DOWN IN IT

"'Down in It'" (also known as '''Halo 01''') is a single by Nine Inch Nails, released in 1989. It was released as a teaser single prior to NIN's debut album, ''Pretty Hate Machine''.

Contents

The song

The single

Releases

Track listing

The video

References

External links

The song

"Down in It" was the first song Trent Reznor ever wrote. He has stated that the inspiration for the song was Skinny Puppy's "Dig It", from their album ''.^[1] The song has been covered by Eric Gorfain, The Meeks, Sacha and Tiga.

The single

"Down in It" is the first official Nine Inch Nails release and is a single from the album ''Pretty Hate Machine''. Initially released only on vinyl, a CD version was later created after the success of the album. The first track on this single, "Down in It (skin)," is the mix that is found on ''Pretty Hate Machine''. The cover art is very similar to Joy Division's first album, ''Unknown Pleasures''. Joy Division has always been cited as an influence to Trent and he covered their song, "Dead Souls" on the soundtrack to ''The Crow''.

Releases

★ TVT Records TVT 2611 - 12" Vinyl

★ TVT Records TVT 2611-2 - CD

Track listing

(all tracks remixed by Adrian Sherwood and Keith LeBlanc)
#"Down in It (skin)" - 3:46
#"Down in It (shred)" - 6:56
#"Down in It (singe)" - 7:03

The video

A music video for "Down in It", filmed on location in the Warehouse District of Cleveland, Ohio by directors Eric Zimmerman and Benjamin Stokes, was released in September 1989. The original version of the video ended with the implication that Trent Reznor's character had fallen off of a building and died in the street. This footage attracted the attention of the FBI. As Reznor explains in an interview with ''Convulsion Magazine'':

There was a scene were I was lying on the ground, appearing to be dead, in a ''Lodger''-esque pose and we had a camera with a big weather balloon filled with helium hooked up to it... the first one we did, we started the film, I was laying on the ground and the ropes that were holding the balloon snapped, the camera just took off into the atmosphere... the camera landed two hundred miles away in a farmer's field somewhere. He finds it and takes it to the police, thinking that it's a surveillance camera for marijuana, they develop the film and think that it's some sort of snuff film of a murder, give it to the FBI and have pathologists looking at the body saying, 'yeah, he's rotting,' (I had corn starch on me, right) 'he's been decomposing for 3 weeks.' You could see the other members of the band walking away and they had these weird outfits on, and they thought it was some kind of gang slaying. [1]

This story was covered by the news magazine show ''Hard Copy'' on their March 5, 1991 episode. An alternative version of the video was made using the "shred" remix.

References

1. "An Interview With Trent Reznor". ''Spin Magazine''. March 1996.

External links

★ Nine Inch Nails' official site

★ Down In It at the NinWiki

★ ''Halo 1'' at NINCollector.com

★ "Down in It" (CD5") at Discogs.com

★ "Down in It" (US 12") at Discogs.com

★ "Down in It" (UK 12") at Discogs.com

★ ''Hard Copy'' video clip at news.nin.net