Recurring lyrics

Many of Trent Reznor's lyrics are thematically similar across songs and albums, evidence of both his genius and his lack of vocabulary. This is an expansion of a list compiled at ETS by user "Christ".

Afraid to see

• Heresy: "he sewed his eyes shut because he is afraid to see"
• Right Where It Belongs: "What if you could look right through the cracks / would you find yourself / find yourself afraid to see?"
• Capital G: "there's a lot of me inside you, maybe you're afraid to see"

A Million Miles Away

• Hurt: "If i could start again, a million miles away. I would keep myself, I would find a way"
• All The Love In The World: "I've become a million miles aw(ay)

Becoming

• Now I'm Nothing: "oh, what I have become!"
• Gave Up: "after everything I've done I hate myself for what I've become"
• Fist Fuck: "can you let your heart become central pump-house for all human feelings?"
• Closer: "help me become somebody else"
• The Becoming: "I am becoming"
• Hurt: "what have I become, my sweetest friend?"
• We're In This Together: "I've become impossible"
• Even Deeper: "do you know how far this has gone? just how damaged have I become"
• The Great Below: "the destiny I've chose / all becoming clear"
• Where Is Everybody?:

"that hasn't yet become"

"come on there has got to be someone / hasn't yet become / so numb / and succumb"

• The New Flesh: "yes I am becoming" and "I've become"
• Me, I'm Not: "and it's hard to believe / just, what I've become"
• All the Love In the World: "I've become a million miles aw(ay)"
• Only: "I’m becoming less defined"
• Vessel: "I am becoming something else / I am turning into God"

Beginnings

• The New Flesh: "and this is how it all begins"
• The Wretched: "back at the beginning"
• Please: "this is how it begins"
• And All That Could Have Been: "ending what had begun"
• The Beginning of the End

Belonging

• Starfuckers, Inc.: "now I belong / I'm one of the chosen ones"
• All The Love In The World: "watching all the insects march along / seem to know just right where they belong"
• You Know What You Are?: "go on get back to where you belong"
• With Teeth: "you've finally found the place where you belong"
• Beside You In Time: "everything is back where it belongs"
• Right Where It Belongs: "see the safety of the life you have built / everything where it belongs"
• Home: "I return to the only place I've ever felt that I belong"
• God Given: "You should get where you belong / everything you know is wrong"

Bleeding

• Ringfinger: "working my hands until they bleed"
• I Do Not Want This: "and nothing comes bleeding out of me just like a waterfall I'm drowning in"
• Reptile: "angels bleed from the tainted touch of my caress"
• Where Is Everybody?: "pleading and needing and bleeding and breeding"
• The Hand That Feeds: "will you chew until it bleeds?"
• Survivalism: "all bruised and broken, bleeding / she asked to take my hand"
• My Violent Heart: our blood will stay…our blood / our ways

Bleeding through

• Bleedthrough was the working title for With Teeth
• Every Day Is Exactly The Same: "a little bit comes bleeding through"
• Beside You In Time: "feel the little pieces bleeding through"

Blind

• Heresy (Blind)
• Happiness In Slavery: "the blind have been blessed with security"
• Suck: "once I could see now I am blind"
• Ruiner: "those that you keep blind will suddenly realize"

Blurring lines

• The Line Begins To Blur
• With Teeth: "the lines begin to blur"

Bowing down

• Head Like a Hole: "Bow down before the one you serve"
• Meet Your Master: "Bow down in position"

Broken

• Broken
• Gave Up: "still cannot fix this broken machine"
• Happiness In Slavery: "just some flesh caught in this big broken machine"
• Piggy: "black and blue and broken bones / you left me here I'm all alone"
• The Becoming: "he's covered with scabs, he is broken and sore"
• Hurt: "full of broken thoughts, I cannot repair"
• Somewhat Damaged: "broken bruised forgotten sore / too fucked up to care anymore"
• No, You Don't: "broken down see through soul"
• Survivalism: "all bruised and broken, bleeding / she asked to take my hand"

Bruised

• Head Like A Hole: "God Money let's go dancing on the backs of the bruised"
• Somewhat Damaged: "broken bruised forgotten sore / too fucked up to care anymore"
• Survivalism: "all bruised and broken, bleeding / she asked to take my hand"

