Nine Inch Nails - Closer

Obsessive Self-Loathing as Sexuality

1. Being Trent Reznor’s psychoanalyst must be exhausting and somewhat terrifying, like living inside John Doe’s apartment in the David Fincher film Se7en. The video for this song is likely an accurate reflection of what was going on inside the man’s head. Let’s take an inventory: a nude, bald woman in a crucifix mask, a scared monkey tied to a cross next to, bizarrely, a picture of Jack Nicholson, a human heart connected to a device that syncs to the song’s beat, a severed pig’s head spinning around on a steampunk pottery wheel, a diagram of a vulva and vagina, Trent himself wearing a ball gag and leather gloves while swinging in shackles. When I discovered Reznor recorded the Nine Inch Nails EP Broken and most of the era-defining Downward Spiral in the same house Sharon Tate was murdered in (10050 Cielo Drive, Beverly Hills) I was disturbed, but certainly not surprised. I was also not surprised to learn he named the house Le Pig, which was a reference to a message written in Tate’s blood on the front door of the house. Closer isn’t about breaking bedframes, mirrors, or shower curtains with aggressive sex. Okay, it isn’t only about that.

   My whole existence is flawed. You get me closer to God.

   Nine Inch Nails, Closer

2. This psychosexually abusive relationship facilitates Trent’s downward spiral - the only logical conclusion of which is suicide. His partner in this vortex is bringing him closer to God as he approaches the cathartic death he aches for. It’s still more complicated than that, however. He tells us he has no soul to sell, and he has an absence of faith he wants to offload into her. He’s supremely selfish and obsessed with his own self-loathing. He never once mentions the focus of his primal lust, only himself. This is a lesson in sexually nihilistic narcissism. None of this matters of course because the song is incredibly fucking sexy - self-destruction as exalted orgasm.

   He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.

   - Dr. Samuel Johnson

3. Built off the bass drum from Iggy Pop’s Nightclubbing (which I’ve included below), the track plunges headlong into the carnal. “I want to fuck you like an animal” remains a top-tier, most-remembered lyric not just from the 1990s, but in all of recorded history. The most-remembered lyrics always tap into the most basic of emotions. Yes, sometimes I want to fuck like an animal. Say it out loud. I want to fuck you like an animal. It’s urgent, primal, direct, and that often scares the hell out of people. It probably should. There is more here than just fucking like an animal. This is, to paraphrase, violation, desecration, penetration, and complication. Again, does anyone out there want to be this man’s therapist? More to the point, does anyone want to be the other person in this clusterfuck of a relationship? There are cries for help, but they’re muted (aren’t they always?). Those pleas aren’t the focus. The focus is on that moment of anguished release. The focus is on how sometimes each of us is a wreck, and somebody wants our skin on theirs, so we say, “I’m going to take all my damage, and all my isolation, and I’m going to fuck you like I hate you.” It’s recklessly perfect.

   Nightclubbing drums:

   Closer drums: