"Hurt" does not need much interpretation because its meaning is the refusal to decorate damage. Cash's version turns the song into a late-life audit: a voice, a room, and a record of harm that no longer has to argue for itself.

The arrangement stays patient enough for each admission to land plainly. When it grows, it does not convert pain into triumph. It makes the damage public for a moment, then lets it fall back into the narrow procession.

The song leaves meaning between confession and witness: what remains when the speaker has stopped negotiating with the record of himself.