There is an interesting comparison here on the ways in which the new posthumous Johnny Cash music video for “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” differs dramatically from the music video that Cash himself made for “Hurt.” The author argues that, while the video for “Hurt” emphasized youth’s fleetingness and foolishness, the video for “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” is the exact opposite, being more of a
“Where’s Waldo” of youth and celebrity. Cash’s voice sings of human inability to escape the wrath to come while the images run past of current celebrities: Timberlake, Sheryl Crow, Chris Rock, Bono, Johnny Depp, Lisa Marie Presley, the Dixie Chicks.
Personally, I didn’t quite know what to make of it–were the guest stars in the video cynically suggesting that they themselves were going to be cut down, or were they holding themselves out as repentant people who were planning on avoiding God’s judgment? Maybe they just didn’t get the point of the song at all.