Burning

• Burn
• Heresy: "burning with your god"
• The Big Come Down: "there is a hate that burns within"
• Non-Entity: "Burning down the world, the ashes and debris"
• Sunspots: "peel off our skin we're gonna burn what we were to the ground"

Fire

• Sanctified: "as the words spill out like fire from her lips"
• Gave Up: "wake up in flames"
• Fist Fuck: "can you flow with fire"
• Survivalism: "you see your world on fire"
• In This Twilight: "it is watching us, and the world we set on fire / do you wonder, if it feels the same?"
• My Violent Heart: "Into fire you can send us / From the fire we return"
• Sunspots: "fuck in the fire and we'll spread all the ashes around"

Calling

• Dead Souls: "They keep calling me"
• Even Deeper: "I hear them call I cannot stay the voice inviting me away"
• Sunspots: "I hear it calling and I come cause I can’t disobey"

Cracks

• You Know What You Are?: "I tried to patch up the cracks and the holes that I have to hide"
• Getting Smaller: "can kind of see out the cracks when I press up to the wall"
• Right Where It Belongs: "what if you could look right through the cracks?"
• Not So Pretty Now: "the cracks begin to show"

Crawling

• Down In It: "I was swimming in the haze now I crawl on the ground"
• Getting Smaller: "I'd be happy to crawl"
• March Of The Pigs: "Crawl right up on your knees"
• My Violent Heart: "On hands and knees, we crawl"
• The Beginning Of The End: "Down on your knees"
• The Way Out Is Through: "But still we crawl"
• In This Twilight: "as it crawls across a final time"

Debris

• Somewhat Damaged: "Lick around divine debris"
• Non-Entity: "Burning down the world, the ashes and debris"

Decay

• Terrible Lie: "my morals left to decay"
• The Becoming: "the blood has stopped pumping and he's left to decay"
• Somewhat Damaged: "drink the fountain of decay"
• The Day The World Went Away: "but in his voice I heard decay"
• Ripe (With Decay)

Rotting

• Last: "dress up this rotten carcass"
• Somewhat Damaged: "poisoned to my rotten core"

Deserving

• Head Like A Hole: "You’re going to get what you deserve"
• Last: "pigs we get what pigs deserve"
• Meet Your Master: "Maybe you get what you deserve"
• Sin: "Carry out my sentence / I get what I deserve

Disappearing; abandonment; loss; throw away

• Throw This Away
• Head Like A Hole: "no you can't take that away from me"
• Terrible Lie:

"don't take it away from me"

"I'm all alone in a world you must despise"

"my morals left to decay"

• That's What I Get: "you took away all my self confidence"
• Something I Can Never Have: "you make this all go away"
• Ringfinger: "you just leave me nailed here"
• Suck: "all that was true is left behind"
• Gave Up: "give it to me I throw it away"
• Wish: "I just threw it away"
• Last: "I pissed it all away"
• Piggy: "you left me here I'm all alone"
• Hurt: "the feelings disappear" and "everyone I know goes away in the end"
• Closer: "help me get away from myself"
• The Becoming:

"even when I'm right with you I'm so far away"

"and he's left to decay"

"all pain disappears"

• Reptile: "she leaves a trail of honey to show me where she's been"
• Eraser: "find you" and "lose me"
• I Do Not Want This: "if I could just reach you maybe I could leave this place"
• Dead Souls: "someone take these dreams away"
• Deep: "right here make it all disappear"
• We’re In This Together:

"well they've got to make it go away / well they've got to make it disappear"

"as lost as I get I will find you"

• The Great Below:

"washes me away makes me disappear"

"I can still feel you even so far away"

• Please:

"I can disappear"

"push it away but it all comes back again"

"but it just left me dead"

"you can never leave me"

• The Day The World Went Away: "all the insides left cold and gray"
• Somewhat Damaged:

"made the choice to go away"

"in the back / off the side / far away"

"all alone / by myself / where were you?"

