Tear Jerker / Nine Inch Nails

Whenever this industrial rock band decides to make a melancholy, heartfelt instrumental song instead of the usual nihilistic rage — it can tug on one's heart strings.

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• "Everything" seems like NIN's most upbeat song. But even if you don't read it as a song about the narrator surrendering to something eating them from the inside, it's still clear that the narrator is well aware of how tenuous the peace they feel is. That "thing" inside could come back at any time to try to drag them down the spiral once more.
• Special mention goes to the Still version of "Something I Can Never Have". Trent is actually crying by the last verse, and it becomes rapidly more clear what he's talking about in the song: while the Pretty Hate Machine version was a wangst anthem about failed romance, the Still version is about him reminiscing about his prior life and lamenting his fall into drug addiction. The "something I can never have" in that version is a normal life, free of personal problems, like he used to have.
  • Pretty much all of Still is cry-yourself-to-sleep music, really.
  • The original "Something I Can Never Have" is generally sad, too.
  • Thankfully, this all proved to be untrue, as Trent is now happily married and a father.
• "The Persistence of Loss" and "Adrift And At Peace" also count as this, though.
• "All That Could Have Been" simply for the line "In my nothing, you meant everything to me".
• Probably the most heart-wrenching is the instrumental "Leaving Hope": Written when Trent Reznor was "at his lowest", it's a simple piece that builds up layer upon layer of soaring, beautiful, uplifting music, that dies away... only to give way to a mesmerising chorus of voices. Breathtaking.
• Even though it's mostly a nightmare-fueled Concept Album, The Downward Spiral also has plenty of somber tracks:
  • "Mr. Self-Destruct" is Nightmare Fuel through and through, but the last verse can hit pretty strong especially for those who suffer from depression. The fact that the repeating "And I control you" line goes from being mocking to somber only makes it worse:
    I am the bullet in the gun.
    I am the truth from which you run.
    I am a silencing machine.
    I am the end of all your dreams.
  • The lyrics to "Closer" are even worse, describing the protagonist engaging in sexual sadism in order to fill the empty void of depression in his life while being completely horrified and disgusted by himself and desperately begging the subject of the song to stay with him.
    I broke apart my insides
    I've got no soul to sell
    The only thing that works for me
    Help me get away from myself
    • The song's outro. After a multi-layered and chaotic musical climax, it segues into a heartbreaking detuned piano version of the "Downward Spiral motif".
  • "A Warm Place", especially at the end — when it starts fading into "Eraser" and you see the brief glimpse of hope is over.
    • The slam cut from "Big Man With a Gun" to "A Warm Place" can be rather gut-wrenching as well, given to what just happened in the context of the album: the character went insane and either raped someone or committed a massacre (or at least got into a grandiose, depraved mania and tried to do so, or believed that they were doing so), then has retreated into his mind, the only place where he can find any sort of peace (and even that peace doesn't last).
  • "Hurt", especially in the context of the album — particularly because Trent's vocals are haunting. It only doesn't reach much Tear Jerker potential due to its Last Note Nightmare... but those fucking lyrics....
    And 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.
    • Johnny Cash's cover is even worse, if only because it was being sung by a man in the twilight of his years, reflecting on his real-life failures. Trent himself said that the song wasn't his anymore when he reacted to the cover.
• "Zero Sum" from Year Zero which, if you follow the Year Zero timeline, is about the end of the world.
  • Since we're talking about Year Zero, Hour of Arrival, a letter from a government worker to his soon-to-be-born child (from the ARG), certainly qualifies.
    It’s so stupid, Danny Jane. We get scared and our hearts dry up. Don’t be scared. Please -God let me get home safe tomorrow and I swear I will quit my stupid government job and do nothing but fill you up with courage. I will take spiders out of the house for you, and buy you roller skates, and teach you how to catch crickets with your bare hands.
    • And this is to say nothing of the ending, which crosses this with Nightmare Fuel.
• "In This Twilight" also near the end of that album, fits in that regard as well, doubly so since this was the final song the band performed at their final show in Los Angeles before the original hiatus in 2009. The tour visuals from the Lights In The Sky tour for this song can be a bit tear jerking if you've followed the Year Zero ARG. We see a cityscape which slowly but surely begins to crumble as we see buildings bursting into flames, the clouds overhead flickering with thunder and lights until a white void (either a Nuclear bomb or the "Presence" itself) completely consumes the city.
  • In This Twilight also is a tear-jerker for the NIN community as the song was famously dedicated to Andrew Youseff (a concert photographer Trent was friends with) who couldn't make that show due to failing health after a battle against cancer to which Andrew succumb to a few weeks after this moment. At the 16th November 2013 show in Las Vegas, Trent facetimed Andrew live on-stage in a quote-unquote "Bono" moment and wished him well and dedicated the song to Andrew.
• "La Mer". It was written by Trent Reznor at the low point of his depression, but it's not angry or angsty- it's just a quiet, resigned near-instrumental with a woman reciting a poem in French in the background:

