Recurring lyrics

Many of Trent Reznor's lyrics and (and sometimes song titles) are thematically similar across songs and albums. This is an expansion of a list compiled at ETS by user "Christ". Covers and spoken parts from samples are not included in this list.

Abandonment/rejection

• She's Gone Away
• Terrible Lie: "I'm all alone in a world you must despise" / "my morals left to decay"
• Ringfinger: "you just leave me nailed here"
• Suck: "all that was true is left behind"
• Piggy: "you left me here I'm all alone"
• Hurt: "the feelings disappear" / "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"
• I Do Not Want This: "if I could just reach you maybe I could leave this place"
• Please: "push it away but it all comes back again" / "but it just left me dead" / "you can never leave me"
• And All That Could Have Been: "you won't find me here" / "take this and run far away" / "left with a trace of all that was"
• 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"
• Disappointed: "just get out of here"
• 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're really all alone"
• All The Love In The World: "hiding in the crowd I'm all alone" / "sometimes I get so lonely I could –"
• Came Back Haunted: "I am not who I used to be"
• Find My Way: "now that you have gone away" / "ghosts of who we used to be"

Afraid to see

• Heresy: "he sewed his eyes shut because he is afraid to see"
• Right Where It Belongs: "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

• 1,000,000: "I feel a million miles away"
• Hurt: "if I could start again, a million miles away"
• All The Love In The World: "I've become a million miles aw(ay)" - in addition, the phrase appears in the accompanying unsung lyrics printed on the With Teeth PDF poster: "right beside is still a million miles away"

Asleep

• Dear World,: "yes, everyone seems to be asleep"
• The Lovers: "everyone seems to be asleep but me"
• God Break Down The Door: "we sleep hypnotized from the center" / "I believe I am sleeping after all" (The lyrics are not included in the final cut of the song, but included in the digital data.)

Becoming

• The 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"
• Closer: "help me become somebody else"
• Hurt: "what have I become, my sweetest friend?"
• We're In This Together: "I've become impossible"
• Even Deeper: "just how damaged have I become?"
• The Great Below: "the destiny I've chose, all becoming clear"
• Where Is Everybody?:"come on there has got to be someone, hasn't yet become so numb and succumb"
• The New Flesh: "yes I am becoming" / "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 as days go by"
• Vessel: "I am becoming something else, I am turning into God"
• 10 Miles High: "I swore to God I'd never turn into you"
• Head Down: "all your hate, what you've become"
• Everything: "I've become something else"
• Shit Mirror: "I'm becoming something new"
• Not Anymore: "watched myself become somebody else" (The lyrics are not included in the final cut of the song, but included in the digital data.)

Beginnings

• The Beginning Of The End
• 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"
• Came Back Haunted: "I'm afraid this has just begun"
• All Time Low: "see this is where the fun begins"
• Me, I'm Not: "I can't shut it off, this thing I've begun"
• Dear World,: "I begin to go through another that we have been"
• I Know You Can Feel It: "just like that, it begins" / "the moment it begins"

Though the lyrics may not have been written by Trent Reznor, "Recursive Self-Improvement" by How To Destroy Angels features the line "this is how it all begins".

Belonging

• Right Where It Belongs
• 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"
• Home: "I return to the only place I've ever felt that I belong"
• God Given: "you should get where you belong"

Beside you

• Beside You In Time
• We're In This Together: "the farther I fall I'm beside you"
• Lights In The Sky: "I am staying right beside you"

Black

• Black Noise
• Cold And Black And Infinite Tour
• Branches/Bones: "cold and black and infinite and nothing left to lose"
• Came Back Haunted: "its smile is red and its eyes are black"
• Head Like A Hole: "head like a hole, black as your soul"
• Piggy: "black and blue and broken bones"
• The Hand That Feeds: "but inside your heart it is black and it's hollow and it's cold"
• I'm Looking Forward To Joining You, Finally: "as black as the night can get"
• She's Gone Away: "we keep licking while the skin turns black"
• Deep: "there's a big black hole gonna eat me up someday"
• The New Flesh: "I can almost see the blackest eyes"
• With Teeth: "it's in her kiss, the blackest sea"
• Last: "look through these blackened eyes"

Though the lyrics may not have been written by Trent Reznor, "BBB" by How To Destroy Angels features the line "listen to the sound of my big black boots".

