Response to Comments of My analysis of the Third Stanza

I received the comment: "How do you know the stains are covering up his his pain instead I saw the stains as covering up the person he originally was, and the feeling disappears, just him becoming complacent with his current situation."

This is a good point, the stains my just be covering up the person he once was rather than simply his pain.  I just like the whole image of time using a stain to cover something up in a persons' life.  Thanks for the idea.

Analysis of Final Stanza

You could have it all

My empire of dirt

I will let you down

I will make you hurt

If I could start again

A million miles away 

I would keep myself 

I would find a way

This is the part of the story where I think the narrator feels uplifted and better about everything.  I think he repeats the lines about giving up his "empire of dirt" to show that he has given up his problems and his pain.  If he is really going to change, he has to let go of his "empire".  I think that his purpose in repeating the lines is to show that he is doing that.  

He also repeats the lines about "letting you down" and "I will make you hurt".  I think that these lines show the most important theme in the song, and that is being finally being okay with who he is.  I think he is saying that he will let people down and make them hurt as he goes through his life, and he realizes thins and he is okay with it because it is necessary to be who he is.  The lines "If I could start again, I would keep myself, I would find a way", end the song.  I think these lines go back to the being okay with who he is theme.  Overall, I think the song ends on a positive, powerful note.  It addresses the concept of being okay with who you are and being proud of yourself for giving up your demons, and being ready to take on life knowing that you cannot please everybody.  He is going to "find  a way" to keep himself by letting go of his "empire of dirt", and I think that is one of the most important themes in the song.

Analysis of Fourth Stanza

What Have I become?

My sweetest Friend

Everyone I know

Goes away in the end

This stanza is repeating the beginning of the beginning of the second stanza.  I feel this is done for emphasis, but also because it adds meaning to the previous lyrics, where the narrator talks about how people have become "someone else" which relates to "everyone I know goes away in the end".  I think it also adds meaning to the last stanza, in which the narrator talks about the uplifting part of his life and the point where the song turns around for the good.

Analysis of the End of the Third Stanza

You are someone else

I am still right here

I think that these lines are among the most important in the song.  I really see these lines as another point where he is starting to come out of looking back at all the pain and bad things in his life.  Reading this kind of gives me a feeling of unhappiness but also strength.  I feel that that these two lines tend to tell a story on their own, one of being held back by inner demons while everyone else moves on, but also one of remaining faithful to one's self in order to become stronger.  I feel he is trying to express what it is like to come back from being addicted and held down by pain, and have everyone else he knew be different since he last saw them.  Everyone else may be different, and all he is left with is himself being "right here".  I get this feeling not only reading it but also listening to it, due to the singer's distinctive tone for this part of the song.

Analysis of Beginning of the Third Stanza

I wear this crown of shit

Upon my liar's chair

I see the the crown of shit and the liar's chair as a reference to a twisted throne and crown.  In the previous stanza, the narrator talks about how he has an empire of dirt, and I feel that in these lines he is building that idea by saying he is a kind of king of that empire, wearing a crown and sitting in a throne.  But, in his case, the empire is nothing to be proud of, as it consists of drugs and everything else bad he has done in his life.  I think he tells us a little bit more of what is in the "empire" in this stanza by talking about the "liar's chair".  This may be a way of saying that he has led a life filled with lies, and the crown he wars is nothing but shit a s a result.

Full of broken thoughts

I cannot repair

This may be talking about the narrator sitting on his liar's chair thinking about the past, the thoughts he has are broken.  I think he is thinking about what he has done, particularly some of the people he has hurt.  He knows that some of the damage he has done he "cannot repair" in his or other peoples' lives.

Beneath the stains of time

The feeling disappears

In these lines, I think the narrator is starting to come out of his look into the past.  I think he is saying that after a while the "stains of time" make the "feeling disappear," meaning that time has the power to cover up the past with its "stains" and let things heal.  If I may use a stain on a shirt as an example, it is something that cover up the shirt's color, and I think the "stains of time" are starting to cover up his hurt. 

Response to Comments

I got the idea that cocaine was referenced in the song by "dirt" because cocaine was a drug Trent Reznor struggled with heavily, and cocaine has a little bit of a dirt consistency.  I realize dirt meaning cocaine may be a stretch, but I think that it probably means more than but the "empire" certainly includes drugs.

The song if off the album, "The Downward Spiral," in which the entire album is about a character as he goes into a downward spiral of life.  "Hurt" is the last song on the album, following a song in which the character dies.  Throughout the album, many things, including drug addiction, are discussed as being factors in the character's life.  Drugs are a big part, so this is what I associated the "empire of dirt" with.  Cocaine as dirt is me going out on a interpretation limb, but it kind of fit to me.  Thanks for the other ideas.

Analysis of Second Stanza

"What Have I become?"

This line marks the beginning of the parts of the song where the narrator gets into looking back on his life.  What he has become seems to be someone who has gone through loss, hurt, and painful change in his life.  The lines:

My sweetest friend

Everyone I know

Goes away in the end

Remind me of the saying "people come and go."  I think that this part of the song is talking about the hurt from a loss of people in his life, perhaps his sweetest friend.  Everyone he knows may be going away in the end do to his actions, or due to him not giving something up that is hurting other people.  The next lines I feel are about drug addiction.

You could have it all

My empire of dirt

I think that the empire of dirt is a reference to drugs, the "dirt" particularly cocaine.  I feel the narrator is talking about how his empire of dirt was a reason that everyone he knew went away.  He needed to fix the problem by letting them "have it all," meaning giving the habit up by using the help of the people who cared about him, but instead at that point in his life he let them down and made them hurt show in the lines:

I will let you down

I will make you hurt