Lil Nas X sampled Nine Inch Nails' 34 Ghosts IV on his runaway mega-hit, Old Town Road.
Trent Reznor has finally commented on the usage of Nine Inch Nails’ 34 Ghosts IV in the longest-running number-1 hit of all time, Old Town Road. But rather than be critical of it, Trent seemed pretty supportive.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, he said, “At first, when you hear your stuff turned into something else, it always feels awkward because it’s something that intimately came from you in some way.” He says he felt similar the first time he heard Johnny Cash’s cover of Hurt. “You feel a little bit violated, you know? And then you get over that, and you realize it has become something else, and the Johnny Cash thing is incredible. It’s very flattering. The music from Ghosts that turned into ‘Old Town Road’ certainly didn’t come from as intimate a place as the song Hurt did, but it’s still something that I remember what I was thinking about when we did it and then you hear it turned into this other thing — it feels strange at first. But I thought he did a good job with that.”
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He also recalled the moment he found out about the song:
“The way it was presented to me originally is I got a call from my management saying, ‘We got a call from a panicked manager saying they had used the sample of something off Ghosts, They should have cleared it, but it didn’t get cleared. It’s picking up some steam on the viral Spotify charts. What do you think about that?’ And I said, ‘Look, I’m fine with it. I get how stuff goes. They’re not saying they didn’t sample it. Just work it out, but don’t be a roadblock to this.’ I hadn’t heard it yet. Then a few weeks later, I was like, ‘Holy shit.'”
Trent continued, saying he admits the song is “undeniably hooky.” “The reason I haven’t stepped in to comment anything about it is, I don’t feel it’s my place to play any kind of social critic to that. It was a material that was used in a significant way and it turned into something that became something else, and those guys should be the ones the spotlight is on….They asked if I wanted to do a cameo in the video, and it was flattering, and I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I don’t feel like it’s my place to shine a light on me for that. I say that with complete respect.”
“Having been listed on the credits of the all-time, Number One whatever-the-fuck-it-is wasn’t something… I didn’t see that one coming. But the world is full of weird things that happen like that. It’s flattering. But I don’t feel it’s for me to step in there and pat myself on the back for that.”
