In this episode, Mike dives into the idea of emotion and music, giving thoughts to the idea that the music itself is not sad, but rather the lyrics and context at which it is experienced. He proclaims that no matter the song, any different emotion will come from different people because of different reasons. He uses Bruno Mars’ “Just the Way You Are” as an example, but there is a better example a song and a cover that can give off differing emotions. Below are two examples of the song “Hurt”, originally done by Nine Inch Nails and covered by Johnny Cash. Listen to both and determine which is “more sad”.
After listening to both, with minor changes in instruments and literally one word changing in Cash’s version, it is widely thought that Cash’s version is the more sad of the two. But why is this? While the Nine Inch Nails version has the sad lyrics, they lack the context of Cash’s video. Cash’s music video, showing him mostly by himself reflecting on his own legendary life as the song slowly builds to a crescendo at the end with flashes of the man he was before the screen, acting almost as the last things he will see before he passes away. The minor chords assist with the sound, but the sound itself isn’t the “sad” part, it is the context that makes the song sad.
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