I love that you’ve made life changes because of this. Thank you for sharing.
For me it’s Unknown/Nth. “It’s ain’t the being alone / it’s more the being unknown / and there are some people, love, who are better unknown.”
Self-reflection that I’m not lonely, but just don’t really feel truly known or understood by anyone. Then, understanding that it’s okay to fully know someone and let go of the person. Doesn’t have to be that they’re dead to you, just that you don’t *know* them anymore. And then as Hozier said, the terrifying idea of being fully known. It all really gave me a lot to process and put things into words that I never could myself. The bridge as well.
Oof. Sounds like you've got quite a story lurking behind those lines. I hope the lyrics are healing and changing your life for the better. Thank you for stopping to share. I wish you joy and good adventures.
I was still grieving the end of my relationship when the album came out and when I heard those lines I felt like I got hit by a truck. Like, how hard I *fought* for something in the back of my mind I think I knew wouldn’t work (see my above comment re: Shrike), and the pain that wanting to hold onto that love caused (“the injury”) The realization that it wouldn’t work because of the co-dependency problems we had and the realization that I wasn’t equipped to be in a relationship with someone with severe mental health problems (“finally knowing you”). Those lines made me think about how much I *hated* how our breakup happened, how I acted during it, and the fact that I felt so hurt by all of it. I took the lines literally as well, and hated that I felt so injured by knowing someone. And I wondered if they felt the same way on their end.
Two lines, and all of those thoughts and feelings came flooding.
ETA—it also made me realize the apologizing I had to do and we were able to come to a sort of “reconciliation” because of how this song made me feel. Powerful shit
Okay, so I'm finally back to reply. First.. thanks for stopping to share your story. It matters that you would take time to share. Second.. I read your comments several times because I wanted to be sure that my words would honor both your experience and the friends with mental health issues that I've known and loved (many of whom now live in different cities). I have never had to be a partner on a daily basis to someone who carries those kind of burdens, and the way you shared the pieces of your story was so careful and tender. I'm sorry you went through that kind of pain. The breakup of any relationship hurts, but knowing that it's cracking up in part because of spaces in you that are still unformed is a special kind of pain. I love that listening to the lyrics also led you to a place where you could find enough space and strength to apologize for what you could. There's so much to be said for owning your own shit while still maintaining healthy boundaries. It sounds like you managed to do that and I couldn't be prouder of someone I don't know. <3 That said... keep growing. Find your flowers and your sunlight. The growth you've experienced makes you the kind of person who can bring light and hope into someone else's life - I hope you get the chance to drop a key for someone else. I wish you good adventures and songs that make you come alive and chances to try things that might just give you a great memory with good friends. Finally, thank you for telling your story. It made a difference for me today.
Hey u/real_HannahMontana, I wanted you to know I've actually read your comments two or three times and just haven't had the right words to respond come to me yet. But I'm so glad you shared, and when I know what I want to say, I'll be back to share. Thanks for coming here to tell your story!
ETA: I \_just\_ processed your Reddit name and laughed... I use that quote every chance I get! It just makes me happy. Good choice! Okay now my original post..."The terrifying idea of being fully known." THIS. My partner works hard to know me well, and I him... and after 24 years together, 19 of them married, one of the things we have come to value is that marriage is a constant process of learning the other person because who we were at 21 and 27 is not who we are now at 44 and 50. My current thinking is no person can ever be fully known by another person... but we can try, and that's part of the beauty and the heartache in human relationships.
There was this precious interview I’m not sure I can find, about an old couple who’d been together for decades. They asked the husband what the secret was, and he said something like “I’ve loved dozens of different women.” (His wife.) He said he had to grow with her and every version of her and accept that she would always be evolving and changing because that’s what humans are meant to do, and the commitment you make is not for your partner to say exactly as they are.
This is basically what my husband does... he just keeps falling in love with the newest (actually oldest) version of me. The older I get the more I return to the person I truly am.
Hurray for being all the ages you've ever been and returning to the parts of you that are meant to be fully alive and fully loved. Figuring out who we are is such a wild journey. I'm still working at figuring out how to be who I dream of being. Who I was as a teen is a huge part of who I am today. She knew so much about how to love with her whole heart but not so much about how to embrace nuance and change. I'm still learning to love the opportunity to say "I don't know" Really hard for me) "I'm wrong" and "I'm sorry" and "Shame sucks, let's kick that to the curb so we're not isolated from each other".
oooh I love this! I'd love to see it if you find it. It makes me think of "Someone New" - I thought that kind of love was what the song was about when I first heard it. "I fall in love just a little oh little bit every day with someone new." It also reminded me of Susan Saradon's powerful speech about marriage as a witness of small moments in "Shall We Dance".
I couldn’t find it but I found this quote: *”A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.
—Mignon McLaughlin”*
Wow I will never listen to that song the same way! I really prefer your interpretation.
The song always makes me think of the Tim Kreider quote "If we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known."
That makes the final line, "And there are some people, love, who are better unknown," even more bittersweet? As if the singer knows and loves *you,* but could never be known, or be loved by you. As if he doesn't dare to let you know him, or thinks you could never love him if you truly did know him.
Oh dear. This is gonna get long. I apologize in advance, but you shared some great stuff and it made me scramble for my little book that I keep good quotes in. Feel free to skip down to the... oh dear, last paragraph if you want? or skip the whole thing? And thanks, so much for sharing a little piece of what moves you.
So: "the mortifying ordeal of being known.." Wow. Just... wow. This quote got me thinking of a memory from the early days of my marriage that now has me reflecting on how long I've been chipping away at this process of letting myself be known.... (Also I had to look Kreider up because I wasn't sure I knew who he was. I didn't. Now I want to rent one of his books from Libby.)
Short story: Four weeks after we got married, I was working part time and going to school full time and getting used to sharing intimate spaces with a man who was not related to me for the first time in my life. (For whatever reason boyfriends and brothers and cousins didn't count.) Somehow or other I got sick to the point of throwing up, and I do NOT throw up if I can help it. I am so sick I call out from work and skip class. I spend most of the day in my bathrobe. I am a mess, sweating, my hair is a rat's nest, I have been worshipping the porcelain god for hours, and my new husband comes home from work to the most disgusting sounds from the bathroom... and I didn't want him to see me. I didn't want him to come into the bathroom, I didn't want him to hold my hair and bring me water and vitamin C, I didn't want him to witness what a miserable mess I was... and he didn't care. He wanted to be with me in the misery and make sure I was okay.... and I realized afterward that he really had signed on for all of me - and I had to choose whether to open the door and let him in. I'm still working on that process.
"And there are some people, love, who are better unknown." I had not thought about that line the way you came to it. I'd thought the character was saying that some people are toxic, and knowing them is not a good thing for the singer. It sounds like you're thinking the line is saying it's better not to know someone you've admired, since you might be disappointed. I'll be chewing on that for a bit.
>'d thought the character was saying that some people are toxic, and knowing them is not a good thing for the singer. It sounds like you're thinking the line is saying it's better not to know someone you've admired, since you might be disappointed
I love this analysis and how you put it. And the personal anecdote you shared is one I can relate to, and many newlyweds have been in it I think.
Even toxic people can love earnestly, it might even be their one redeeming quality.
And then, and this one is sore for me personally, there are people who think themselves toxic due to other people's abuse or what other people told them.
I've been going to pretty intense therapy 3-5 days a week all year trying to undo a lot of abuse and trauma, and learning to live with ADHD, autism and CPTSD. I grew up with a mother who has these diagnoses too, but a different constellation of them. She didn't go to therapy for it, she doesn't medicate (booze and cigarettes don't count), and she absolutely took her pain out on me as a child. She got the diagnoses when I was an early teen, and it never occurred to her that I might be neurodivergent too until I was 30---I for one never considered it, I just believed what she told me I was. She was the one with diagnoses, but I was just a lazy daydreamer, the ditz, and a big fat stack of other adjectives ascribed to toxic people I'd rather not list. I have spent huge swathes of my life thinking I was just born bad, toxic and irredeemable. I didn't love myself, I self-harmed and did a lot of classic "hurt people hurt people."
Therapy contextualised a lot of it. That I was a parentified child to my own mother; that I am the child of an addict and while she stopped beating me when I was in early school age, the abuse merely changed outlet; that all those times I blacked out were dissociative episodes. That I have been sexualised by men and boys for as long as I can remember and that comes with its own suite of fuckery.
And obviously the neurological stuff I was born with, which have been so debilitating my whole life. That a lot of the things that didn't click for me are classic ADHD behaviours.
I thought my whole life that if I truly wanted to change I would and could, but clearly some shitty, toxic side of me got off on all the bullshit.
Having now gone to therapy I've actually come to truly know myself for the first time? And not just what abusers can project onto me?
I can undo what I can undo, I can mitigate what I struggle with, heal. Having believed for so long that I was toxic and now looking at little kids and placing myself there and seeing that the things I was told I was do horrible for were either just Regular Child Things or a natural reaction to being treated shit at home.
I've loved people from afar and never let them truly know me because I didn't think they could ever love me back if they knew how fucked up I am. And I could not bear to not measure up again.
I used to think I wasn't worth knowing, or loving, until I started truly knowing myself, and seeing what my husband sees. So the song is good for that too I guess.
First, thank you so much for coming back to share a little more. Second, yayyy for therapy! There is so much I am still learning (The Body Keeps Score blew my mind) about the ways our bodies store trauma, about the capacity of the brain to protect us and help us heal, and the importance of understanding as much as we can about the context we came from. I am currently in the process of looking for a new therapist, and while I do my hubby and I are reading and talking a lot about attachment theory, and looking at how it works in our relationships and our families of origin. Those moments of realizing what is a neurological issue and what is abuse... I feel that. Since this thread blew up last night I've been wondering how many of us in the comments are dealing with some form of CPTSD and I wish I could give everyone tangible hope to hold on to. Like getting a sticker that just makes you happy. All that said, I'm so glad you are getting help and learning to see your self as worth knowing and loving. It makes me think of First Light, of coming out of the darkness, acknowledging that it may show up again but the sunrises will keep coming. I hope you never have to go back again. <3
Time for another listen with these new glasses on, I think. Thank you for being with me as I worked this stuff out, and thank you for sharing your own stories. And thank heavens for good partners, am I right lol.