• The Big Come Down: "find a place with the failed and forgotten"
• The Fragile: "I can't watch her slip away"
• Where Is Everybody?: "everything pushes me further away"
• And All That Could Have Been:

"maybe I'll disappear"

"you won't find me here"

"take this and run far away"

"left with a trace of all that was"

• Beside You In Time: "I am all alone this time around"
• Only: "yes, I am alone / but then again I always was"
• Right Where It Belongs: "and you really are alone"
• All The Love In The World: "hiding in the crowd I’m all alone…sometimes I get so lonely I could –"

"all the jagged edges disappear / colors all look brighter when you’re near"

• The Line Begins To Blur: "the more I disappear
• My Violent Heart: "we will not go away"
• In This Twilight: "let me take away your doubt"

Disease

• Terrible Lie: "my head is filled with disease"
• Suck: "this disease I give to myself"
• Reptile: "my disease my infection"
• Ruiner: "wearing your disease"

Dragging/pulling/pushing

• Down In It: "it was pulling me down"
• Mr. Self Destruct: "I drag you down I use you up"
• March Of The Pigs: "step right up / march / push"
• The Perfect Drug: "pull the stars from the sky" and "dragging shaking me"
• The Wretched: "just to push you down"
• Please: "push it away but it all comes back again"
• Where Is Everybody?: "everything pushes me further away"
• We’re In This Together: "they pick and they pull"
• The Great Below: "ocean pulls me close"

Dreams

• Sanctified: "I still dream of lips I never should have kissed"
• Something I Can Never Have: "my favorite dreams of you still wash ashore"
• Terrible Lie: "seems like salvation comes only in our dreams"
• Suck: "don't want your dreams you try to sell"
• Gave Up: "perfect little dream"
• Mr. Self Destruct: "I am the end of all your dreams"
• Heresy: "he dreamed a god up"
• The Becoming: "I'm stuck in this dream"
• Eraser: "dream you"
• Even Deeper: "in a dream I'm a different me"
• Dead Souls: "someone take these dreams away"

Drowning

• The Only Time: "and swim in it until I drown"
• Last: "new sweat to drown me in"
• Fist Fuck: "help I'm drowning"
• The Becoming: "drowns out all I hear"
• Heresy: "drowning in his own hypocrisy"
• I Do Not Want This: "just like a waterfall I'm drowning in"
• Please: "sink until I drown"
• The Great Below: "the currents have their say"

Exit

• Mr. Self Destruct: "I am an exit"
• The New Flesh: "This is not an exit"

Eye

• Down In It: "just then a tiny little dot caught my eye" and "but the needle's already in my eye"
• Ringfinger: "wrap my eyes in bandages"
• The Only Time: "the sweat in your eyes"
• Kinda I Want To: "maybe god will cover up his eyes"
• Last: "look through these blackened eyes"
• Happiness In Slavery: "don't open your eyes"
• Heresy: "he sewed his eyes shut"
• Only: "well the tiniest little dot caught my eye"
• The Great Below: "all the world has closed her eyes"
• The New Flesh: "the blackest eyes"
• Memorabilia: "the look in your eye"
• The Beginning of the End: "I got my mark / see it in my eyes"
• Non-Entity: "The echoes in my eyes/Of all they used to see"
• Sunspots: "Sunspots cast a glare in my eyes"

Fading

• Down In It: "what I used to think was me is just a fading memory"
• Something I Can Never Have: "just a fading fucking reminder of who I used to be"
• And All That Could Have Been: "tracks will fade in the snow" and "gone, fading, everything"
• Non-Entity: "now I'm afraid I'm fading out of sight"
• Only: "I'm becoming less defined, as days go by / fading away, well..."
• Getting Smaller: "I'm afraid I am starting to fade away"
• Beside You In Time: "I can feel me start to fade away"
• Not So Pretty Now: But your just fading, and fading, and fading, and fading the fuck away"

Flesh

• The New Flesh
• Complications Of The Flesh
• Terrible Lie: "my skin is begging you"
• Sin: "it gets under my skin"
• Ringfinger: "sever flesh and bone"
• Suck: "the temple walls are made of flesh"
• Happiness In Slavery: "just some flesh caught"

