Inside you there are two wolves: both songs written for movies released in 1994 and both called “Burn.” I agree with Joe McAdam that ranking art sucks, but someone has to answer the hard questions, and like a reluctant passerby, I have been summoned as an objective witness to offer my thoughts.

Behind door number one is Nine Inch Nails’ “Burn,” written and recorded for the Natural Born Killers soundtrack but later added to the 2004 edition of The Downward Spiral (the version of that album that most of us probably listen to most frequently). NIN’s “Burn” is important to their discography–it has become a staple at NIN concerts, and according to setlist.fm, it’s the 13th most frequently played song. 

NIN’s “Burn” is among their angriest and most intense songs. It sounds and feels like it belongs on The Downward Spiral or the Broken EP. At NIN’s 2018 two-day stint at Red Rocks, I was fortunate to see a performance of “Burn” kick off maybe the greatest 20-or-so minutes of live NIN that I’ve ever seen out of three shows. They played “Burn,” then “Help Me I am in Hell” + “Happiness in Slavery,” then “Eraser.” For that night’s encore, NIN played another rarity–their cover of Joy Division’s “Dead Souls,” which is one of several touch points with our other contender.

Brandon and I ranked “Burn” as NIN’s 6th best song in 2014. This was before the release of Bad Witch and two EPs, but it’s safe to say the ranking would not be materially different today. Every time I listen to NIN’s “Burn,” usually on a revisit to the deluxe version of The Downward Spiral, I wonder why I don’t listen to it more.

Behind door number two is The Cure’s “Burn,” written and recorded for the soundtrack to The Crow, which itself was heavily influenced by goth and post punk bands like Joy Division and The Cure. The creators were intending to use “The Hanging Garden” in the film, but Robert Smith was a fan of the comic and agreed to write a new song.

The Cure’s “Burn” has not achieved the same level of prominence in their live setlists as NIN’s version, and is only the 78th most frequently played song. But when they do play it… wow. I’ve seen The Cure in concert only once, and at Pasadena Daydream Festival in 2019, and “Burn” was a highlight. 

The Cure’s “Burn” is arguably the last truly great song in their discography. It would sound perfectly at home with other songs recorded at their peak (which, YRMV, but for me is approximately between Disintegration and Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me). It’s a very important song to me personally. When I saw The Crow as an 11- or 12-year-old, it was the first time I became consciously aware of who The Cure was as a band, and I continue to come back to it years later as a formative piece of art in my life.

That said, I ultimately have to give the nod to NIN here.

“Burn” by The Cure, as competent as it is and as important as it was to me at the time it was released (and the context in which it was released), is not nearly as crucial to The Cure’s identity as “Burn” is to NIN’s. You’d have to go quite far down a list of The Cure’s songs to find where “Burn” is better. I agree with the relative placement of it here as sitting just inside the top 50: The absolute best of The Cure: All 225 songs ranked by Slicing Up Eyeballs’ readers – Slicing Up Eyeballs. The Cure’s “Burn” is a nice return to form and a gift to The Crow, whereas NIN’s “Burn” is something actually contemporary with their prime, and its placement on the soundtrack for Natural Born Killers (not a movie I particularly love) feels like more of a coincidence. 

NIN wins and I am now going into witness protection.

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