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"
• Ringfinger: "wrap my eyes in bandages"
• Running: "as good as blind"

Blood/bleeding

• March Of The Pigs: "stains like the blood on your teeth"
• 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" / "she has the blood of reptile just underneath her skin"
• The Downward Spiral: "so much blood for such a tiny little hole"
• The Perfect Drug: "my blood wants to say hello to you"
• Where Is Everybody?: "pleading and needing and bleeding and breeding"
• The Hand That Feeds: "will you chew until it bleeds?" / "for the blood on which we dine"
• Survivalism: "all bruised and broken, bleeding"
• The Good Soldier: "blood hardens in the sand"
• My Violent Heart: "our blood will stay" / "our blood, our grace"
• Letting You: "the dying left to bleed"
• In Two: "bleed, have to purge, what you were"
• The Becoming: "the blood has stopped pumping"
• The Only Time: "the sweat in your eyes, the blood in your veins"
• Various Methods Of Escape: "bled from my own hand"
• She's Gone Away: "you dig in places till your fingers bleed"
• The Background World: "the world is bleeding out"

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"
• Everything: "and his seed that bleeds right through to me"
• The Background World: "behind the background world is always bleeding through"

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"
• 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"
• No, You Don't: "broken down see through soul"
• Survivalism: "all bruised and broken, bleeding"
• Echoplex: "I built this place with broken parts"

Bruised

• Head Like A Hole: "God Money let's go dancing on the backs of the bruised"
• Somewhat Damaged: "broken bruised forgotten sore"
• Survivalism: "all bruised and broken, bleeding"
• Branches/Bones: "the makeup hides the bruise"

Burning

• Burn
• Burning Bright (Field On Fire)
• Heresy: "burning with your god in humility"
• 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"
• God Given: "and it burns so bright"
• Various Methods Of Escape: "a place to bury every thing I did and burn it to the ground"

Fire

• Burning Bright (Field On Fire)
• Sanctified: "as the words spill out like fire from her lips"
• Gave Up: "wake up in flames"
• All The Love In The World: "the stars are all afire in the sky"
• Survivalism: "you see your world on fire"
• In This Twilight: "it is watching us, and the world we set on fire"
• 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"
• Various Methods Of Escape: "the fire illuminates our final scene"

Calling

• Even Deeper: "I hear them call I cannot stay"
• Sunspots: "I hear it calling and I come cause I can't disobey"
• Who Wants To Live Forever?: "voices calling"

Closeness

• Closer
• Closer To God
• The Great Below: "ocean pulls me close"
• 10 Miles High: "I'm getting closer all the time"
• Love Is Not Enough: "hey the closer we think we are, well it only got us so far"
• While I'm Still Here: "closest I have ever come"

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"
• The Wretched: "the clouds will part and the sky cracks open"

Decay

• Ripe (With 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"

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"
• In Two: "what you want, what you deserve"
• Ahead Of Ourselves: "we wound up building this we deserve"

Disappearing

• The Becoming: "all pain disappears"
• Deep: "right here make it all disappear"
• We're In This Together: "well they've got to make it disappear"
• The Great Below: "washes me away, makes me disappear"
• Please: "I can disappear"
• And All That Could Have Been: "maybe I'll disappear"
• The Line Begins To Blur: "the more I disappear
• Disappointed: "just get out of here, disappointed, disappear"
• All The Love In The World: "all the jagged edges disappear"
• Lights In The Sky: "I can't disappear"
• Running: "just slip away and disappear"

Didn't even notice

• Dear World,: "hey look, you didn't even notice"
• Less Than: "focus? we didn't even notice"

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"
• In Two: "just become, your disease"
• As Alive as You Need Me To Be: "the way it makes me feel, infection"

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" / "wrenching, 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

• The Eater Of 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 the 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"
• With Teeth: "it runs deeper than you dare to dream it could be"
• Head Down: "this is all a dream, and none of you are real"
• Right Where It Belongs: "what if all the world you think you know is an elaborate dream?"
• Burning Bright (Field On Fire): "I can't tell if I am dreaming anymore"
• Shadow Over Me: "in this dream, used to think I believe"

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"
• Lights In The Sky: "watching you drown"

