Yess!!! Thank you, RP!

.............

 oldsinger wrote: 
Exactly how I feel about him. I never took him seriously when I was young. In his older years, his artistry became clear to me.

 Jazbo wrote: 
I'm with you - the original wasn't strong enough to deserve the attention.  "Hurt" and "Rusty Cage" however...

 oldsinger wrote: 

My reaction exactly. This stuff towards the end of JC's life is profound.

Hard to top the brilliant original.. even though the American Recordings weren't about that.

Wasn't much of a fan until he got well toward the end with stuff like this.  Now I get to re-examine his work.

This just doesn't do it for me.......5..

I like Johnny Cash, but hearing him sing this song makes it sound even more ridiculous than the original NIN version...

Dear Johnny!

 RedGuitar wrote: 
Agreed this is great but Hurt is totally amazing.  Full of genuine emotion the kind we only come across from time to time.

 unclelonghair wrote: 
For the sake of medical accuracy, Johnny Cash died of "Multiple Systems Atrophy," not Parkinson's disease. Although there is an overlap in some of the Parkinsonian symptoms (rigidity, slowness of movement) unfortunately that is only a small part of what patients with MSA experience. wemove.org is an excellent website for movement disorders.

 Poacher wrote: 
Or it could be that many people find this particular song only slightly more interesting to listen to than a metronome, and that religion isn't the reason for low ratings of this song. It's the music.

 mikexican wrote: 
What I find fascinating about the last phase of Cash's life and recording career was how very, very personal and spiritual it became. Yes, he was always spiritual with that unique wear-it-on-your-sleeve Southernness, but in his last days, his spirituality and the subtlety of his personality—manifested mostly in his songwriting (e.g., "I Walk the Line")—coalesced. I find his adoption of "Personal Jesus," therefore, both a telling turn in his life as well as emotionally poignant. He was a fabulously complex, contradictory man, one of the bona fide giants of the second half of the 20th century.

 zanref wrote: 
Being a fan of the Depeche Mode version (and indeed DM as a band), I always thought that this was a satire on tele-evangelism. IIRC the DM version is the original and the best.

One of the few covers that actually adds something to a song. Not an improvement, rather
opens another door to meaning.

 zanref wrote: 
Yes. I have noticed that songs with religious connotations seem to get marked down and it is interesting that some here do not mark any songs a 10. I believe this is something to do with those who are religious not being able to bring themselves to mark a track 'godlike'. 

I wonder if a hymn was played here they could only give it a 10.

Bill. . . could you run a test? ;) 

His recording of "Hurt" from this CD is haunting, even more so when you see the accompanying video.

Did not expect to see anything less then 8.
Emotionally filled new age song about believing in your own powers. And Johnny sounds much better then Depeche Mode or Marilyn Manson.
I guess most of the listeners are "real Jesus" believers. 

Oh God... I would rather listen to feral cats being eaten by hungry, wild dogs than listen to the unholy marriage of Johnny Cash and Depeche Mode. 

The Man in Black tells it like it is and ROCKS it!!!! And he was like 100 years old when he recorded this.

 Make it stop please................

I listen almost every day but rarely comment/rate. This song made my stop what I was doing and take notice. Johnny is just too freaking cool.

 dyharenas wrote: 
Agreed, that was very well put...

It's no "Boy Named Sue", but it'll have to do.

 unclelonghair wrote: 

Smack, center, on the head of the nail.

JC singing 'bout JC!

 thatch wrote: 
A lot of words have been used to describe Cash's voice over the years, but "shaky" isn't one of them.

Note that when this song was recorded, he was about 4-5 years into a diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease and a list of related ailments, so his health was not very good, which weakened his voice.

I suppose this is the kind of thing that only a Johnny Cash fan could appreciate, but having grown to appreciate his bottomless baritone voice, the bit of shakiness in his voice in this recording and a few others on this album really add an edge to the song, as if you're hearing someone signing who has one foot in the grave.  Which, in a way, he did.  Add to that the subject of the song and the lyrics and you have something with a lot of punch to it IMHO.