(Via Instapundit) I like Victor Davis Hanson’s stuff, but I have an issue with this paragraph.
Hillary Clinton has developed a strange but habitual tic of railing and remonstrating about hot-button issues and egregious behaviors that offer windows into her own plagued soul, past and present. It is as if Hillary has become an ailing Johnny Cash singing “Hurt” — draped in black at the end, a faint simulacrum of his once combative self, seeking new resonance through a rocker’s lyrics for the confession of his own sins: “I wear this crown of s— / Upon my liar’s chair.”
There was nothing of the ‘faint simulacrum’ about Johnny Cash’s cover of Hurt. ‘Frail’ I will grant, but Johnny Cash isn’t any less Johnny Cash in it. He’s just… leaving, and we can’t quite catch up to him as he goes to where he will be going.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt1Pwfnh5pc
This is just me talking, by the way. I agree with the political parts of the essay. But I didn’t want to let the stuff about Cash pass without comment.
I totally agree with you Moe. Cash was genuine to the end and his covers like ‘Hurt’ were astounding because they were so powerful.
Whereas Hillary Clinton is another product of the Sirius Cybernetic Corporation (which sold the DNC on a line of goods) whose marketing department* is a bunch of mindless jerks who’ll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
*And Debbie slams another valium-and-vodka cocktail as she tries to keep everything quiet and under control despite the chanting going on beyond the curtain walls.
Heck, Nine Inch Nails essentially admitted that Cash straight up made Hurt his with that cover. Lots of people think Nine Inch Nails is covering Cash whenever they play it to this day.
And frankly the lyrics make more sense of a end of the road Cash then it did for Nine Inch Nails at that point in time for their career.
I don’t know if you’ve read it or not, but I just read a passage from Western Way of War
by Victor Davis Hanson, very enjoyable and informative piece in particular of Hoplite warfare. If you’re interested in that sort of thing you should read it.
He’s just… leaving, and we can’t quite catch up to him as he goes to where he will be going.
A heartbreakingly perfect description of that song and video. I really miss that man.
Also, Cash changed “crown of s—” to “crown of thorns.” So he took those “rocker’s lyrics” and made them his own in more than one way.
Slightly off topic – “Hurt” is the best argument that a music video is indeed art. That video, not just Cash’s recording, is magnificent.
And I’m with Kinsey – I miss him too. A life well lived.