Echo

• Echoes
• Echoplex
• The Good Soldier: "gunfire in the street echoes out a beat"
• Something I Can Never Have: "echoing your voice just like the ringing in my ears"
• Please: "echoing the sound"
• Survivalism: "hypnotic sound of sirens, echoing through the street"
• Non-Entity: "the echoes in my eyes, of all they used to see"
• Copy Of A: "I am just an echo of an echo of an echo"

Eyes

• Down In It: "just then a tiny little dot caught my eye" / "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: "I can almost see the blackest eyes"
• 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"
• Came Back Haunted: "its smile is red and its eyes are black"
• Shit Mirror: "caught reflecting in your eyes"
• Who Wants To Live Forever?: "something in my eye"

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" / "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..."
• 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 you're just fading, and fading, and fading, and fading the fuck away"
• Echoplex: "and I just slowly fade away"
• Who Wants To Live Forever?: "I might just fade away"

Feel

• I Know You Can Feel It
• 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" / "don't you tell me how I feel, you don't know just how I feel"
• Last: "still feel it all slipping away"
• The Big Come Down: "it feels like it keeps coming from the inside"
• The Way Out Is Through: "we feel so small"
• The Wretched / The Great Collapse: "now you know this is what it feels like"
• 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 apologize 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"
• Discipline: "feels like I'm wearing down"
• Hurt: "the feelings disappear"
• Kinda I Want To: "I can't shake this feeling from my head"
• 1,000,000: "I feel a million miles away"
• Demon Seed: "and I can feel it breathe"
• Echoplex: "you feel me breathe, I am watching you"
• The Great Below: "I can still feel you, even so far away"
• My Violent Heart: "feel it coming now"
• Underneath It All: "I can still feel you"
• Branches/Bones: "feels like I've been here before"
• Dear World,: "I feel like I have lived so long"
• She's Gone Away: "cut along the length (but you can't get the feeling back)"
• Shit Mirror: "got a new face and it feels all right"
• As Alive as You Need Me To Be: "the way it makes me feel" / "feel, I can finally feel"
• Who Wants To Live Forever?: "something in the way it feels here"
• Shadow Over Me: "and it feels so real"
• Even Deeper: "for once in my life I feel complete"
• Zero-Sum: "and it feels like we're living in that split-second of a car crash"

Fist

• Fist Fuck
• Wish: "fist fuck"
• Survivalism: "I got my fist I got my plan I got survivalism"
• Demon Seed: "and I will use my fist"
• Getting Smaller: "I think I'm losing my grip, but I can still make a fist"
• Sin: "your kiss, your fist"

Free/Freedom

• Everything: "I am free"
• Burning Bright (Field On Fire): "I am forgiven, I am free"
• The Lovers: "and I'm free to return to the place where I already am" / "free, take me into the arms of the lovers" / "the center has moved on and all that's left is free"

God

• God Break Down The Door
• God Given
• Play The Goddamned Part
• 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 just leave me nailed here 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"
• Vessel: "I am a turning into God" / "my God...oh my God"
• 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"
• Capital G: "traded in my God for this one"
• Zero-Sum: "may God have mercy on our dirty little hearts"
• Find My Way: "lord my path has gone astray" / "pray the Lord my soul to take" / "oh dear Lord hear my prayer"
• While I'm Still Here: "God forgive me if I cry"
• Burning Bright (Field On Fire): "and oh my God, I have missed you"
• Ahead Of Ourselves: "created us in His image"
• Shit Mirror: "I think I knew the whole goddamned time"
• The Collector: "there are so God damned many of them"
• The Becoming: "Goddamn this noise inside my head"

Greed

• Capital G: The title of the song refers to greed.
• The Warning: "your greed, self-importance and your arrogance"
• March Of The Pigs: "please, greed, feed (no time to hesitate)"
• Letting You: "your politics of greed"
• Not So Pretty Now: "keep trying to fill it all up with your greed"

Head

• Head Like A Hole
• Head Down
• 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"
• 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"
• Capital G: "now nod your head because you know that I'm right"
• The Great Destroyer: "nod your head" / "listen to the shit they pump into your head"
• Satellite: "I'm inside your head"
• Various Methods Of Escape: "a line of lyric looping in my head"
• Ringfinger: "right in time with the song that's repeating in my head" (The lyrics are not included in the final cut of the song, but printed out as the original lyrics.)

