Age and/as Disability. Johnny Cash in Isolation

This contribution investigates the connection between aging, disability, and the Successful Aging paradigm by presenting a case study of Johnny Cash’s “Hurt” (2002) and reading it as a performance of older age. The original version of “Hurt” was written and performed by Trent Reznor (1994), creator of the music project Nine Inch Nails, and was read as contemplating depression and substance abuse. Cash’s version, on the other hand, appears deeply entangled with the singer’s advanced chronological age. While Rowe and Kahn’s concept of Successful Aging presents older age as a time to contribute to and participate in society as an independent individual, Cash’s performance and staging in the video, directed by Mark Romanek, deliberately oppose notions of best aging. As the “old” Cash wonders, “what have I become?” he is contrasted with the “young” Cash, the non-disabled “Man in Black.” By specifically featuring Cash’s aged body, prominently his shaking hands, the video also functions as a disability performance. This performance gains further significance when read in the context of the song’s release and Cash’s death only months after the video was filmed. “Hurt” thus becomes a song about age because it performs “old” age. In this intertextual setting, Cash’s rendering can be seen as a performance at the intersection of age, illness, and disability.

Gehrmann, Ruth (2026): Age and/as Disability. Johnny Cash in Isolation. S. 54-71  in: Backhausen, E./Kreuser, M./Wihstutz, B. (Hg.): Independence and Collectivity. Configurations of Dis/ability Performance. London/New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003617990-5