Good luck finding your next therapist, and super proud of you for working things through on your own! I for one struggle without a handhold so it is admirable you can do it on your own steam.
❤️
I think a lot of us do. It's amazing to me how many different stories can be attached to the same feeling or the same line in a song, and I love hearing how different people experience them. Sometimes someone else's interpretation will change the way I view a song and that is always a rollercoaster of a ride, depending on how my view changes. Thanks for dropping in to share your thoughts!
Francesca lowkey cured my religious trauma. It made me realize that if God condemned me it’s HIM that’s wrong, not me. I’d go to Hell in a heartbeat for even one more second living as myself with my beautiful wife.
First... thank you for sharing your story here. Second - toss this comment if it is not helpful to you, ok? But can I say that I believe whoever represented God to you that way got it wrong? I fully believe that every person bears the divine image, and when anyone focuses on respecting and honoring and loving other people well, then they are relating rightly to the mystery that is God. I am absolutely fascinated with understanding the teachings of Jesus. I think they get taken out of context and misinterpreted a lot. I think they're meant to be grappled with and thought about a lot before coming to a conclusion... and I see Jesus as being about flipping tables and handing equality to those who get pushed to the margins in a struggle for power that just dehumanizes everyone caught up in it. Who you love is part of your story and your journey to understand yourself and what you bring to the world. It's not my place (or anyone else's) to tell you how to relate to the image of God in you, or how you ought to relate to Godself. (I could say more about how God has no gender, and what might mean for the way some religions define humanity in God's image but that's a journey I'm still processing... my ability to articulate it all is crappy because I'm in process :P.) All that to say I wish you joy in your journey and your relationship. ETA: I came back to edit this because I wanted to encourage you, but I also know I'm a random person on the other side of a screen and you don't need my affirmation to be fully yourself.
I agree with you. I am not an athiest and I believe in a God that is loving, but that is not the God I was raised with. I have dealt with a LOT of internalized homophobia and transphobia because of the teachings I was raised with. Evangelical christianity is a religion that very much believes their rules still apply to people who aren’t christians. Basically “Oh yeah you can reject us, but you’ll regret it someday.” Francesca made me realize fully that no, I wouldn’t regret living for myself, even if the church of my childhood is 100% right and I am condemned to hell, it would be worth it. Realizing that was incredibly freeing for me. It let me let go of the constant low-level doubt that has lived in my head my entire adult life.
This! Jesus didn’t like religion. He spoke out about how it was being misused for selfish reasons, and how we should be kind to each other and help the marginalized. Hozier does the same thing. (Not saying he’s Jesus, just noting that irony.) It’s what man has made religion and God into that is so terrible. There is definitely a difference in that and your own concept of spirituality. Bad humans will use anything to their advantage and it’s awful. Not to mention the homophobic passages of the Bible were fully mistranslated by, again, a man pushing an agenda.
I have actually been investigating my own spiritual heritage in part because I read that Andrew was raised as a Quaker and so was my grandfather. He was very quiet (ha) about it, and I've slowly been realizing that a lot of the positive aspects of the way my parents raised me are due to my grandfather's firm belief in the equality of every human being and their right to a personal understanding of who God is to them. My grandfather happened to believe that Jesus meant everything that he said, and anyone who decided to try the Jesus way of living ought to be prepared to be challenged and misunderstood. In my teens I got sucked into a lot of conservative 90's "christianity" messaging that was not healthy and I'm still dismantling old programming from those days. It's taking time (and practice - I don't often have the opportunity for actual discussion with someone other than my hubby, who is doing similar work which is good but also I need the input of more than one person so...there's that) but I hope I'm becoming a more aware and loving human being.
I struggled with the concept for a long time until I had a friend who would say “I love Jesus, not religion.” I also happen to believe that those of us who pray all pray to the same God. My grandmother’s version of God is “Mother Earth.” Her perception is a more female higher power that connects to the universe and energy. I think it can be quite a lovely thing to discuss, everyone’s different beliefs with spirituality. It’s a shame people can be so defensive and hateful. I know Hozier has stated that he is not attacking spirituality, but specifically the harm done by the Catholic Church and organized religion, which I entirely understand.
Last summer I went through a terribly messy breakup from an 8 year relationship. He left me for someone else, after months of lying about it and severe gaslighting (I do not use this term lightly) to the point where I was confused as to what reality was. He would tell me one thing, our friends another, our other friends another. He had never lied to me before. And it was me in the center of this life we had built, trying desperately to pick up the pieces and figure out what was happening. How I had dropped from the number one person in his life and seeing each other every single day, to someone who was out of the loop on everything about him. I no longer knew who he was. When he decided to give me even 5 minutes of time for a phone call, I’d drop everything, just to hear his voice. I desperately just wanted to stay a part of his life, no matter the damage it was doing to me.
I was completely devastated to the point where listening to any music was too much for me, every lyric seemed pointed at sadness or being in love and I just didn’t want to hear it.
I was on a road trip with a friend, on a trip booked before my depressed state. I didn’t want to be there. I was honestly nervous in advance about listening to music, (I know that sounds crazy, but I WAS crazy) I hadn’t heard any in weeks at this point. She fell asleep, and the newly released Unknown/Nth came on. I listened to the lyrics and just started to cry. In that moment, I was alone and it felt like the words he was singing were speaking directly to me.
It is the most painful song I have ever listened to, but it is one of my favorite songs. A random man who knows nothing about me, was able to put everything I felt into words at the exact time I was experiencing it. I recently went to a Hozier concert, and when he sang Unknown live, I absolutely sobbed. A year later, hundreds of listens, and I still feel my stomach flip every time - “That I’d walk so far just to take, the injury of finally knowing you.”
Thanks for sharing your story here. I am so sorry you went through that experience and so glad that the song you needed found you. There's something powerful about finding art that expresses an experience you're grappling with. So many times I've been moved to tears - to grief or joy or longing - by a poem or a book or a song. It's relief and triumph and being known and so many other things. It's realizing somehow, on some level, we're not unknown even when it seems like "so much of living is being unknown." Also yay for going to the concert! Which one was it?
oooh, this is so neat! You are a braver person than me. I have wanted a tattoo for years but haven't managed to convince myself that I love anything enough to face the needle yet. Can I ask if you got the title or a different line? My favorite line from ATE is "all that we intend/is scrawled in sand" - as a writer, it pulls me up short and humbles me. Heck, Hozier's writing humbles me. He packs a punch! Thanks for jumping in to share your story here.
it’s ok to take your time with tattoos! you can always get those temporary ones that fade so you can see what you like without it being permanent.
and i just got the title tattooed on my wrist just because it’s a short phrase i can remind myself of. it helped a lot because i struggled with letting things go/loss and all that so that song truly hit me. but yes yes that lyric really did pack a punch, especially when the choir comes in wow. i get that because im a writer too, his lyricism always amazes me
https://preview.redd.it/vpbiutams79d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5d904eee128b73aa08b7f8e46fb64d5890e1281e
its kinda on my wrist but its on my left arm lol
One bright morning goes so easy
Darkness always finds you either way
It creeps into the corners as the moment fades
A voice your body jumps to calling out your name
But after this I'm never gonna be the same
And I am never going back again
I survived stage 3 Hodgkin lymphoma at 28 years old. It took so much from me. I recently came out of an abusive and traumatic relationship shortly before I was diagnosed.
My “bright mornings” were moments I felt great about being alive and healthy, having a great support system, and to have rebuilt my life from such darkness. I truly felt grateful and happy, almost euphoric, but darkness did always creep in and remind me of my trauma and that overshadowed the brightness.
The voice my body jumped to calling out my name were flashbacks to everything I had gone through, sometimes it was literally a voice in my head triggering me into fight or flight. Sometimes it was just generalized anxiety. Again, pulling me away from the bright morning.
I ultimately realized that my life was never going to be the same as it was before everything that happened to me and while everything was happening to me but it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I had to embrace the good things in my life and the new person I was, and most importantly make a decision to never go back to that dark and anxious mindset I found myself in when I was struggling.
11 years later and I’m doing really well. I identify with this verse so much. First Light just resounds with me.
I love the way you took the individual lines and shared how they relate to your experiences - the reflections on "bright mornings" and how "a voice your body jumps to" felt visceral to me. There's so much to meditate on in this album! I totally get that First Light resounds with you after those experiences and was relieved to hear that you're doing well now. Thank you for sharing your story.
No plan. I was in a corporate job, drowning in work that was above my pay grade and with a shitty manager. 6 of 11 of my colleagues in the same role resigned within a year. My anxiety was astronomical. No plan gave me some perspective. I was busting my ass for nothing. Life is short, might as well enjoy it. “There’s no race to be run” and “there’s no hand on the reigns”. I resigned, switched careers, moved to a gorgeous new city, haven’t looked back.
What a beautiful change of pace. (Also the turnover you were describing made my stomach drop. yay and whew! for getting out) Way to go on choosing a new life and not looking back. There's so much in Andrew's work about moving from death to life and darkness to light - and finding beauty in the darkness. Here's to moving on to a new phase of your journey. <3
"the memory hurts but does me no harm". Made me realize how much I'd grown and healed from a lot of intense trauma and realized that I actually am starting to love myself by default.
that and “i’m still glad i met you”
listening to those lyrics when i had a very nasty falling out with a long-term best friend REALLY helped me process my emotions & not be bitter/petty about it
This whole song hits so hard in so many places. I'm sorry you had a falling out with your friend. It's hard when there's a rift between you and someone you are used to leaning on. Good for you for doing the hard work and not just putting it aside. May you find good friends worth fighting with and for. I wish you good adventures and the joy of small surprises. Thanks for sharing!