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"
• Running: "I'm running out of places I can hide from this, I'm running out of ways to keep on hiding this"

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"
• Not So Pretty Now: "you got a hole that you've got to feed"
• As Alive as You Need Me To Be: "it's filling up the hole inside you"

Home/Returning home

• Home
• La Mer: "and the sea will come to kiss me for I am going home"
• The Life You Didn't Lead: "home, returning from somewhere, to someplace safe"
• Everything: "I am home, I believe, I am home, I am free. I am home, I can see. Always here, finally"
• This Isn't The Place: "carry me home"
• Vessel: "I have finally found my home"
• My Violent Heart: "when you return to the place that you call home"

Inside of me

• Vessel: "when I put you inside of me"
• Came Back Haunted: "they put something inside of me"
• The Becoming: "hiding backwards inside of me" / "it's a part of me, it's inside of me"
• Burn: "this thing inside of me" / "something inside of me"
• Heresy: "he tries to tell me what I put inside of me"
• Everything: "but this thing that lives inside of me"
• As Alive as You Need Me To Be: "it's filling up the hole inside you"
• Who Wants To Live Forever?: "stay here inside me"

Keeps (coming, calling, etc.)

• 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"
• 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"
• Into The Void: "but myself keeps slipping away"
• The Good Soldier: "I keep telling myself"

Knees (down on or getting up off)

• The Hand That Feeds: "will you get up off your knees" / "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 we crawl"
• March Of The Pigs: "crawl right up on your knees"
• Closer: "through every forest, above the trees, within my stomach, scraped off my 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"
• 1,000,000: "on your hands and your knees"

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 Way Out Is Through: "but still we crawl"
• In This Twilight: "as it crawls across a final time"
• 1,000,000: "kind of hard to see when you crawl"

Loneliness

• Terrible Lie: "I'm all alone in a world you must despise"
• Piggy: " you left me here I'm all alone"
• Reptile: "need to contaminate to alleviate this loneliness"
• All The Love In The World: "hiding in the crowd I'm all alone" / "sometimes I get so lonely I could..."
• Beside You In Time: "I am all alone this time around"
• Right Where It Belongs: "and you're really all alone"
• Vessel: "we will never be alone"
• Only: "yes I am alone"
• Somewhat Damaged: "all alone, by myself, where were you?"
• The Idea Of You: "it gets so lonely in here"

Loss

• The Persistence Of Loss
• She's Gone Away
• Eraser: "lose me"
• In This Twilight: "let me take away your doubt"
• Discipline: " feels like I'm losing touch"
• Head Like A Hole: "no you can't take that away from me"
• Terrible Lie: "don't take it away from me"
• Last: "I pissed it all away" / "my head got lost along the way"
• That's What I Get: "you took away all my self confidence"
• Something I Can Never Have: "you make this all go away"
• I'm Looking Forward To Joining You, Finally: "thought he lost everything, then he lost a whole lot more" / "where did everything get lost"
• Various Methods Of Escape: "I think I could lose myself in here"
• March Of The Pigs: "I think he's losing it"
• All Time Low: "we lost too much along the way"
• Piggy: "I lost my shit because of you"
• Only: "you might say I'm losing focus"
• Me, I'm Not: "and I'm losing control"
• My Violent Heart: "and soon you'll lose the will to care"
• Somewhat Damaged: "lost my faith in everything"
• Even Deeper: "lost my way, can't come back"

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"
• 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"
• The Life You Didn't Lead: "and you are not living in a memory"
• Zero-Sum: "do you remember the time we" / "and I know you remember"
• While I'm Still Here: "while we can, remember when"
• In Two: "I don't believe you can even remember which one you are"
• I Would For You: "so long I can't remember when"
• Purest Feeling: "I wish I could remember everything she said"
• She's Gone Away: "I can't remember what she came here for" / "I can't remember much of anything anymore"
• The Idea Of You: "remember, I don't wanna remember anymore"
• Over And Out: "am I remembering you correctly"
• Who Wants To Live Forever?: "can't remember why"

