Rick Rubin recently talked about producing Johnny Cash’s legendary rendition of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt” and noted how the late country icon thought the producer was “crazy” for suggesting that song for a cover.

Rick Rubin opens up on Johnny Cash

When Rick Rubin and Johnny Cash started working together on the album “American Recordings” in 1994, it was an unexpected collaboration. Despite Rubin’s previous work with artists like Run-DMC and Slayer, he proved that his intuition could transcend genres. One notable highlight of their partnership was when Rubin suggested that Cash cover Nine Inch Nails’ song “Hurt”.

The haunting music video, featuring scenes from Cash’s life, accompanied the song and it became a poignant final work for Cash. Sadly, Cash passed away less than a year after the release of the album “American IV: The Man Comes Around” in 2002. Trent Reznor, the original songwriter, was reportedly deeply moved by Cash’s rendition and said, “the song isn’t mine anymore.”

While reflecting on the song in a recent interview with Rick Beato, Rubin noted how lyrics were always the key to determining which song he’d offer Cash to cover:

“By that time, I had already made five albums with Johnny… Were always looking for songs. He would write one or two songs, typically, on an album, and the rest would be covers. What I came to realize was, for things that worked best, the key was lyrics. If the lyrics were right, it didn’t really matter what genre the music was, or where it came from. I remember one of the early ones, we did a Soundgarden song, ‘Rusty Cage’.”

“I remember sending him the Soundgarden version, and he listened to it, and he’s like, ‘I can’t sing that’… When I sent him the Nine Inch Nails song, he just thought I was crazy.”

Rubin added:

“I sent him a burned CD with probably 25 potential songs, and [‘Hurt’] was number one. He didn’t respond to that one [song]; he did maybe to a couple of others. And then, the next CD I sent him, it was number one again. It’s one of the only songs that I probably sent him three times in these compilations [I wanted him] to consider, and he never responded.”

“And then, finally, I said, ‘There’s that song I sent you,’ and he said, ‘Yeah, I don’t hear it at all.’”

Rubin decided to record a demo with the guitarist Smokey Hormel, which is when Cash began to see the song’s potential:

“I might have done a demo… And I said, ‘It can sound like this, just read the lyrics.’ I think that was what convinced him.”

“It might have been the last time he came to California”

Rubin had noted how Johnny Cash was already “too ill to travel” or tour at that point, and that “he could sing only when he could sing”, so they set up a workspace at Cash’s home:

“He would try singing every day, but he couldn’t sing a lot of days… He was also really down on himself when he couldn’t do it, so it would be frustrating. So, we set it up so he could work at his house. Musicians would show up every day. They would record every day, and if they would get anything, that would be the basis that we would start with to work from.”

However, the producer also noted that Johnny Cash explicitly wanted to do “Hurt” in person with him. Looking back on the experience, Rubin said:

“It might have been the last time he came to California, and we recorded it together with the band and everything. I remember the build-up at the end of the song. We had all these different instruments in my studio; Benmont [Tench] was the keyboard player. In each spot where it keeps developing, we would try every keyboard in the room, just see what sounds good.”

“It was like trying to find this… And, it’s another example of [something] technically not being done properly. Like, at the end of the song, it gets completely distorted, and the meters are in the red in the mix, but it sounded like that. It’s like, technically, the equipment’s not supposed to do these things. And technically, it can sound like it’s broken. But that’s the sound. That’s what it is, that’s where the emotion is. So, it’s okay.”