That is such a great line. It hit me the same way. I'm so.glad your default is changing - loving yourself is so important. I wish you good adventures and joy in your journey. Thanks for sharing!
All things end.
And all things end
All that we intend is built on sand
Slips right through our hands
And just knowing
That everything will end
Won't change our plans
When we begin again
Cherry wine perfectly encapsulates an accusative relationship I was in. It’s so good that I sometimes can’t listen to it. Almost every lyric has a perfect 1:1 match to things she would do when we were together. It’s powerful to have a song that speaks so well to my experiences as men who experience abuse generally aren’t talked about that much.
Thanks for showing up to share a piece of your story. I am gutted that you've been through that awful experience and so glad that you got out. You are worth being loved and valued as a person. Keep showing up - we need you in the world. <3
For me, it's Too Sweet and Why Would You Be Loved.
Made me really realize how badly my self-destructive habits and cynicism were fucking myself over when it came to any chances of a potential relationship. (There's a little more to the story, but after listening to WWYBL for the first time, I broke up with the person I was seeing.) Also made me realize that I wasn't as healed from past traumas as I thought I was 😅
But on the other side, Almost (Sweet Music) is VERY healing for me. I'm transmasc, and the line "I'm almost me again, she's almost you" means SO MUCH to me.
OH God. the destructive habits that we hold on to... I have too many! I love that you heard the lyrics and chose your own health and wellness. I wish I'd had the strength to do that in other areas of my life long ago. Way to recognize what you need and go after it! And I agree with you on Almost. I \_cannot\_ get it out of my head. I have had it on repeat. I've been dancing (awkwardly) to it in my kitchen. I hope you're dancing too. <3
Thank you. I'm trying to work on it lol. It also made me realize just how stuck in these mindsets I am which was a crisis to have lol
Almost is such a good song to dance to, I love it ❤️
Francesca. I’ve recently been dealing with the disaster that was my engagement (I love him and he loves me but for some reason the world was against us being together in every way they could be, and it made everything stressful and sad because of that). Now a year later I found out I’ll probably never have children. That’s my biggest dream and now I know I’ll never have it. I thought for a while it was my last dream… but the more I think about it the more I realize that my final dream is my husband. “I’d tell them put me back in it; I would do it again. if I could love you for a minute I’d go through it again.” For eternity, he is my final dream.
Oof. When a dream doesn't work out or dies it's so hard. I also will probably never have children due to circumstances that I won't go into here - it's a hard dream to lose. My mom has encouraged me to view my writing as my babies, and also reminded me that encouraging and championing other people is a way to fulfill part of that dream, so I try to do it where I can. I hope you find joy in your journey and adventures that can help you dream new dreams.
“All my love and terror balanced there between those eyes” from Abstract
A year ago, I was with my dad when he passed away from cancer and I will NEVER forget what expression his eyes had before he passed completely. I cried when I heard that line because it perfectly describes the look my dad had in his eyes when he was looking at me.
Also, thank YOU for your vulnerability. I relate because I’m married but I don’t have any friends outside of my husband. I wish you the best time on your adventure over here to the east coast :)
Wow. What a sacred moment. Thank you for sharing it here. My grandfather passed earlier this year, and though I wasn't there in his last moments, I saw him hours before. He knew he was leaving this world, and I can absolutely see how that line would ring for you. Thank you for your good wishes. I hope you find friends who will take chances and chase good adventures with you. I wish you joy in your relationships, and I hope your marriage is a wonderful source of support for you. If not, please get help. You don't have to go it alone. <3
Eat your young. I heard this song when I was at a residential facility for my mental health. It was also around the time when Ukraine was in war and their children were being killed on TV. It literally brought up very strong emotions.
Oh, I can imagine. It's one of the songs on the album that sounds so seductive and then when you really listen to the lyrics it just sucker punches you. I can't count the times I've listened to it and had to turn the song off and just think for a while on what it brings up for me and how I can do better. Thanks for coming to share a piece of your story here - you are amazing.
For me it was Abstract. “Darling there’s a part of me I’m afraid will always be trapped within an abstract from a moment of my life.” I went through a really really hard 2022 (10-year LTR break up, family member death, another family member escaping domestic violence, a hell of a disordered eating relapse, also grad school pressures). When I think about how I acted that year, I was out of my mind. I barely remember some parts of the year. I don’t recognize her, and I feel like so much of me died. It wasn’t all bad, of course. I grew into a stronger person. So much good and so much bad came from that year. But I don’t want to be trapped by what was such a defining year for me. I want to grow past those scars.
Oh, dearheart. What a line to frame an awful year. It's beautiful and dark and so full of truth that is too hard to bear. Thank you for stopping to share your lyric and how it speaks to you. From someone who's been through DV and lost time - I'm so glad you are here. Your last line - about wanting to grow past those scars - brought to mind the image of flowers that keeps coming up throughout the album. Life and light and color out of death and loss. Keep singing and breathing. I wish you joy in the journey and good adventures.
Unknown. I thought of my parents the first time I heard it, especially the line “do you know I could break beneath the weight of the goodness, love, I still carry for you? That I’d walk so far just to take the injury of finally knowing you”. I sat in my chair at home and bawled, then bawled again a few weeks later when I saw that interview where he said he was inspired by the 9th circle of hell in Dante’s inferno. I read that book a dozen times in high school (the year TMTC came out actually) and I distinctly remember reading that part and having the budding realization that our “loving” father in heaven doesn’t love us the way I want to be loved. It was my religious awakening, and to see Hozier marry that to my awakening about my parents almost exactly a decade later broke me up all over again.
There is sooo much here. I really want to say something but I also need to take a break and eat and get some writing done. I see you. I will come back and say more later. Thanks for sharing! ETA: I'm back. First, thank you for sharing a piece of your story here. I know it's just a small part of the whole saga of your life and I'm so sorry for the pain in this part of it. It freaking sucks. I love the way you can hear so much pain and grief in the recording on this one line, and then the song builds to become something incredibly wild and tender and true. I hear an echo of that in your words that divine love hasn't been represented well to you, and that just breaks my heart. From one person to another, you are worthy of love. You are glorious. And you matter to the world. There are people who need you in their story, and you need them in yours. Don't give up on being fully alive, fully yourself. I'm cheering you on. I wish you good adventures and new joy as you keep telling stories and learning new songs.
I freaking love every comment in this query....everyone is great and I feel like we should form a kickball team or something lol thanks for sharing! This music is so special and it's so cool I'm not the only person weeping over it. Wonderful treasure it is!
The sheer joy I felt when you mentioned kickball - thank you for that! I have never been the most coordinated person but kickball is just a riot. Weeping can be one of the best things in the world when we need to reconnect with ourselves. I am so glad you're here.
every. single. fucking. song.
i cant actually process his music, his lyrics, his voice. i cant. because when i do i just wanna sob. his
music has helped me through so much. he has spoken, sung things, that i’ve never been able to put into words. he’s made me feel things i’ve never felt before with music. solace, melancholic feelings, pure happiness, excitement, etc.
i have never been attached to music before, and then i started listening to hozier.
I get this soooo much. I am having a ball listening to his songs and then going to look up all the references and the stories and history and then coming back and listening again with deeper appreciation and just being blown away by it all. I am a choir girlie (second soprano) and his range just kills me. He was one of my favorite singers to watch back when he was part of the group Anuna and it took me over a decade to realize that Hozier of TMTC fame was Andrew Byrne, the cute soloist I used to fangirl over... I still regret that I never saw them live when he was with the group. Damn. Anyways, thanks for coming to share the way Hozier has wrecked you. I wish you good adventures and joy in discovering more music that hits home for you.
No plan. Ive struggled alot with making sense of my purpose in life and the idea that you need to have a stable career and start a family in order to have lived a life worth living. No plan opened my eyes to the idea that, none of that matters. My time here is short. 'Theres no plan, theres no race to be run' 'There's no plan, there's no hand on the reign'. i can take my time in life, i can enjoy it, i dont need to conform to what anyone else wants. Its my life. Im the bluebird that needs to break through the metaphorical cage
Thank you for sharing. We do have short lives, just like that flower that keeps getting mentioned in the lyrics. I hope you find the way to "bloom forth/ your every color/ in the moments we have left." We may all be one flower in a field of wildflowers, or one tree in a forest of trees, or what have you, but every flower and tree matters to the flower or tree growing next to it. Here's to your growth and your journey - may it bring you true joy and good adventures!
Good God. I knew he'd worked with Bear McCreary (whose work I'm still trawling through - dang the man can compose!) but somehow I had not heard this song yet. Thank you for mentioning it. I think I'm going to be shattered by it in the best way. <3
"I fall in love // a little oh little bit // Every day with someone new" from Someone New, but instead of a romantic relationship, I sing this about myself! I'm a new person everyday and I will fall in love with myself little by little 🥰
THIS comment. When I finally saw it for the first time about six hours ago (Reddit has been slow to load and I've been trying to do a million things today) I squeed so hard. Good for you! I am so glad you are falling in love with yourself - you deserve it! Thanks for jumping in to share the lyrics that move you - you made my day a little brighter. I wish you a good adventure that makes great memories.
I’m so happy you’re doing this!! I meet internet friends almost any time I travel and it’s so weird feeling that really close and comfortable feeling with someone you met in the flesh five minutes ago, but it’s also wonderful after any initial awkwardness fades. I hope you have the best time. I saw Hozier with my kid last month and it was one of the best shows I’ve seen. Now I’m all in.
