10 Weirdest Cover Songs In Rock Music History
3. Personal Jesus - Johnny Cash
Throughout most of his career, Johnny Cash has had a near flawless track record with his covers. Along with the different classic songs he had written on his own, he was always an interpreter of classics as well, whether it was the old outlaw tunes he was known for or tearing your heart to pieces on songs like Give My Love to Rose. Once he started working with Rick Rubin, he got a much broader palette for his covers.
As he reached the end of his life, the Man Comes Around remains a classic for including his interpretation of Hurt by Nine Inch Nails. While half of the record is also covers, one of the standouts is what he does to Depeche Mode's classic Personal Jesus. This almost seems designed to fail, since the twangy guitar of the original was practically just a joke for Depeche Mode, with the rest of the song being synths creating the atmosphere in the background.
Whereas Depeche Mode may have had the cowboy aesthetic though, this is what Personal Jesus is like for a real cowboy, taking the caustic feel of the original and bringing it back down to Earth through Cash's signature Southern drawl. Even in his old age and his health dwindling, this is the kind of song Cash could have written in his sleep, a man on the edge and still as intimidating as he was in his Man in Black days.