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".

Becoming

• The Becoming: "I am becoming"
• Now I'm Nothing: "oh what I have become"
• Gave Up: "I hate myself for what I've become"
• Fist Fuck: "can you let your heart become"
• Hurt: "what have I become"
• Closer: "help me become somebody else"
• The Great Below: "all becoming clear"
• La Mer: "I'll become the sky and I'll become the sea"
• Even Deeper: "just how damaged have I become"
• We're In This Together: "I've become impossible"
• The New Flesh: "yes I am becoming" and "I've become"
• Where Is Everybody?: "that hasn't yet become"
• Starfuckers, Inc.: "I have become"

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"

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"

Realization

• Sin: "am I just too stupid to realize"
• Gave Up: "it took you to make me realize"
• Eraser (Denial; Realization)
• The Perfect Drug: "my soul is so afraid to realize"
• Please: "and I realize it was all in my head"

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"

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"

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"

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"

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"
• The Great Below: "all the world has closed her eyes"
• The New Flesh: "the blackest eyes"
• Memorabilia: "the look in your eye"

Fading away

• 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 away"

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"

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"

Skin

• Down In It (Skin)
• Last: "fresh blood through tired skin"
• Suck: "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"

Get me out of here

• Fist Fuck
• Deep

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"
• Suck: "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"

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"

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"

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"

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"

Machines

• Pretty Hate Machine
• Gave Up: "still cannot fix this broken machine"
• Happiness In Slavery: "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"

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

Stop us

• We're In This Together: "none of them can stop us now"
• My Violent Heart: "You cannot stop us all"
• Me, I'm Not: "hey, can we stop?"

Pigs

• Piggy
• March Of The Pigs
• Last: "pigs we get what pigs deserve"
• 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

Sin

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

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"

Slipping

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

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

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"