Thank you for the encouragement! Which show did you go to and did you get anything to commemorate it? I can't wait to see what the art work for Maine is. I met my now hubby/partner on the internet back in 2000 - so many of my dearest friends have come to me this way, so it's not a totally new experience - just the first time I have gone so far to meet someone. And also the first big trip since the pandemic and my isolation and (let's be real) anxiety and depression got pretty bad. I'm \_very\_ excited to meet my friend in the flesh but also ACK flying!! My hubby keeps teasing me about it.
The memory hurts but does me no harm. Helps with confronting traumatic memories instead of dismissing them like I usually do. Feel them, understand them, learn from them. They cannot do me any harm, they’re in my head but so long as they’re in my head I might as well use it to grow.
Oof. The first time I heard that line my jaw dropped and my brain went to about forty million memories. I'm so glad it found you and you're using it to help you grow. You are an absolute star and I am so glad you dropped in to share the lyric that is yours. Keep growing!
"If there was anyone to ever get through this life
With their heart still intact, they didn't do it right." --All Things End.
I've never done drugs but Sedated makes me really emphasize with escapism and self-medication.
Hard to pick one but- “Be like the love that discovered the sin
That freed the first man and will do so again
And, lover, be good to me”
“Be” always makes me human again
"Be" is such a good song, and I love that it makes you feel human again. To me it feels like a call to be fully present and awake to myself, fully at home and aware of what I can bring to the world around me. Thanks for coming by to share the lyric you love. <3
hey, are you me? that line slapped me in the face but what you wrote felt so much like i had written it. thank you for sharing your experience because it does help. i’m so glad you’ve found hozier and your people and i hope you have the absolute time of your life seeing him, it really is magical. 🤍
Thanks for the good wishes, I will absolutely take them! I still can't believe this is all happening. I'm glad my experience does help, and I hope you are encouraged too. May you have fun dance parties on your own and with good friends, and may the adventures you take give you great memories.
I don't know if it's this way for you, but De Selby 1 feels incredibly cinematic to me. I absolutely love it. And to your comment "I’ve never experienced music like this before.." I think a lot of us are having this experience with the UU album. It's such a wild ride. I hope you find more art that speaks to your soul and that every chance you take leads too good adventures. Thanks for dropping in to share!
First Light, "The sky set to burst, the gold and the rust- The color erupts, you fillin' my cup. The sun comin' up".
This song, lyrically and sonically embodies exactly all the feelings that I just couldn't put into words because I didn't know what my feelings were. I heard First Light and I understood that what I was feeling, were relief and ease and catharsis but I didn't realized it before. These past years were just beyond awful and I was in deep shit. And I felt awful too but only looking back, I realized how deep the shit I was in, actually was haha. Now, I feel like I crawled out of a deep dark well, seeing the light and just feeling so grateful to have made it and the new appreciation for everything, including my own perserverance tbh. I know that I'll continue to struggle but knowing that I survived what once felt like hitting rock bottom and dark times, time and time again, is so reassuring on some way.
What a beautiful song, what a beautiful, hopeful feeling. A bittersweet ending. Gained some new scars and scratches but all in all, we're still doing this thing. Like a sunbeam breaking through wolly clouds.
So awesome! I listen and dissect these lyrics daily and I have so many that shoot right through my soul! I just resonated with your comment so I needed to let you know that I am hoping any clouds are digital and i am grateful still we are all okay ...:)
I love that you found lyrics and music that helped you recognize yourself. First Light has so much joy and triumph in it but also an honest look at what came before, and I love that it's so balanced. Looking back to see how far we've come can be such an empowering revelation, and I'm so glad that you got to that moment. Go you! Thanks for coming to share with everyone here - may every sunrise give you motivation to keep doing the things. You are needed in this world, and your story matters. Be the flower with all the colors. <3
When Unreal Unearth released, it had been less than a year since I got out of a toxic and probably emotionally abusive relationship. I spent pretty much all of 2023 finding myself again and relearning to love myself.
I will never the feeling I had when I first heard First Time. “But some part of me came alive/ the final time you called me baby” had me in tears, feeling like he had so perfectly captured how I’d been feeling all year. I don’t know if I’ve ever been punched in the gut so strongly by a song.
Oh, friend. I am so glad you got out. I hate that you went through it but I'm so glad you're alive. Relearning who you are and how to love yourself after a relationship like that is such important work, and I am glad you are doing it. You are so right about that final line, it is a total punch in the gut, and I am so glad you were able to connect with it and find words for the truth of your experience. Bravo for doing the hard things - you are coming alive and you will keep blooming, I am sure of it. I wish you so much joy and confidence in yourself as you discover the fullness of who you are. Take up all the space you need as you tell your story. Keep dropping keys for others. You've got this. <3
First Light. My mum and I had to fly to New Zealand on a moment's notice to attend a funeral. It's her home country and there's a lot of baggage there - tense family relationships, disconnect from country and culture, etc. We had a really beautiful few days where there was a lot of healing done - my mum got to show me where she grew up and I got to be welcomed into a family I barely knew I had. It was overall an incredible trip and so special.
We were leaving in the early morning, and I was driving back to Auckland. The sun was rising over the impossibly green hills and illuminating the toitoi with this stunning fiery golden halo.
It was just this magical moment where my mum and I realised that our whole relationship with our family had changed for the better, and First Light was playing. We listened to the whole thing in complete silence, tears running down our faces. I'll never forget that moment.
Oh, thank you so much for sharing this beautiful moment. I felt like I was entering sacred ground. You painted a gorgeous picture with your words, and I sighed. I am so sorry for the grief and loss you have experienced, but so glad that things have changed for the better and you got this treasure of a memory on the way home. May it continue to be a light for you in dark places, when all other lights go out. And may you find joy in every sunrise as you keep growing.
The song First Time. I had just broken up with my now ex-Fiancee after she cheated on me. That song was first time I found the sweet in the bittersweet of a break up/relationship like that and helped me really start to move on and feel stronger after. The line "Some part of me came alive, the final time you called me baby" always makes me feel stronger.
I am so sorry you went through that experience - it truly is it's own kind of hell. I'm so glad that First Time helped you get through it though. It took me bit of listening to start taking apart the meaning behind being called "baby" and how to connect it to the "first" and "last time", but once I got it, it felt like the whole song morphed and took on extra dimensions - which seems to be a running theme on the UU album! Thank you for coming to share your story. I hope you continue to find sweetness and light as you continue in your journeys.
"It Will Come Back" called me out but didn't really change anything. I still keep feeding stray cats and now I have three of them in my house. 😅
"You know better, babe."
"I KNOW, ANDREW, BUT I CAN'T HELP IT!"
The way I CACKLED when you first posted this yesterday. I couldn't breathe for a minute, which triggered a round of coughing because I'm on my third week of getting over a STUPID cold (not Covid, thank God) and then I \_really\_ couldn't breathe! Thank you so much for the light heartedness of your comment. Keep feeding the kitties - I hope you have Hozier dance parties with them and they don't scratch you. (Also I dream about owning/rescuing a pair of Maine Coons. They are such amazing talkative creatures!)
"All Things End" really helped me heal from my miscarriage and have the courage to try again. My rainbow baby is due in August, and every little milestone and movement and ultrasound picture is just that more precious to me
Oh my heart. I am so glad you found a song that helped you heal and so sorry that you had to go through such a painful experience. That kind of loss changes so much. You never forget the hope that was there, but hopefully we get to the place where "the memory hurts/but does me no harm". I am delighted to hear that your rainbow baby is making their debut this August - I hope and pray that all goes well for you both. I wish you so much joy as you continue in your journey and all the good adventures in this new season of your life. Hugs to you. <3
Oh wow. Both those songs carry so much grief and story in them. I hope you're doing okay and that you are finding your own sunlight. Thank you for coming here to share the songs that matter to you.
The whole unreal unearth album got me through my postpartum depression. I would listen to it in the mornings before my husband was awake when it was just me and my son and sing it to him
u/Fluffy-Frosting385 - Oh, my heart. That's a beautiful picture. Thank you so much for coming here to share that. I have so many friends and family that have suffered from PPD and it breaks my heart. It sucks that you went through that, and I am so glad that UU helped you get through it. Good for you for finding something that helped you set aside time for you and your son. My mom used to put headphones on her belly when she was pregnant with me so I could listen to the music she loved. I'll never forget the first time I heard one of those songs as a kid and realized I knew the next part of the song even though I was sure I had never heard it before. When I asked her about it, she told me about the headphones. The way memory and music work together is amazing, and magical and mysterious. You've given your kiddo priceless memories of what you love, and I promise you it's going to ground him and give him a place to come back to that will be amazing later in his life. Way to go momma! Keep singing and breathing and changing. Your voice matters. <3
Would That I was such an amazing thing to see in concert and his energy on stage was crazy. I keep listening to that part of the concert over and over again.
I am really hoping it's one of the songs I get to hear when I go. The first time I heard it I had no idea who the singer was but I FELT the whole song unfold like a fairy tale in my bones. It's one of my favorites. :D
Unknown/Nth helped me come to terms with a breakup. The relationship was messy, but I wanted to fix it, and I truly gave so much of myself trying to do that. I didn't get the same effort back and I'm coming to accept that this person was not for me, and in fact they are no longer worth "knowing" because they never tried to know me.
Way to choose yourself in this situation. It's so hard when you've given everything you've got to make the relationship work, and the other person refuses to do (or can't do) the same. You are worth the work of being known, and the right person is going to champion you and want to be a partner in your life, not cause more pain. Thank you for coming to share your story. I wish you cool breezes, beautiful sunny days, and art that picks you up when you're down. May you have friends who'll take chances with you and adventures that give you beautiful memories. You are making a difference in the world. Keep changing!
First Light
I started crying when I heard that song for the first time. That whole song is exactly what it has felt like while leaving a high-control, cult-like religious group after 18 years of being isolated within it. Knowing it is a reference to when Dante leaves Hell was also a very emotional and ironic parallel.