Naive/naïveté

• 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"
• 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 (Nothing Can Stop Me Now)
• Piggy: "nothing can stop me now, I don't care anymore"
• Ruiner: "you didn't hurt me, nothing can stop me now"
• Big Man With A Gun: "me and my fucking gun, nothing can stop me now"
• La Mer: "rien ne peut m'arrêter maintenant" (Translates to "nothing can stop me now". Spoken in Creole French)
• Sunspots: "and nothing can stop me now"
• We're In This Together: "none of them can stop us now"

Pieces

• Beside You In Time: "feel the little pieces bleeding through"
• And All That Could Have Been: "all these pieces and promises and left behinds"
• The Perfect Drug: "it's not as much fun to pick up the pieces"
• Copy Of A: "I am little pieces, pieces that we picked up on the way"
• The Big Come Down: "try so hard to make the pieces all fit"
• Various Methods Of Escape: "little pieces of a plan"
• Where Is Everybody?: "all the pieces don't fit"
• Gave Up: "gonna smash myself to pieces"
• Now I'm Nothing: "I smashed myself to pieces"
• Branches/Bones: "still can make out pieces with the opening sewed shut"
• I Know You Can Feel It: "all the pieces of the plan"

Pigs

• Piggy
• March Of The Pigs
• Le Pig studio
• 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"
• Ahead Of Ourselves: "with our snouts in the dirt"
• Isn't Everyone: "all the little piggies cannot help themselves"

Piss

• Last: "worn out from giving it up, my soul I pissed it all away"
• The Warning: "your greed, self-importance and your arrogance, you piss it all away"
• The Wretched: "stuck in this hole with the shit and the piss"
• Terrible Lie: "hey God, I really don't know who I am in this world of piss" (The lyrics are not included in the final cut of the song, but printed out as the original lyrics.)

Profanity

Fuck

• Fist Fuck
• Starfuckers, Inc.
• 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 want to 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"
• 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 way"
• 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"
• Not So Pretty Now: "but you're just fading, and fading, and fading, and fading the fuck away"
• Capital G: "those motherfuckers didn't last too long"
• 1,000,000: "blow my fucking brains out"
• All Time Low: "your voice in fucking echo stereo" / "just how'd we fucking end up here?"
• Now I'm Nothing: "I'm gonna fuck myself up" / "I fucked it all away"
• Branches/Bones: "don't give a fuck anymore"
• Less Than: "too many fucking people"
• Burning Bright (Field On Fire): "oh, burn motherfucker" / "like the fucking end" (The latter lyric is not included on the final cut of the song, but is printed on the physical component.)

Shit

• Shit Mirror
• Piggy: "lost my shit because of you"
• Ruiner: "serving his shit to his flies"
• Hurt: "I wear this crown of shit"
• The Wretched: "stuck in this hole with the shit and the piss"
• Where Is Everybody?: "thought I really didn't give a shit"
• Capital G: "don't give a shit about the temperature in Guatemala"
• The Great Destroyer: "listen to the shit they pump into your head"
• You Know What You Are?: "you better take a good look cause I'm full of shit"

Purpose

• Copy Of A: "imprinted with a purpose, a purpose that's become quite clear today"
• Every Day Is Exactly The Same: "I think I used to have a purpose"

Realization

• Eraser (Denial; Realization)
• Sin: "am I just too stupid to realize"
• Gave Up: "it took you to make me realize"
• 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"
• Lights in the Sky: "I've come to realize we all have our place"
• Love Is Not Enough: "the sooner we realize"
• Ruiner: "those that you keep blind will suddenly realize"

Said and done

• The Great Below: "after all is said and done"
• Sunspots: "when everything is said and done"
• Zero-Sum: "and soon it will be all said and done"

Scab

• Only: "well the tiniest little dot caught my eye and it turned out to be a scab" / "picking at that scab"
• The Becoming: "he's covered with scabs and he is broken and sore"
• Something I Can Never Have: "still picking at this scab" (The lyrics are not included in the final cut of the song, but printed out as the original lyrics.)

Sea

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

Sin

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

Skin

• Down In It (Skin)
• Underneath The Skin
• Sin: "it gets under my skin"
• Last: "fresh blood through tired skin"
• Suck: "itches my skin right off my back"
• Happiness In Slavery: "just words and so much 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"
• 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"
• Terrible Lie: "my skin is begging you"
• Discipline: "I see you left a mark, up and down my skin"
• Sunspots: "peel off our skin we're gonna burn what we were to the ground"
• All Time Low: "you barely even pierced the skin"
• In Two: "shed, your precious skin"
• She's Gone Away: "we keep licking while the skin turns black"
• The Lovers: "hot swollen skin want me take me perfect embrace"
• God Break Down The Door: "wondering if you'll remove my skin" (The lyrics are not included in the final cut of the song, but included in the digital data.)

