10 Emotional Rock Songs That Will Make You Cry

Not many songs in the rock pantheon have hit the nail on the head in terms of pure pain like Hurt by Nine Inch Nails. Right at the end of the Downward Spiral, you can hear Trent Reznor really peeling back the pieces of his own self destruction, looking through his addictions and seeing what this character could have done differently to make his life just a little bit better than it was. That kind of pathos sounds like it should be impossible to beat, and yet it was once the song was given a new life.

Though the basic structure of the song was already fairly delicate, Johnny Cash's rendition just made the entire thing feel like a final goodbye from the Man In Black. While already working as a send off for the Downward Spiral, it's now being put upon this huge life in show business, as Cash dwells on what he has become and if it was all worth it for him in the end.

Also, looking into the music video is not for the faint of heart either, as we see Johnny on his last legs singing this song of hopelessness, all while the legacy that he left for himself flashes before his eyes. In the context of the Downward Spiral, our hero's time has run out, but Cash managed to take something that was raw and ragged from start to finish and manage to sprinkle just the slightest bit of hope into the mix.