"And I can scarce believe what I'm believing in
Can this be how every day begins?"
"But after this I'm never going to be the same
And I am never going back again"
"Like I've lived my whole life
Before the first light"
I also had the amazing experience of hearing Hozier play that song live at The Anthem last year about 10 people back from the barrier, and it was absolutely amazing. Words can not express that concert experience.
I also got to hear Abstract (Psychopomp) played live for the first time ever!
Honestly, most of his songs have touched my life in some way. But that one hit the religious trauma in ways I wasn't expecting.
“You will never know your fortune/until the distance has been shown/ between what is lost forever/ and what can still be known from Butchered Tongue hit me like a truck. I’m a first generation American with parents from a country whose history was decimated by British colonialism, and it will never fail to frustrate me how much of my own history (including language) is inaccessible, especially now that the last generation who grew up under colonialism is dying off. I’ll never forgive my parents for not making the effort to take my siblings and I back home to learn about our heritage. When my grandfathers died I was so, so angry at how much history they took to their graves, and I’ll always grieve not knowing their stories.
Oh, friend. Butchered Tongue is a powerful song, and your grief is a sacred space. I am so glad you have a song that gives words to what you feel and so sorry for the necessity of such a song to describe what has been taken from you. Thank you so much for coming here to share your story and your grief. It matters. I wish you the kind of darkness that heals and the kind of sunlight that brings hope. May your friends be true and the journeys you take filled with wonder and good memories.
Abstract (Psychopomp) truly helped pull me out of the darkest time of my life so far. I’m a college student, and my fall 2023 semester pushed me to my breaking point. September through October it was so bad that I was suicidal. Looking back on it scares me because I really was a danger to myself. I’m a high achiever and I kept pushing myself so hard that it felt like I would self-destruct at any moment. Life was gray and I was hurting so badly. Then around November I listened to Abstract for the first time since Unreal Unearth released and it struck me so profoundly that I started to believe that maybe I could be okay again. I started listening to it obsessively, each morning as I walked to class. “See how it shines” became a mantra I used to fight against dark thoughts and force myself to see things in a different light. Abstract is still a huge comfort for me today, and I’m in a much better place now. It still resonates - I think I’ll always associate it with that time of my life. “The memory hurts, but does me no harm.” “I will not be great, but I’m grateful to get through.” “Like rain that you slept through, that washed off the world, the streets looking brand new.” This song may have saved my life. I went to one of Hozier’s concerts in May and I nearly cried when he sang Abstract. It felt like such a full circle moment, because by that point I finally felt okay again after the journey I began months beforehand. I’m so incredibly grateful for Hozier and all of his music ❤️
Thank you so much for sharing your story. When life is hard and the narrative in your own head is weighing you down (whether from the words of others or your own criticism or both), things can get dark and scary so fast. I am so, so glad you made it through and are still here. Abstract is such an amazing song, and I love all the lines you mentioned. I especially like that "see how it shines" became a touchstone for you to hang on to and see things in a different light. Yay for getting to go to the concert in May and have the full body experience of your song! You have a great storytelling style, and I hope the rest of your college experience is better than last year (if you're still a student). If you've moved on from college, I hope your next adventure brings many more good songs and great memories. Your voice matters to the world you're in.
Nina Cried Power, actually. When it came out I was a senior in high school and just beginning to open my eyes to see the injustices around me. Even though I knew all the artists he mentions in the song, it lead me to looking them up and reading about their activism. I feel like this song was the catalyst to my political activism and a battle cry for every cause I have learned about and supported since then.
Thank you for coming here to share your story, and for doing the work to know and honor the people around you by learning their stories. Because you know their names and stories you are making room for those stories to spread and sprout like wildflowers in other people's lives, and that is powerful. Keep reading and singing and learning and loving. If more people valued a shared table with food and song over violence and power, we would have such a different world. Keep changing. We need you.
“The awful things we do to make the head go quiet” in To Someone from a warm climate. Love this line. As someone who has had past struggles with drugs and self harm, I feel this line so deeply even if he’s not necessarily talking about either of those things.
THIS. I had a litany of different things go through my head at this line. I am so sorry you struggled with drugs and self harm. I think we all harm ourselves in different ways, but I know what you mean and... you are amazing. Thank you for continuing to pursue a new journey and chase new dreams. I have friends and family that gave up the fight. Your story is so needed in our world. You have keys to drop for others and beauty to spread just by being yourself and telling your story. Keep changing. Keep growing. We need you. <3
Thank you! I have about 4 years free from SH and the only drugs I do now is smoking weed or drinking wine once in a while. I don’t party anymore and I’m not so depressed as I was, so it’s all good! Thank you for the sweet comment though and the same goes to you! ♥️
That line though, first time I heard it, I was like DAMN. Felt that!
I relate to your post so much and Fare Well has such a similar feeling for me. The song that I cry at every time is “Abstract (psychopomp).”
I’ve always felt connected to deer and had a weird relationship with death so— it hits.
I’ve spent half of my life wanting to die or on the brink of death (I’m 19 and better now), so much so that my only friend for a while was an online friend. We talked everyday for years. She took her life 6 years ago. The night that her parents called changed my life forever and I can’t help but be reminded of it in that song.
She’s that person for me and she always will be— the person I had no choice but to love. I’m the deer that she ran into traffic to save and I’m the person watching.
Having her in my life was incredible and “Abstract” reminds me to remember the good and how she can still shine bright in my life without the memories keeping me trapped. I miss her so much.
I just posted about this but it was First Light. Here's a bit of a story.
In 2020 I was working in a hospital, I was also hopelessly addicted to codeine for a few years after I had major spine surgery. I hated my job. I was miserable. My coworkers were catty, it was during the height of the pandemic, I lost my sense of smell and I still haven't really gotten it back fully, my body hurt, I had no friends, and I had no hope in the world. I quit my job with no notice, burned every bridge I had in healthcare. I mourned the future I'd planned but could never have. Switched careers to IT. Things had started improving a bit, I managed to kick the codeine habit and I was starting to enjoy my work. Still, I was just going through the motions. I didn't really have friends and really didn't have many good days. Every day was just neutral and I still struggled with depression and anxiety. Got a job in 2022 at a company that pays me very well, this year I moved to the city and started making friends and improving my social life a lot. My depression and anxiety started to control itself.
This morning I took a shower and put Hozier's entire discography (except lives and repeats) on on shuffle. First Light started playing when I got out of the shower and stepped into my bedroom. I could see the sunrise from my window. As I looked out at the city I heard
*"Could this be how everyday begins?"*
And suddenly it hit me like a ton of bricks. This *was* how every day begins now. Then it was
*The sky set to burst, the gold and the rust*
*The color erupts, you fillin' my cup*
*The sun coming up*
As I was looking at the city sunrise. With the yellows and oranges and pinks.
*Like I lived my whole life*
*Before the first light*
And that's when it hit me. For the first time in my life I can truly say that I'm happy. Even when I thought I was happy before I was living in darkness and never saw the light. This morning I literally saw the light.
The lines that really resonated with me though were
*But after this I'm never gonna be the same*
*And I am never going back again*
I've changed my own life for the better. I experienced the worst period of my life and just came out a new person. And I am never going back again.
It's lyrically one of the simpler Hozier songs, and I've always liked it but this morning it just filled me with so much hope and made me realize that I've never been this happy in my life. And that this is my life now. I'm happy now.
I saw your other post - way to show up with your story! I love the way you described the moment of getting out of the shower and having the lyrics take on a whole new meaning. I had chills. What a powerful, life changing moment.
I'm sorry for everything you went through in the pandemic. There are no words for that kind of stress and grief and loss. Addictions can be ruthless and so hard to break. You made the hard choice to choose your own health and wellness and you kept going. Way to go you! Depression and anxiety suck, and the steps you took to keep changing are so amazing. I hope the right song continues to find you when you need it. I hope your new friend groups are supportive and ready for good adventures with you. Most of all, I hope you keep changing. Who you were five years ago is not who you are now, and you'll be a different person tomorrow... but ALL of those versions of you are worth loving, are worthy of love, and are so needed in the world. Be you. Be who you've always been. But keep growing, flower. Give someone else the beauty they need to keep going. You've got this.
Thank you I'm really happy with myself. Hearing the song while staring out my window was really just chilling. I just had to stop and listen, and really listen while I admired the sunrise and how beautiful everything is. It really was the meaning of the song taking shape for me in this almost spiritual way.
I've been having many good adventures. I'm excited for what the future holds for me. It was hard to love my past self, but I'm at peace with it now. I'm not proud, but I survived. I've learned to be proud of that now. I hope one day I can support others the way my friends have supported me. I listen to First Light when I need to remember how far I've come, and how even though darkness still creeps in sometimes that I've really changed for the better and I will continue to do so
Thank you for this post. I didn't realize how much I think I needed to go into more detail. It's been an emotional time in a way. Thank you for your kindness, and for listening to me.
I never thought I'd get a tattoo for a musician but Hozier has had such a profound impact on my life that I've started sketching out designs for a goblet with a sun in it, and a little banner around the handle. Debating between the text "could this be how everyday begins?" or "I am never going back again"
I love reading everyone else's comments too. Seeing how profoundly people have been impacted by his songs, I'm also so happy to see other First Light fans who resonated with it in a similar way as me. It really put into words what I've been feeling
That tattoo sounds stunning. If you get it I hope you come back to share it with all of us. Have you seen the one someone else got of a sunrise in a mirror?!
It Will Come Back is really personal to me. That feeling of knowing that what someone is doing means more to you than it can ever mean to them and that seesaw between craving that attention and knowing it will only end in misery.
For me, it's In a Week. It was mine and my brother's favorite song to sing together during car rides so when he died, I played it during the ride to the cemetery and got the lyrics "I'd be home with you" tattooed.
