Hurt, the Johnny Cash version and Where've you been, by Kathy Mattea.



For Hurt, it's so sad because it talks about a life that's been wasted. The narrator has lived a life that left him feeling dead, to the point where the line "I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel; I focus on the pain, the only thing that's real" makes sense. That song moves me every time I hear it.

For Where've you been, it's both a happy and a sad song. The song tells the story of a couple. When they meet and get married, the wife says to her husband "where've you been, I've looked for you forever and a day; where've you been, I'm just not myself when you're away." They live their lives together, he leaves her alone because he's a traveling salesman, she sings those lines to him again. Finally, the last verse of the song has the wife alone in a hospital, suffering from Alzheimer's and Dementia. She doesn't recognize anyone, until they wheel her husband into her room to be with her, and she sings those lines to him again.



Yes. For both songs, every time I hear them.



Yes. I love both of these songs... they're both lessons about how to live my life.

Hurt:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o22eIJDtKho

Where've you been:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHzMGM9qyZw