Get me out of here

• Fist Fuck
• Deep

God

• 10 Miles High: "I swore to God I'd never turn into you"
• Closer: "You get me closer to God"
• Head Like A Hole: "God Money I'll do anything for you"
• Heresy: "God is dead"
• Home: "God knows how much i've tried to"
• Maybe Just Once: "Oh God, what's coming to me?"
• Right Where it Belongs: "Your devils and your gods, all the living and the dead"
• Ringfinger: "You left me nailed hanging like Jesus on this cross"
• Suck: "There is no God up in the sky tonight"
• Terrible Lie: "Hey God!"
• The Wretched: "and God himself will reach his fucking arm through"
• The Beginning of the End: "God helps the ones who can help themselves"
• The Good Soldier: "'Cause God is on our side"
• God Given
• Starfuckers inc.: "My god sits in the back of the limousine/My god comes in a wrapper of cellophane/My god pouts on the cover of the magazine/My god’s a shallow little bitch trying to make the scene"

Head

• Head Like A Hole
• Terrible Lie: "my head is filled with disease"
• Something I Can Never Have: "scraping through my head"
• Kinda I Want To: "I can't shake this feeling from my head"
• Happiness In Slavery: "I bow my head to confess"
• Last: "my head got lost along the way"
• Big Man With A Gun: "maybe I'll put a hole in your head"
• The Becoming: "goddamn this noise inside my head"
• Mr. Self Destruct: "I am the voice inside your head"
• The Downward Spiral: "spilling out of my head"
• I Do Not Want This: "I have lived so many lives all in my head"
• The Perfect Drug: "I got my head but my head is unraveling"
• Somewhat Damaged: "then my head fell apart"
• Into The Void: "pictures in my head of the final destination"
• Please: "the world is over and I realize it was all in my head"
• The New Flesh: "and in my head this is how it all begins"
• And All That Could Have Been: "I am locked in my head"
• Get Down, Make Love: "you blow my head"
• All The Love In The World: "they don’t sound as good outside my head"
• Getting Smaller: "got my head on a spring"
• Right Where It Belongs: "what if all the world’s inside of your head"
• The Good Soldier: "Right over my head"

Hiding

• Terrible Lie: "there's nothing left for me to hide"
• Mr. Self Destruct: "I am the hate you try to hide"
• The Becoming: "hiding backwards inside of me"
• The Big Come Down: "there is no way I can hide"
• Where Is Everybody?: "when all I'm really doing is trying to hide"
• Somewhat Damaged: "is a place where I hide where I stay"
• No, You Don’t: "tries so hard to hide"
• The Fragile: "where we can run and hide"
• All The Love In The World: "hiding in the crowd I’m all alone"
• You Know What You Are: "I have to patch up the cracks and the holes that I have to hide"
• Love Is Not Enough: "well, it hides in the dark"
• Every Day Is Exactly The Same: "well, I’ll hide it behind something"
• Right Where It Belongs: "are you hiding in the trees?"
• Me, I’m Not: "I define myself / by how well I hide"
• The Good Soldier: "There's nowhere left to hide"

Holes

• Head Like A Hole
• Down In It: "now just this hole that's open wide"
• Gave Up: "watching the hole it used to be mine"
• Wish: "I'm the one with this big fucking hole"
• The Downward Spiral: "so much blood for such a tiny little hole"
• Hurt: "the needle tears a hole"
• Big Man With A Gun: "maybe I'll put a hole in your head"
• Deep: "there's a big black hole gonna eat me up someday"
• The Wretched: "stuck in this hole with the shit and the piss"
• Somewhat Damaged: "tear a hole exquisite red"
• No, You Don’t: "smiling in their faces while filling up the hole"
• Please: "it fills up the hole but it grows somewhere else instead"
• You Know What You Are: "I have to patch up the cracks and the holes that I have to hide"
• My Violent Heart: "there's bullet holes where my compassion used to be"

How it feels

• Suck: "how does it feel"
• Gave Up: "forgot how it feels well almost"
• Fist Fuck: "oh you just wish I could feel that way too"
• I Do Not Want This: "to those who know what it really feels like"
• Memorabilia: "I know what it feels like"
• The Wretched: "now you know this is what it feels"
• The Hand That Feeds: "and you feel just fine"
• Every Day Is Exactly The Same: "I can feel their eyes are watching"
• Only: "and I had this funny feeling"
• Getting Smaller: "don’t know what to feel"
• Sunspots: "I feel it coming / I have to apologise for the way I feel"
• Beside You In Time: "feel the little pieces bleeding through / I can feel me start to fade away"
• Right Where It Belongs: "feel the hollowness inside of your heart"
• Home: "and it feels / I’m getting to the end"
• Me, I’m Not: "I feel it coming apart"
• In This Twilight: "and it feels like, like it was a friend / do you wonder if it feels the same? / what it feels like, and I won't feel again / and the longing that you feel"