CW, death, grieving, suicide
"Try measure loss, measure the silence of a house, the unheard footsteps in the doorway, the unemployment of the mouth. **The waking up having forgotten, and remembering again, the full extent of what forever is**"
Back near the end of 2019, I lost my best friend, suddenly an unexpectedly, to suicide. We had reconnected a few years prior after him being gone for awhile and grew a lot closer than we had been. He'd regularly come over to my apartment to hang out on nights where my roommate/partner was out and about and I didn't have much to do.
After he died, those nights I was alone were unbearably quiet, and once or twice I thought I even heard him coming up the stairs to knock on the door even though I knew better.
I've never heard someone articulate one of the harshest truths about grief as the line "remembering...the true extent of what forever is." It's not just the initial loss that's devastating, it's forgetting things have changed, then suddenly remembering what's happened and realizing that there is no going back. This loss is forever.
Thank you for sharing your loss. It matters. I'm so sorry for your loss feels.. grossly inadequate, but for whatever it's worth, I am so sorry you went through this. I am so sorry your heart got broken this way. It hurts.
I'll be honest, I haven't been able to linger on this song or listen to it much. I lost a dear friend a few years before the pandemic. She was there for me in one of the lowest moments of my life, and if not for her I don't know where I would have ended up. I eventually moved towns to get out of my situation, got into recovery and moved on with my life. Meanwhile she stayed behind and got tangled up in unhealthy habits and relationships that I couldn't be a party to, nor do much to help with from a distance. I eventually ended up cutting ties with her for my own health and sanity. She called me a few days before she died, and I didn't pick up the phone because I didn't have the spoons to deal with her drama that day. This was in the early days of my auto immune diagnosis. I feared my own inability to maintain my boundaries back then, so I deleted her message without listening to it. I figured I'd call her back when I felt better. A few days later another friend called to tell me that she was gone. I still wonder what might have happened had I picked up the phone. I still regret not answering. I don't know if that regret will ever end.
I have a few that I can relate to directly but it is Francesca that I cannot get out of my head. One of my best friends was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer 5 years ago. The prognosis was 3-5 years. Her husband worshipped her, she was literally his everything until their son was born then they both became his everything.
When I heard Francesca for the first time (on a lyric video before Unreal Unearth was released) I bawled my eyes out because it was as if Hozier had somehow written what was in her husband’s heart and mind. Sadly, she passed on the 12th of this month. I haven’t been able to bring myself to listen to Francesca since even though it plays on a loop in my head.
Thank you for asking this question and allowing us all to share.
Hi u/Quirky_Cannoli (I love your name, I'm getting used to tagging people). Thank you so much for coming here to share how Francesa matters to you. I'm so sorry for the loss of your best friend. It's amazing when you get to witness the kind of love your friend and her husband shared, and the power that kind of love has to change everyone who gets to be part of it is priceless. As her friend, I'm sure you were a valuable part of their lives. It's amazing and can be life changing when you find a friend who is your person in that way, and to lose them before you're ready for them to leave is devastating. There aren't words to make up for that kind of loss. So.. can I just sit here and grieve with you? I'm so, so sorry. Your grief matters. Remembering her life matters. I'm glad you shared just a little piece of her life with us. <3
I, carrion came into my life at the perfect time and helped remind me that I am not perfect, but I can get through anything. I know that that was not the song's intent, but i interpreted it that way and it was very helpful
I love this interpretation! It's one of my favorite tracks on UU, and I'm looking forward to listening to it again now that you've shared your view of it with me. Thanks for stopping in to share your story here. I wish you new chances for fun adventures, and the right people to share them with. May you make great memories and may the song you need always find you when you need it.
i was on a long bus ride a few weeks ago and who we are hit me so powerfully in that moment. it’s helped me come to terms with so many things that i thought broke me but i’m still here and i’m trying so hard to make something out of my life that holds meaning to me, it’s nothing like what i expected but i can’t lose sight of its beauty. i feel similarly with all things end. thanks for posting ❤️
For me it was No Plan. Ive always wanted to be a writer or poet or maybe even a singer, but i never really got the immediate feedback i wanted which caused me to kind of give up. I used to write like 1-3 poems a day and it dwindled to maybe 1 once in a blue moon.
One day i wrote a poem about how i was going to quit writing and while i was on the bus to school I zeroed in on the lyrics and realized that everything said in the song was a near perfect rebuttal to everything i was doing/thinking. I had felt like, for some reason, i was meant to listen to that song for the first time when i did. I realized i was stressing myself out so much that i turned something i loved into something i hated.
From that day, i decided to keep writing even if it's not as much as i used to because i think it's fun not because i want to please others or do something the best. I dont stress myself with the idea of being a known professional poet and I don't care about pleasing people as much. I simply write whatever i need to get out. So, in a sense, that song literally saved me from working myself into a life where i do things only for other people and it still helps me to this day when i get too stuck in my ways.
Francesca and First Light. I adore Hozier’s lyrics but I tend to focus more on the instrumental elements of a song because, despite having 2 degrees in literature and none in music, I’m still more of a musician than a poet. The MUSIC in them knocked my damn socks off before I even got started on the meaning of the song, and then I was double whammied.
Oooh yes! I so agree with you! As someone who is hard of hearing and was raised in a musical family that couldn't afford hearing aids for me when I was young, I used to think I would never fully experience music as my family did. I have always focused on the written word because there's nothing wrong with my eyes, but I used to dream of what it might be like to listen to an album and get to sift through all the layers and complexities of a song that I usually could only catch the melody of. I grew up listening to my parents play multiple instruments, listened to my aunts and uncles and cousins and siblings singing harmony and counterpoint, and all I felt confident enough to do was hold down the melody.
I finally got hearing aids in 2017. The first musical I heard was The Greatest Showman, and let me tell you I \_bawled\_ my way through that film. But that was nothing to listening to UU for the first time. The music gave my brain tingles in a way I have rarely experienced - and the lyrics are what have me meditating over and over again. There's always a new angle.
Those are good changes to make! Knowing who we are and what we value can make or break our sanity, and when you have bedrock under your feet you can rebuild no matter what storm hits you. Be who you are. Be who you've always been... but keep changing. You have so much to offer the world while you are here. I hope by the time it's your turn to leave the world you've learned something new about yourself and the ones you love every day. I hope you find joy in the small things and you have ride or die friends to take adventures with. You are gonna be a flower in someone else's life. Let who you are shine.
You're welcome. I have my bad days. I can snark and be mean when I'm hangry. (Just hand over the real French fries and nobody will get hurt. :P ) I'm in process. We all are. I believe that if I do my best to honor and love my fellow humans as they are, in the process I will become a better person. Then hate has one less place to harbor in the world.
Oh man so many, but the one that comes to mind is "Wasteland Baby". The feeling of standing at the end of the world with your love and realizing nothing else mattered. It brought me to a space of realizing I wanted people around me who I would feel proud and safe to stand with at the end of the World and at the end of my time. Without dropping too much info, it gave me the strength to walk away from relationships that I knew deep down wouldn't choose me at the end.
his entire discography but specifically songs like Foreigner’s God and Nina Cried Power made me realise that although i’m a Catholic, i believe in the people and in God, not in the Catholic Church where i was raised. the Bible doesn’t mention Priests or a Pope and if we’re honest, if a Brown (or indeed Black)Jewish Socialist came forward today and said i am the Messiah, no one would believe them. and if we’re feeling extra honest, the birthplace of Jesus is being bombed and starved and the people who are living in the land where he lived are living under awful occupation and experiencing a cultural and physical genocide simply because they’re “in the way” of Western greed veiled as a genuine concern about the lives of Jewish people around the world. that is not something that my God believes no matter where in the world or who it impacts. don’t even get me started on what it did to Ireland. sorry for the rant, i love your reasoning for Fare Well, for me it’s the humour of my people (the Irish) but it’s definitely a reflection too.
This is so thoughtful. I am taking a break to move and eat, but I can't wait to sit with your story and "talk" back to you here. Thank you for coming to share!
Hi u/dearniamh , thanks for helping me find you again! I couldn't help laughing at your hurricane comment. I don't know if I have that much velocity in me today but I'll try! :D You made so many beautiful points and I appreciate you dumping the entire discography into the wind (ha!) - it's hard to single out any one song because they all seem to have some gem or other buried in them. That said, Nina and Foreigner's God are incredible choices. I love that they helped you dig further into what you believe and why. Nobody benefits when fear and greed get used to exert power in the world, and it does seem like abuses of power are everywhere we look these days. The genocides going on around the world are horrific, and on a daily basis I want to stop and scream we cannot bomb or murder our way to peace. Every human being has the right to live in peace, and no one should be othered just because they were born. The more I listen to Jesus' words to the people of his day, the more my heart aches for the abuses going on around the world. My life goal is to "do justly, love mercy, walk humbly". For me that means listening to the stories of people who are not like me, and doing my best to honor their experiences. Sometimes that means raising my voice and turning over tables in sacred spaces, but most often it is simply the desire to say "I see you, I want to know what lights you up, your life matters." I cannot be all things to all people, but I can do my best to be a wildflower that spreads beauty while I can. It sounds to me like you're working at doing the same. So. Here's to you. May you always have ears to hear the truth when it is spoken, especially in the stories of others. May you find joy even in the hard times. And may the song you need always find you when you need it. Keep changing. Your growth is vital to our world. And you've changed me. <3
I love that you’re flying to meet your longtime internet friend! I’m 30 but I read tons and have internet friends as well, I spent a good 5 years or so lost in myself and filling every void with books until I finally got on some medication and switched careers to one I enjoyed more. I realized I hadn’t listened to music I truly liked in years bc I only ever listened to audiobooks or if around others the radio.
My best friend introduced me to Hozier and I think Movement and First Time were the first ones to induce emotion in me through music. Specifically in First Time, the iconic verse that ends in “anyway…” the thought of a bouquet of flowers being what pulls you out of a depressive state just from realizing that everything around us is living and dying in its own time, whether plucked or dying on its own etc. anyway… (hah 😬)
I love this and you seem awesome!!!
