I would imagine that one of the most difficult tasks for a musical artist to accomplish is to produce a cover that is on par with the original song. Songs that are generally covered are those that are thought or emotionally evoking, prompting the listener to express the emotion they feel when listening to the music through their interpretation of the song itself. That is no small task.
By and large, I do not enjoy covers. I often find that the cover frequently fails to recreate the evocations of the original. I respect the artists that attempt to do it, but I do not hold high hopes when I see one of my favorite bands cover a song. The original is a special experience. The cover is a reminder of why that first experience is special.
Not all covers fall short, however. The one cover that people almost universally agree is superior to the original is Jimi Hendrix's version of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower". Bob Dylan himself agrees, saying: "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way... Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."
"All Along the Watchtower" is so closely associated with Jimi Hendrix now that most people probably do not realize that the original was by Bob Dylan. And that is the ultimate goal of a cover: supersede the original in the minds of the listeners.
Johnny Cash's cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" undoubtedly falls under the category of on par or better than the original (depending on who you ask, of course). But where Jimi Hendrix took the song and simply made it better, Johnny Cash took a different angle to the cover entirely.
In the original NIN song, the entire song is a dramatic production. It is laden with emotion dripping from every word, seemingly a cry for help. The final minute of statically ominous white noise is the moment of letting go, where the listener actually hears Trent Reznor give up. He so desperately needs anyone to hear his cries of pain, but he is just lost. Reznor is at the end of his life, but because he chooses to be. "Hurt" is his swan song: the moment right before he takes his life.
Coming from Johnny Cash, however, the song is filled with a completely different set of emotions. Johnny Cash released his cover of "Hurt" in 2002, one year before his death. The cover is a reflection of the life that he has lived, but not with the sense of desperation that Reznor conveys. Cash's version isn't about giving up. It is about an old man who is left to ponder the life experiences that shaped him. He is coming to the acceptance as his life clock ticks one second closer to his death. A bittersweet end approaches him as he knows he has done wrongs in his life that he will be unable to right. The simplicity of Cash's version, the repetitiveness of the piano and the guitar chords, paints the picture of a humble man who has simply accepted that his time has come.
The songs are both "Hurt". The lyrics are unchanged. But nobody can listen to each version and think that they communicate the same meaning. That is the beauty of Cash's version as well as Reznor's. In fact, it is almost difficult to say that one is better than the other because the two men were not trying to communicate similar messages. This is a comparison to apples and oranges. But it is a fantastic reminder of the depth and complexity that goes into the music that we hear every day, proving that even an unlikely cover can evoke wildly different emotions.
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