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The song Nine Inch Nails was not played live until 20 years after its release

The song “The Perfect Drug” by Nine Inch Nails was released in 1997 as part of the soundtrack to David Lynch’s cult film The lost highway. Some fans may be surprised that the band didn't play the song at all when it was first released. In fact, Nine Inch Nails didn't play it live at all for 20 years.

“The Perfect Drug” was extremely popular with fans of the industrial rock band. It is still considered a fan favorite today. So why did the band not play the song at all for so many years? According to frontman Trent Reznor, it was due to his personal taste and disappointment with his own work.

Why didn’t Nine Inch Nails’ “The Perfect Drug” last this long?

According to Reznor himself, Nine Inch Nails rarely played “The Perfect Drug” live because he was particularly disappointed with the success of the song.

“I'm not ashamed of it, but it's not my favorite piece,” Reznor said in a 2005 interview. “If they said, play me the hundred best songs you've ever written, it probably wouldn't be in the top hundred.”

That's quite a claim considering how extensive Nine Inch Nails' discography is. Reznor went on to say that he had a week to record the track for Lost highway.

“It was one of those things where you have a week to do a track for a movie. The mindset you take in a situation like that, or at least I did, was, 'Let's go in and experiment and see what happens, and it's not, you know, whatever comes out of it, it's not the end of the world,'” Reznor continued.

Although Reznor did not like the song, Nine Inch Nails did to perform it live at some point. In 2017, the band surprised their fans by performing a version of “The Perfect Drug” during their tour with Jesus And Mary Chain at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado. It was the very first time they ever performed the song live. And it happened about 20 years after the track's release.

When you get down to it, sometimes none of the hundreds of songs you've written over the years as a famous industrial rock musician resonate with you. Still, we're glad Nine Inch Nails played “The Perfect Drug” at least once for a few hundred lucky fans.

Photo by R. Diamond/Getty Images for VetsAid 2022

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