Flesh

• The New Flesh
• Complications Of The Flesh
• Ringfinger: "sever flesh and bone"
• Suck: "her temple walls are made of flesh"
• Happiness In Slavery: "just some flesh caught in this big broken machine"
• Please: "all the flesh, all the sin"
• Vessel: "I can leave all of this flesh behind"

Sky

• Lights In The Sky
• All Time Low: "and we will live forever, baby, and stretch across the sky"
• The Warning: "when it came down from the sky"
• Zero-Sum: "they're starting to open up the sky"
• Non-Entity: "the sky is not the same shade of blue"
• The Wretched: "the clouds will part and the sky cracks open"
• The Perfect Drug: "turn off the sun, pull the stars from the sky"
• Suck: "there is no God up in the sky tonight"
• Down In It: "kinda like a cloud i was up, way up in the sky"
• Burning Bright (Field On Fire): "and blacken out the sky and every last one of you"

Slipping/slipping away

• The Slip
• Slipping Away
• That's What I Get: "slipping on the tears"
• Deep: "you're slipping through"
• 999,999: "how did I slip into (this)?"
• Now I'm Nothing: "I let it slip away, now I'm nothing"
• 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"
• While I'm Still Here: "falls apart, slips away"
• Running: "just slip away and disappear"
• The Lovers: "I've slipped out of time again"

Smash

• March Of The Pigs: "I want to smash it up"
• Eraser: "smash me"
• Gave Up: "smashed up my sanity, smashed up integrity, smashed up what I believed in, smashed up what's left of me, smashed up my everything, smashed up all that was true, gonna smash myself to pieces"
• Now I'm Nothing: "I'm gonna smash myself to pieces"
• The Big Come Down: "smash it apart just for the fuck of it"
• Love Is Not Enough: "for you to go and take this and smash it apart"

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 really real to begin with, I just made you up to hurt myself" / "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?"
• Head Down: "this is all a dream and none of you are real"
• The Idea Of You: "none of this is happening"

Stopping

see also: Nothing can stop me now

• 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?"
• Discipline: "you know once I start I cannot stop myself"
• Came Back Haunted: "just can't stop, came back ha-ha-haunted"
• The Lovers: "maybe I could stop it (if I wanted to)"

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"

That which could have or would have been

• And All That Could 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"
• Every Day Is Exactly The Same: "I wish this could have been any other way" / "then again, that might have been a dream"
• Sunspots: "I think I could have been someone"
• I Would For You: "there was a place that could have been"
• While I'm Still Here: "oh all the things that might have been"

Throwing away

• Throw This Away
• Terrible Lie: "you made me throw it all away"
• Gave Up: "give it to me, I throw it away"
• Last: "I want you to throw me away"

Used up

• We're In This Together: "all used and beaten up"
• Head Down: "all used up half way through"
• Love Is Not Enough: "left for dead and all used up" (unsung lyrics printed on the With Teeth PDF poster)

Waking up

• I Can't Seem To Wake Up 2017
• 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"
• 1,000,000: "I wake up on the floor"
• Everything: "but this thing that lives inside of me will surely rise and wake"
• The Idea Of You: "wait, wake, breathe, believe"
• Less Than: "we awake in a place we can barely recognize, yeah"
• Not Anymore: "and I can't seem to wake up"
• Shadow Over Me: "hard to tell if I'm awake anymore"

Though outside of the direct Nine Inch Nails spectrum, the extended version of the Bird Box Original Score contains a track called "Can't Seem To Wake Myself Up".

Waving goodbye

• Wave Goodbye Tour
• Down In It: "I looked him right in the eye and said goodbye"
• Now I'm Nothing: "wave, wave, wave, wave goodbye"
• With Teeth: "wave goodbye to what you were"
• Lights in the Sky: "the lights in the sky are waving goodbye"
• Came Back Haunted: "I said goodbye"
• Everything: "wave goodbye, wish me well"