I can still feel you

• The Great Below: "I can still feel you / even so far away"
• Underneath It All: "all I do / I can still feel you"

Insects

• All The Love In The World: "Watching all the insects march along"
• Reptile: "She spreads herself wide open to let the insects in"

It keeps coming

• The Wretched: "you can try to stop it but it keeps on coming"
• The Big Come Down: "it feels like it keeps coming from the inside"
• Please: "and it keeps repeating"
• Dead Souls: "they keep calling me"
• The Hand That Feeds: "I keep holding on to what I want to believe"
• With Teeth: "keeps holding on"
• Right Where It Belongs: "You keep looking but you can’t find the woods"
• Survivalism: "I turned just keep on walking"

Knees (down on or getting up off)

• The Hand That Feeds: "will you get up off your knees" and "will you stay down on your knees"
• The Beginning of the End: "down on your knees / you’ll be left behind"
• My Violent Heart: "on hands and knees"
• March Of The Pigs: "crawl right up on your knees"
• Terrible Lie: "I'm on my hands and knees"
• Capital G: "well I used to stand for something/now i'm on my hands and knees"

Machines

• Pretty Hate Machine
• Gave Up: "still cannot fix this broken machine"
• Happiness In Slavery: "just some flesh caught in this big broken machine"
• Mr. Self Destruct: "I am the silencing machine"
• The Becoming: "I beat my machine"
• Somewhat Damaged: "this machine is obsolete"

Memory

• Down In It: "just a fading memory"
• Hurt: "but I remember everything"
• Memorabilia: "I have got to have a memory / I can't remember / give me your reminder"
• I'm Looking Forward To Joining You, Finally: "I remember sometimes"
• You Know What You Are: "remember where you came from / remember what you are"
• Love Is Not Enough: "I can’t remember what it is / in your eyes is a place worth remembering"
• Every Day Is Exactly The Same: "I can’t remember how this got started"

Naïve

• That's What I Get: "To think that I was so naïve"
• Mr. Self Destruct: "I am the prayers of the naïve"
• The Hand That Feeds: "So naïve"

Naïveté

• I'm Looking Forward To Joining You, Finally: "The flowers of naïveté"
• My Violent Heart: "Standing there in all your grand naïveté"

Nothing can stop me now

• Piggy and Piggy (Nothing Can Stop Me Now)
• Ruiner and Ruiner (Version)
• Big Man With A Gun
• La Mer and La Mer (Version) ("nothing can stop me now" spoken in creole french)
• Sunspots
• We're In This Together ("none of them can stop us now")

Pigs

• Piggy
• March Of The Pigs
• Last: "pigs we get what pigs deserve"
• Heresy: "he made a virus that would kill off all the swine"
• God Given: "we are the divine, separated from the swine"
• During Fragility, Trent chanted "pig" before Reptile. This can be heard on the And All That Could Have Been DVD extra performance of Reptile.
• Le Pig studio
• Pigface

Profanity

Fuck –

• Something I Can Never Have: just a fading fucking reminder of who I used to be
• The Only Time: while the devil wants to fuck me in the back of his car
• Wish: now there’s nothing more fucked up I could do / big time, hard line, bad luck, fist fuck / I’m the one with this big fucking hole
• March of the Pigs: I want to fuck it up
• Closer: I wanna fuck you like an animal
• Ruiner: the only pure thing left in my fucking world is wearing your disease / and maybe that fucked me up much more than you’ll ever know
• I Do Not Want This: I want to fuck everyone in the world
• Big Man With A Gun: just for the fuck of it / I’m hard as fucking steel / me and my fucking gun
• Eraser: fuck you
• The Downward Spiral: a lifetime of fucking things up fixed in one determined flash
• Somewhat Damaged: fuck the rest and stab it dead / too fucked up to care anymore / where the fuck were you?
• The Wretched: and God himself will reach his fucking arm through
• Starfuckers Inc.: I am every fucking thing and just a little more
• The Big Come Down: smash it apart just for the fuck of it
• You Know What You Are: don’t you fucking know what you are
• Love Is Not Enough: I’ve gone all this fucking away
• Only: there is no fucking you
• Getting Smaller: I haven’t got fucking anything
• Sunspots: fuck in the fire and we’ll spread all the ashes around
• Capital G: Those motherfuckers didn't last too long