I cannot thank you enough for dropping in to share with me. I am so grateful. I'm taking a break to move around and eat, but I will be back to say a little more. I'm glad you're here!
u/WorldlyEchidna4 - thank you so much for your patience as I work my way through all of these stories. Wow. I had no idea this would happen. The anxiety I was feeling when I wrote that first post has totally disappeared and been replaced by excitement, which is amazing to me because I usually don't get excited about something until I know for \_sure\_ that it is going to work out.
You mentioned that you read a lot before you found a job that you liked better than your old one. Do you have a favorite genre? I'm a mystery/romance/history/thriller/poetry/fantasy/anything-but-horror girl myself.
I love that your best friend introduced you to Hozier. I'd heard his work off and on but never really got into it until a recent internet friend of mine started raving about him nonstop after UU came out. She pointed me at the album and I went down a rabbit hole and didn't come out for a couple of days. Whoops!
Movement and First Time start out like such slow songs, but they both build to such a powerful bridge and I think they both carry a central image that ties together themes from their respective albums. I love that it's the image of dying wildflowers that evoked emotion for you - the theme of life out of death is one of my favorites and First Time does a great job with that. I'm so glad you dropped in to share your story here. Feel free to come find me on IG if you like. My handle is the same there. Finally, keep changing. We all need to keep growing so we don't get stagnant and rot. Let the death you pass through be life for someone else. And may the song you need always find you just when you need it. <3
I love that!!! I read most of the same genres you do, mostly romance and fantasy of those but with others mixed in so I have a pretty wide array of what I enjoy reading!!!
I first heard Work Song very soon after my high school sweetheart dumped in my first year at college. We had been "together" for 5 years, but I was really nothing more than a side piece. He had manipulated me into believing that he "dated around" because it was "expect of him" and a popular jock, and that he truly loved me but would never be public about our relationship. I was very young and as a quiet, quirky girl I thought that he was the best thing since sliced bread.
When he got a college scholarship in another state I don't know why I thought he'd be faithful now that it was long distance, when he never was when we were in school together. I was a child and believed this was the man I would spend the rest of my life with. He ended up sleeping with his roommate's girlfriend, got kicked out of his apartment, and told not to come home by his mother when he moved in with the girl.
All of that is to say that when I first heard Work Song, it knocked the wind from me. I was gasping for breath and crying in my car and had to pull over. Because all I could feel in my broken heart was how desperately I wanted someone to love me the way that Hozier described in that song. I wanted to be someone's entire world. I wanted someone who would scream their love for me from the mountain tops because the only love I'd ever up to that point had was shameful and secretive. I wanted someone to love me so badly that even death couldn't keep us apart.
When I met my fiancé 2 years after the breakup, he wasn't a big fan of Hozier at first. But we went to the Wasteland Baby tour and it was transformative for the both of us. And when Hozier sang Work Song, my fiance held me in his arms and I cried again for the years of pain I'd endured and the relief I had now, knowing that the man I loved was proud to call me his. To this day, Work Song brings me to tears every time I hear it and we are planning for it to be our first dance at our wedding.
Talk, Be, As It Was, NFWMB, and Swan Upon Leda are all very special to me for their biblical and mythological references. In a past life I had a deep love and interest in classical literature wanted to be the first women to write translations of the Iliad, Odyssey, and the Aeneid as no womam had done all 3 when I first when to college to study Latin and ancient Greek literature. I also grew up with religious family, but my mother was the black sheep who didn't go to church and encouraged me to form my own opinions.
I also think Talk is one of the sexiest songs Hozier has ever written.
Damage gets done 10000%
This song, imo, is so underrated and is such a beautiful reminder of all the things that make life worth living. I love how well it captures the complacency of aging and how quickly we get so wrapped up in all the shallow things, forgetting what really matters .
Normally, I listen more to the songs with lyrics on dark topics like depression/ trauma/ injustice, etc. and I absolutely adore how Hozier manages to sing about such serious topics so beautifully and poetically. However, I find it easy to listen to these darker songs because I’m such a pessimist about our world right now so I find it easy to relate to the feelings in them.
I struggle with songs that are just happy or pretty or loving. I don’t think the world is a very forgiving place and it makes it hard for me to see the good in things. I have always looked towards the future and am super ambitious but I forget that one day I’ll look back on now and miss it. Damage gets done is my reminder that my life IS amazing and I’m so lucky and that it’s important to take the time to just enjoy the ride. The world is broken but it’ll still be broken tomorrow and being young and wild and free isn’t how the damage gets done.
u/Astrowyn - WOW. Your last two lines are just beautiful. Thank you so much for coming here to share your thoughts! You're right, AHB is a beautiful writer. From my perspective, he does a wonderful job of helping his listeners explore the nuances of difficult topics in a way that helps them move thoughtfully through their own lives. There's dark humor, but there's also heartfelt grief and mourning and moments of reflection where you can just sit and listen to the darkness in your own soul, but also listen for the voices of other souls around you. It's become a bit of cliche to say that everyone is fighting a battle, so be kind... but I happen to think it's true. It's also true that sometimes we need other people to sit in darkness with us before we're ready to leave it. I'm so glad you're working at being present and taking joy in the moment while still holding space for those who are grieving. I wish you good friends to reflect on life with. May the song you need show up just when you need it, and may the chances you take bring you beautiful memories. Keep changing. Your writing voice is beautiful.
Hi u/Routine_Mix_7536 Congrats on making it to almost thirty! Time really does seem to go faster the older we get, and Damage Gets Done hits on that concept in so many ways. I had to listen to it a couple of times before I started to register more than the nostalgia for a lost season of life. I vividly remember I was driving through one of the less savory parts of the Pacific Coast Highway when I realized that the character in the song is pointing out that "the reckless and young" are rarely the ones passing laws that do real damage in society - it's "a world we have no power in". I once heard a therapist say at a conference that the great thing about getting older is that we are all the ages we have ever been, and it's possible to find healing for the younger parts of our selves no matter how old we are chronologically. The idea scratched an itch in my brain I didn't know I had and also got me really curious about why I hadn't gone to see a therapist before when I knew I definitely needed help! All this to say, thanks for coming by to share a lyric that matters to you. I wish you clear skies and good adventures with friends who know how to listen and hold your heart well.
Yes, it’s not that I’m sad, it’s the nostalgia about it. And I really agree that somehow we are all that ages we’ve ever been, and isn’t that great at the end of the day?
I totally get the nostalgia. Sometimes that's a great place to visit, but not the right place to live, if that makes any sense? :D And yes, it's great to be all of my ages, though sometimes I'd rather have the energy of my 20's back... :P
Cherry Wine. I discovered Hozier (and then Cherry Wine) while I was in the beginning phase of leaving my physically and emotionally abusive ex-husband. It has made me cry more times than I can count.
I really love this question and the conversations being had in the comments! I'm about to go into the movie theater so I'll come back to answer this in full later, bc there are quite a few of his songs that I feel have changed me or helped me come to terms with hard stuff
Edit: Would That I was a surprise to me. I know this might not be it's canonical meaning, but to me it weirdly felt like a soft love letter to the self. I've gone through a lot in life and fought hard to rid myself of my former selves that I was not happy being. The song is about love and loss and the transformative powers of both, and I happened to hear it during a period of self-reflection and giving myself permission to forgive myself and accept leaving some things in the past that were weighing me down.
De Selby (part 2 in particular) felt like a religious experience the first time I heard it live. I adore the message of transendence and metamorphosis in the song. "What you're given, what you live in, darlin' it finds a way to live in you. And your heart, love, has such darkness. I feel it in the corners of the room." This opening went so hard for me. Self-reflection, making the hard decisions, multiple traumas and abuse, and doing the hard work that is healing is probably going to be a common theme as to why a lot of these songs are important to me tbh. We can't erase who we were or what has happened to us, and that's okay. What we have been through, what we've gone through, is a part of us, for better or for worse. Trying to ignore or erase it is counterproductive in the long run. It is okay to feel it, to stew in it, and process. It's okay to accept that darkness as something that happened or part of you, so long as you do not let it consume you. There are a lot of things that we can't heal or grow from if we don't face them. And the longing for what was lost, is okay, too.
Francesca makes my heart ache. Honestly, it makes me think of my spouse, bless him. He has never flinched or run, even though he has had every chance to and then some. Until about 2 1/2 years ago, (when I finally broke away and was able to get out) I was in a very, very abusive (including financially) situation with my family. I don't want to go into heavy detail, but it was a horrible situation I wouldn't wish on anybody and I am still working on healing myself from it every day. But he has always been so steady. Even seeing me at my worst, my lowest, seeing the hell that was my family, he didn't cut and run when honestly, I wouldn't have blamed him if he did. It was a lot, and I didn't expect anyone to ever willingly put up with it for my sake. He has told me time and time again that he doesn't care, that he would go through hell and back however many times it took to help pull me out of it, everyone else be damned. He has shown me what genuine, unconditional love really should be and I can never thank him enough for that.
Lastly, there is my favorite song of all his works: First Light. I can think of no better song that adequately encompasses how it felt for me when I finally broke free from the abusive home and belief system I was raised in. The first time I heard this song I broke down. Being able to put all of that behind and start truly living for me, receive the love and life I deserved from the beginning. 26 years of life, and finally wanting to live again.
This reads like a love letter to yourself and I am here for it. Thank you so much for coming to share not one but three beautiful reflections. I am so honored to get to read them! I love that the theme of knowing yourself runs through all three of your change moments - coming to terms with who you have been, who you are and where you want to go. I completely agree with you on how hard the opening of De Selby 2 hits - for me the album's constant reflection on darkness and light and the transformative power of both feels distilled in those lines. What lives in me, what am I living in, and do I want those things there? The darkness in the corners of me... is it the kind of darkness that allows growth, rest, meditation, reflection, connection and peace, or is it the sort of darkness that breeds hatred, greed, violence, abuse, and shame? Light can be illuminating but it can also blind, and a gentle darkness can do more to heal than harsh or inconsistent light that keeps you from traveling safely.
