under construction and will likely continue to be so until/if twitter implodes ♡
No wait because Butchered Tongue being about the seventh circle of hell
Violence
but having an underlying message of the importance of language to culture and how languages are stripped from native cultures as an act of violence and suppression
The fact that the album started with De Selby Part 1 and him yearning for seclusion, solitude, the night and darkness as he enters Dante's hell; then after passing through all the 9 circles he emerges transformed, in First Light, and in awe at the colors of dawn, marking his ascension towards Purgutory is the true genius of Hozier
I’m thinking about how in Butchered Tongue he says
‘But feel at home/ hearin’ a music that few still understand/ A butchered tongue still singin’ here above ground’
And he sings in Irish in De Selby part 1, knowing that we’re going to learn the Irish words and sing it with him at concerts. God I could cry
the emotional rollercoaster of "the final time you called me baby" transitioning immediately and perfectly into "do you think i'd give up, that this might've shook the love from me?" jesus christ
something about hozier... writing about mythology... singing in irish... adding an instrumental song to the album... building an album based on a concept about the circles of hell...
there's something about the way "francesca" represents lust yet is a song declares everlasting love and utmost devotion that stands the trial of time; the way "butchered tongue" represents violence but sounds so careful and fragile, and "unknown/nth" is his most defeated song dedicating to love...i do think unreal unearth is his best album yet, and most private one at that. like there are parts i'm not sure i'm supposed to listen to. self titled sounds so hopeful to wasteland, baby! feels like a promise to this. raucous, forlorn sound of hurt....to end it with first light...that all things end but we'll still have tomorrow and new light to look forward to...even if we've just been through hell...do you get it. do you feel me.
I found this screenshot and had to draw it because it made me laugh so hard
when hozier said "But after this I'm never gonna be the same, and I am never going back again" in First Light, he was actually talking about all of us being forever changed after this album
This man really made sure at least three songs on this album would inflict irreversible psychic damage on every person listening to it and not necessarily the same three songs, what the fuck
Taking these circles of hell and the sins they represent and making them tangible and relatable and more human so that we can come to terms with the fact that the idea of sin is inherently learned and the ideas of things being morally good or morally bad are ingrained in us as people in a society and that we need to come to see everything as neutral for one reason or another is just so important like he knew what he was trying to do and he succeeded
Hozier b like "hey girl what if the ceaseless battle between unconquerable suffering (as a consequence of existence), and the indomitable human spirit, was just. in ur earphones. What if the constant tug of war between the limitlessness of love and inevitability of heartache was literally injected into u via sound. Like. just playing in ur ears for an hour. Take my hand. Let's take a stroll through hell, baby :) wouldn't that be gre- why are you crying"
Unreal Unearth is for those that are feral and ravenous and filled with unbearable yearning, those that love Greek mythology and Irish folklore and Dante's divine comedy, those that believe in the cruelty of the world and the love of the people in it, those that love and hurt and live and die
Oh how Hozier has written an album about the absolute worst humanity has to offer, all our sins and crimes laid bare, and he says you are forgiven with so much tenderness. This is what makes you human. This is what makes you complex in the most beautiful ways. Look at the tragedy around you, and look at the survivors. Aren’t you all just so beautiful in your efforts to strive forward and begin again.
when hozier said “the likes of a darkness so deep that god at the start couldn’t bear” and when hozier said “i’d still know you not being shown you i only need the working of my hands” and when hozier said “some part of me must have died the first time that you called me baby” and when hozier said “i would still be surprised i could find you darling in any life” and when hozier said “heaven is not fit to house a love like you and i” and when hozier said “but if we fall i only pray don’t fall away from me” and when hozier said “you were steering my heart like a wheel in your hands and darling i haven’t felt it since then” and when hozier said “if there was anyone to ever get through this life with their heart still intact they didn’t do it right” and when hozier said “if i was a riptide i wouldn’t take you out” and when hozier said “darling there’s a part of me i’m afraid will always be trapped within an abstract from a moment of my life” and when hozier said “do you know i could break beneath the weight of the goodness love i still carry for you” and when hozier said “darkness always finds you either way it creeps into the corners as the moment fades” and when
Or water fountains, public washrooms, outdoors tables, etc, etc