Shit -

• Piggy: lost my shit because of you
• Ruiner: serving his shit to the flies
• Hurt: I wear this crown of shit
• The Wretched: stuck in this hole with the shit and the piss
• Where Is Everybody: though I really didn’t give a shit
• Capital G: Don't give a shit about the temperature in Guatemala
• The Great Destroyer: Turn it up, listen to the shit they pump
• You Know What You Are: you better take a good look cause I’m full of shit

Realization

• Sin: "am I just too stupid to realize"
• Gave Up: "it took you to make me realize"
• Eraser (Denial; Realization)
• The Perfect Drug (song)|The Perfect Drug: "my soul is so afraid to realize"
• Please: "and I realize it was all in my head"
• Burn: "why did you put it there/did you not realize"

Scab

• Only: "Well the tiniest little dot caught my eye and it turned out to be a scab"
• Something I Can Never Have: "Still picking at this scab"
• The Becoming: "He's covered with scabs and he is broken and sore"

The Sea

• Ringfinger: "deeper than the sea"
• La Mer: ("La Mer" is translated from French to literally "The Sea")
• The Great Below: "staring at the sea"
• With Teeth (song): "the blackest sea"

Sin

• Sin
• Ringfinger: "I'm just dying for your sins"
• Please: "all the flesh / all the sin"

Slipping

• That’s What I Get: "slipping on the tears"
• Deep: "you're slipping through"

Slipping away

• Slipping Away
• Last: "still feel it all slipping away"
• The Becoming: "I might just slip away"
• Into The Void: "but myself keeps slipping away"
• The Fragile: "I can't watch her slip away"

Skin

• sin: "it gets under my skin"
• Down In It (Skin)
• Last: "fresh blood through tired skin"
• Happiness In Slavery: "itches my skin right off my back"
• Happiness In Slavery: "just words and so much skin"
• Underneath The Skin
• March Of The Pigs: "take the skin and peel it back"
• Reptile: "just underneath her skin"
• I Do Not Want This: "bamboo puncturing this skin"
• Somewhat Damaged: "shedding skin succumb defeat"
• We're In This Together: "as they peel apart the skin"
• Please: "all the flesh all the sin"
• I'm Looking Forward To Joining You, Finally: "his skin just wasn't thick enough"
• Deep: "your skin speaks up but your lips couldn't say it"
• My Violent Heart: "our bones, our skin"
• Vessel: "I let it get under my skin"

Solipsism

• I Do Not Want This: "I have lived so many lives all in my head"
• Please: "the world is over and I realize it was all in my head"
• Only: "you were never real to begin with / i just made you up..." and "there is no you / there is only me"
• Right Where It Belongs: "what if all the world you think you know is an elaborate dream?"

Stopping

• We’re In This Together: "none of them can stop us now"
• Sunspots: "but I can't stop what has begun"
• The Line Begins To Blur: "isn’t anyone stopping me?"
• My Violent Heart: "You cannot stop us all"
• Me, I’m Not: "hey, can we stop?"

Tiny little dot

• Down In It:

Just then a tiny little dot caught my eye it was just about too small to see

But I watched it way too long and that dot was pulling me down

• Only:

Well the tiniest little dot caught my eye

And it turned out to be a scab

And I had this funny feeling

Like I just knew it's something bad

That which could have or would have been

• The Wretched: "all the what abouts, and all the might have could have beens"
• The Great Below: "for all we could have done, and all that could have been"
• And All That Could Have Been
• Every Day Is Exactly The Same: "I wish this could have been any other way"
• La Mer: "I think I could have been someone"
• Sunspots: "I think I could have been someone / but I can’t stop what has begun"

Underneath it all

• The Way Out Is Through: underneath it all / we feel so small
• Underneath It All: hear your call / underneath it all

Virus

• Heresy: he made a virus to kill off all the swine
• The Warning: you’ve become a virus / that has eaten up its host

Waking up

• Even Deeper: "I woke up today to find myself in the other place"
• Gave Up: "wake up / wake up in flames"
• We’re In This Together: "awake to the sound"
• Home: "I awake to find I’m not at all where I should be"