this (bang) and, if you're like me, these immediately look like arpeggios.
this is when you play the notes of a chord one at a time instead of all at once, and
in order to analyze it, we just have to condense them back into their complete chords. if we
do that here we get this (bang) and… that's where things start to get complicated, because
those aren't chords.
I mean, they are, but they're not normal ones.
so what's going on?
well, I think we need to break this into two parts.
he starts each of them with what's called a power chord, which consists of two notes:
the root, and the fifth.
these are the foundations of the harmony here, and if we isolate them (bang) we get a cool,
blues-y progression reminiscent of songs like Smoke On The Water.
this gives the section a solid backbone, and makes it feel pretty recognizable, even with
all the other weirdness going on.
anyway, power chords are a really strong, stable sound, but they're also kind of empty.
they don't bring a lot of emotion to the table, which is where the other notes come in.
if this were a normal song, we might expect to hear something like this (bang) but Reznor
wants more dissonance, so over the first power chord, he plays this (bang) a tritone.
tritones are a pretty unstable interval all on their own, but he also just played an F#,
so the F natural here rubs against that too.
it's like a bait-and-switch: he promised us a normal chord and then, at the last second,
he took it away.
it's also worth mentioning that he sometimes adds a D natural as well (bang) which honestly
doesn't change much.
it makes this a B minor triad, but the sound is still dominated by that wild tritone.
for the next two chords he plays this (bang) and this (bang) and, once the rhythm's stripped
away, it's clear that these are just the same notes both times.
in fact, those notes, D and E, are the roots of the two power chords they're played over,
and if we put the rhythm back (bang) we see that he's always playing the root of the current
chord first.
this honestly doesn't even feel harmonic to me: it's more like a melody, tying the two
chords together with a shared figure.
I've seen people analyze these with weird names in order to include both notes, but
I think they're best viewed as just decorated power chords.
after a while, this gives way to the prechorus (bang) where we start seeing full chords,
although they're still pretty unusual.
well, mostly.
the first one's easy: all we've got is As and Es, making this an A power chord, or A5.
(bang) the second one looks like some kind of B chord.
(bang) we've got B, E, F#, and A, giving us a B7 sus 4, which is like a normal B minor
7, but the third degree, D, has been replaced with the fourth degree, E. this gives it a
hanging, suspended feel, and it wants to fall back down to B minor 7 (bang) but Reznor doesn't
let it.
instead, we move to the third chord (bang) which has G, A, D, and E. ignoring the E for
a moment, this looks like a G sus 2 chord, which is like the sus 4 we just saw except
we replace the third degree with the second instead of the fourth.
it behaves similarly, and we'd expect it to resolve to G major, although as you might
have guessed, it doesn't actually do that.
circling back to the E, though, this is the 6th degree.
this is a common jazz decoration, giving the chord a bit more color without changing much
about its function.
and finally we have this (bang) which is D major with an added E, again serving as decoration.
this sets up the return to the start of the progression with what's called a plagal cadence,
where the IV chord resolves to I. it's a little weaker than a typical V-I resolution, which
helps prevent any real sense of finality.
that's one way to look at the section, anyway, and having researched this it's one that seems
pretty common, but I think there's a simpler explanation.
let's do what we did in the verse and split these chords up into two parts.
on the first chord, we have a low A5 and a high A5. on the second one, we have a B5 and
another A5. on the third one, we've got a G5 and, you guessed it, another A5. the fourth
chord is a little trickier, since it's a complete major triad, but if you look closely it's
still got that A5 again.
this is what's called a pedal, where you keep playing the same note or, in this case, notes
even as the harmony around it changes.
the power chord is just a constant drone happening on top of whatever the actual chords are,
and those chords are fairly straightforward.
ignoring the D major, which we explained earlier, we've got what amounts to a harmonic trill:
we've got the I chord, the II chord, and the bVII chord. it's just circling around the
root of the key, and it feels almost more like a melody, which isn't surprising, since
power chords by themselves don't really carry much harmonic weight.
but there's one last elephant in the room: this section is clearly in the key of A, but
wasn't the verse in B?
well...I'm not actually sure it was.
the chords by themselves imply it, but the melody ends on an A, and the section ends
on an E chord, which would be the V chord in that key.
I think the verse is purposefully ambiguous in its tonality, and it never actually goes
to an A chord, but I don't think it's unreasonable to analyze it like that, which means we never
actually changed keys.
and that's pretty much it.
there's a chorus, but as far as I can tell, the progression is basically the same as the
prechorus except without the D major.
but I can't talk about Hurt without mentioning Johnny Cash's version because it's one of
the best covers I've ever heard.
it's so good that Trent Reznor himself has publicly stated that the song doesn't belong
to him anymore.
it starts like this (bang) and, besides the new key, this is pretty similar to the original
but with some of the weirder notes removed.
he keeps that up in the chorus (bang) where our power chords have been filled out.
he keeps the pedal but reduces it to one note and moves it to the piano. and I think that
sort of simplicity is what makes the cover work.
where the original is really heavily produced, with static noise tracks, orchestration changes,
and lots of digital processing, Cash strips it down to the bare essentials, with just
a guitar, a piano, and, of course, his voice.
he also speeds it up, makes the vocal rhythm much more conversational, and even changes
the lyrics to fit the story he's trying to tell.
now, I'm not saying that Cash's version is better than Reznor's.
questions like that are outside the scope of this sort of analysis.
they had different stylistic goals, and they used the appropriate tools to accomplish them.
but I think it's a perfect example of how to do a cover right: Cash identified the heart
of the song, the part that gives it its identity and makes it work, and he changed everything
else.
what's left is a song that's clearly Hurt, but also not.
it's very much its own piece of art, even if they were both painting the same thing.
anyway, thanks for watching, and thanks to Patreon patron Bryce Jabs for suggesting this
song! if you'd like to see your favorite song analyzed, just head on over to Patreon and
pledge at any level.
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