  And when the day arrives

  I'll become the sky

  And I'll become the sea

  And the sea will come to kiss me

  For I am going

  Home

  Nothing can stop me now

  • "La Mer" gets immense praise for being not just Trent's saddest song (on The Fragile anyway), but his most personal: Trent has made clear while he was composing the song alone on a cabin near the ocean, he was contemplating suicide, reaching his breaking point and feeling he couldn't go on living anymore. It adds a sense of harrowing sadness knowing this song was being made when he was close to ending his life.
• Others songs with lyrics that fall under this include "The Day The World Went Away" (especially the "Quiet Mix".) , "The Great Below" (and its sequel, "And All That Could Have Been"), and "Right Where It Belongs" (V2 is even sadder, and more stripped down).
  • Speaking of "Right Where It Belongs", the chorus aren't anything better at all:
    What if everything around you
    Isn't quite as it seems?
    What if all the world you used to know
    Is an elaborate dream?
    And if you look at your reflection
    Is it all you want it to be?
    What if you could look right through the cracks
    Would you find yourself
    Find yourself afraid to see?
• "Head Down."

  "And this is not my face, and this is not my life, and there is not a single thing here I can recognize."

  "And this is all a dream, and none of you are real. I'd give anything. I'd give anything."

  • "Every Day Is Exactly The Same" doesn't sound like most other songs on this list but Trent sells it with lyrics like "I think I used to have a purpose but, then again, that might have been a dream". Anyone who has been through what the protagonist is going through can say how sad it is below the surface.
• "Lights In the Sky". Just Trent and his piano, with lyrics like "Watching you drown, I'll follow you down, and I am right here beside you". Also doubles as a Heartwarming Moment, with its mixture of resignation and determination to stand by another's side even as the world ends (there are theories that this song and some others on The Slip continue or add to the Year Zero plotline in some way...).
• "1" and "2 Ghosts I".
• "While I'm Still Here," particularly the chorus. The lyrics along with the simple, strangely poignant synth melody easily make this penultimate track of Hesitation Marks qualify. Unfortunately, its potential vanishes when it fades into the closing track "Black Noise", though.

  A little more

  Every day

  Falls apart and

  Slips away

  Well, I don't mind

  I'm okay

  Wish it didn't have to end this way

  • And that's just the first chorus; in the second chorus, which begins the same as the first, another simple yet oddly moving melody, this one on clean guitar, enters the mix, along with these lyrics:
    Nothing ever
    Stays the same
    While we can
    Remember when
    Always were, yeah
    Even then
    Stay with me
    Hold me near
    While I'm still here
• Even Trent's soundtrack works have a few of them. Most notably "A Minute to Breathe", good Lord. It was the first thing Trent had put out (with vocals) since Hesitation Marks....and it became one of his most emotional songs that he ever wrote, on par with "Leaving Hope".
• In January 2017, around the anniversary of David Bowie's death, a mysterious remix appeared on a soundcloud account titled "I Can't Give Everything Away (Farewell Mix) - Uncredited. Redditors speculated whether or not the remix came from Trent. 7 months later, on the first NIN show in 3 years, Trent performs a cover of "I Can't Give Everything Away", confirming the remix was indeed his own creation. Knowing the special connection between Bowie and Reznor, this can cause even the most seasoned NIN fan to tear up a little, as well as hearing Reznor's and Bowie's voice harmonising together for perhaps the very last time.
• Not The Actual Events is a gritty, aggressive, noisy record, it's been regarded as the most visceral release since "Broken", so one would think that nothing about it could touch one's hear-strings, yet one moment in "The Idea Of You" stands out, that being its ending, Trent's voice expresses so much begging for a human contact that it sells the moment.

  Hey, can you hear?

  It gets, so lonely in here

• Although a somewhat small track, a lot of people tend to have a emotional reaction with "This Isn't The Place" from Add Violence. The tone is quite somber and quiet compared to the rest of the EP (and even the first 2 EPs in the trilogy).
  • Though currently only speculation, the unreleased With Teeth era song "My Dead Friend" seems to have a strong connection to the song's lyrics which were supposedly rumoured to be about a friend Trent lost to addiction. Furthermore, it is also speculated that the song may be written as a posthumous note to David Bowie, which Trent later confirmed that yes, it was indeed about Bowie. Considering Bowie was a big influence on his life and it was him that pushed Trent into recovering from his addictions, it adds more weight to "This Isn't a Place".
    "I thought we had more time."
• "Over and Out", the closing track of Bad Witch LP is a really calm and hypnotic influence to David Bowie and Peter Murphy themselves. Trent's vocals at 2:50, in the other hand, are different story:

  "Time is running out"

  "I don’t know what I’m waiting for"

  "I think this keeps happening over and over again"

  "Feel like I’ve been here before"

  "Over and over again"

  "Am I remembering you correctly"

  "Over and over again"

  "I’ve always been 10 years ahead of you"

  "Over and over again"

  • And the fact that an oceanic ambience (albeit somehow grating) being heard at the end of the track really helps a lot.
• Ghosts VI: Locusts, the darker of the two albums inspired by the Coronavirus, is mostly horrific. But many of the tracks mix in a heaping dose of misery. "Trust Fades" in particular is a somber Lonely Piano Piece. "Temp Fix" and "So Tired", meanwhile, feel like a musical representation of going for days straight without sleeping.

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She reads the minds of all the people as they pass her by,
Hoping someone can see.
If I could fix myself I'd...

...but it's too late for me.

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