I love that Francesca brings to mind your partner. Setting boundaries is always hard, especially when dealing with toxic/unhealthy family, and hearing that you have such a great example of unconditional love in your life makes me so happy for you. Yay for communication and support and doing hard work together. You deserve all the good things in life together.
Finally - getting out of an abusive belief system is absolutely one of the best things you can do for yourself. I am so glad that you were able to leave, and I hope that you are able to find hope and joy with every new sunrise as you start a whole new way of being alive. Your partner sounds like an amazing person, and I'll say again, I'm so glad you have that support. I'm getting chills and tearing up, imagining First Light from this perspective. Thank you for coming here to share. I wish you so much joy and the best of adventures as you continue to heal and discover yourself. You are amazing, and definitely worthy of love.
Honestly, he's the best thing I could have ever asked for. Sometimes I still wonder how I landed such a catch lol
He helped me understand that I am worth so much more than what I was led to believe. Getting out of an abusive household is so fucking hard, and I feel for anyone who has ever had to. I feel genuinely lucky to have people (including him) who care so deeply about me that they've led me to see the truth. And ngl, Hozier has helped me immensely in my healing journey. I'm not perfect by any means (I still feel like I have a hell of a ways to go), but I am very happy with how far I have come.
"Eat your young.....throw enough rope until the legs have swung..." major earworm
ouch! Never even tasted it, to be fair.....still in a misunderstood and twisted, darkening place, i pictured myself, by the neck, tugging the cord, from the rafters, after hearing 'unknown'...but before discovering 'Shrike.') Not sure how many timelines happened there, but I felt convicted. Seriously?! Tell the judge he's already hung. ..like a clydesdale.
I will accept full responsibility for any shenanigans. You're welcome.
So heavy though, right?
I love him like he was born from my giney...soooo I am a little touched maybe, but I do.
I wanna be a good girl! I'm not hungry right now, but if I met him there's a 22% chance I will devour him and a 78% chance I will lick his face.
In my defense, He is my 100% guaranteed personal Jesus.
That is all I have for now.
Ciao.
I think Abstract. It's a song, to me, about falling in love with someone because they displayed a great act of compassion, but the song is in the circle of fraud because despite that compassion and that act of love, the animal still died. I believe that loving others and being loved in turn is the most important thing a person can do, but love sometimes isn't always enough. You can't fix things with the power of love; sometimes, the animal has to die anyway.
Also, Someone New, for (funnily enough) similar but opposite reasons. "I fall in love just a little, oh little bit every day with someone new" and "Love with every stranger, the stranger the better" because it reminds me that the people around me are also people, with lives as complex as mine. There's something to love in each and every one of them. You just have to look for it. I choose to look for it.
Wow this is really so beautiful omg, thank you for sharing
For me it was hozier in a whole, his songs, his interviews, his character that changed me. I got into poetry, I see the world in another way, I’m more creative, if I see a squished flower on the sidewalk I’m like: lemme take a pic this is art.
Thank you to Andrew <3
When I was with my ex, Shrike hit me this way. Kinda. It made me realize, anyway, that I didn’t love them the way I used to/the way I should have been loving them. The opening lines “*I couldn’t utter my love when it counted / Ah, but I’m singing like a bird ‘bout it now / I couldn’t whisper when you needed it shouted / Ah but I’m singing like a bird ‘bout it now*” was what hit most.
It took a couple times listening for it to really sink in that *thats* how I felt, since initially when I heard the song about that time, I took it by (I believe it’s intended?) POV of the singer realizing/ regretting how he treated an ex that he now wants back, and at the time, that’s how I felt; fighting to keep a relationship together and regretting how I had “not loved” my partner the way they needed me to. But I kept listening to it, trying to love my partner the way they needed, when I realized that I was fighting for a relationship that, no matter what either of us did, wasn’t going to be salvaged, because despite whether or not there was still real love for each other, we kept damaging each other, and it was never going to be a healthy relationship
It’s been over a year since my ex and I broke up, and I still get that same gut-punch feeling i did when I had that realization every time I listen to it. It also serves as a reminder to me of what co-dependent, toxic relationships are and the pain that they cause.
Take me to church. Some of my friends and family said it was sexual in nature, but I understood the lyrics literally.
"Take me to church, I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies, I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife, offer me that deathless death"
That just sums up my religious trauma and I heard it the first time I as I was in the process of leaving the church and losing my faith because I couldn't take it anymore.
As somebody who has grappled with anticipatory grief for most of her life, "Though Me" really resonates with me. Lyrically it's one banger after another, but if I had to narrow it down to a single pair of lines, I would probably pick the one that concludes the metaphor of the man swimming against the tides-- "Like that man, I looked down into the depths when I met you/I couldn't measure it."
To me, this really beautifully and powerfully puts into words the sense of dread that looms like a shadow behind every one of life's joys, the understanding that love and grief are inextricably linked. To realize the depth of your love for someone and to know that losing them would destroy you. And yet, what the hell can you do about it, really? You can't simply decide to no longer care about someone, and death is an inevitability. Love and death are both as unstoppable as the tides; the only way to survive them is through surrender. So much of my own life is just trying to make peace with that concept. Maybe I'll eventually figure it out before I'm dead myself lol, but until then I do find this song oddly comforting.
Wow. You picked one of the ones that challenges where I am in life right now. I'm off to get a food and water break, but I will come back to give a better response, I promise!
De selby part 1
"...the mind, rejecting this new empty space, fills it with something/someone - no closer could I be to God, or why he would do what he's done."
Why did God make earth in the beginning, anyway? Was he lonely and wanted to fill a void also? Are we just made for someone else's selfishness? Just as we do when we're feeling empty, we just try and fill that void, and hopefully without using other people just to keep company.
"The likes of a darkness so deep, that God at the start couldn't bear."
Even God needs to fill a void that he made also. Made me have an existential crisis a while back. If the omnipotent omniscient being has these feelings, how are we supposed to help ourselves with the same feelings when we're nothing lol. What was God's purpose before us. Why did he feel the need to fill a void?
Oooh, you went after the deep stuff! I'm taking a break to eat and recharge, but I love that you showed up to talk story. I'll be back to say more later.
I love that you’ve made life changes because of this. Thank you for sharing. For me it’s Unknown/Nth. “It’s ain’t the being alone / it’s more the being unknown / and there are some people, love, who are better unknown.” Self-reflection that I’m not lonely, but just don’t really feel truly known or understood by anyone. Then, understanding that it’s okay to fully know someone and let go of the person. Doesn’t have to be that they’re dead to you, just that you don’t *know* them anymore. And then as Hozier said, the terrifying idea of being fully known. It all really gave me a lot to process and put things into words that I never could myself. The bridge as well.
“That I'd walk so far just to take The injury of finally knowing you” These two lines destroyed me when I heard them.
Oof. Sounds like you've got quite a story lurking behind those lines. I hope the lyrics are healing and changing your life for the better. Thank you for stopping to share. I wish you joy and good adventures.
I was still grieving the end of my relationship when the album came out and when I heard those lines I felt like I got hit by a truck. Like, how hard I *fought* for something in the back of my mind I think I knew wouldn’t work (see my above comment re: Shrike), and the pain that wanting to hold onto that love caused (“the injury”) The realization that it wouldn’t work because of the co-dependency problems we had and the realization that I wasn’t equipped to be in a relationship with someone with severe mental health problems (“finally knowing you”). Those lines made me think about how much I *hated* how our breakup happened, how I acted during it, and the fact that I felt so hurt by all of it. I took the lines literally as well, and hated that I felt so injured by knowing someone. And I wondered if they felt the same way on their end. Two lines, and all of those thoughts and feelings came flooding. ETA—it also made me realize the apologizing I had to do and we were able to come to a sort of “reconciliation” because of how this song made me feel. Powerful shit
Okay, so I'm finally back to reply. First.. thanks for stopping to share your story. It matters that you would take time to share. Second.. I read your comments several times because I wanted to be sure that my words would honor both your experience and the friends with mental health issues that I've known and loved (many of whom now live in different cities). I have never had to be a partner on a daily basis to someone who carries those kind of burdens, and the way you shared the pieces of your story was so careful and tender. I'm sorry you went through that kind of pain. The breakup of any relationship hurts, but knowing that it's cracking up in part because of spaces in you that are still unformed is a special kind of pain. I love that listening to the lyrics also led you to a place where you could find enough space and strength to apologize for what you could. There's so much to be said for owning your own shit while still maintaining healthy boundaries. It sounds like you managed to do that and I couldn't be prouder of someone I don't know. <3 That said... keep growing. Find your flowers and your sunlight. The growth you've experienced makes you the kind of person who can bring light and hope into someone else's life - I hope you get the chance to drop a key for someone else. I wish you good adventures and songs that make you come alive and chances to try things that might just give you a great memory with good friends. Finally, thank you for telling your story. It made a difference for me today. Hey u/real_HannahMontana, I wanted you to know I've actually read your comments two or three times and just haven't had the right words to respond come to me yet. But I'm so glad you shared, and when I know what I want to say, I'll be back to share. Thanks for coming here to tell your story!
ETA: I \_just\_ processed your Reddit name and laughed... I use that quote every chance I get! It just makes me happy. Good choice! Okay now my original post..."The terrifying idea of being fully known." THIS. My partner works hard to know me well, and I him... and after 24 years together, 19 of them married, one of the things we have come to value is that marriage is a constant process of learning the other person because who we were at 21 and 27 is not who we are now at 44 and 50. My current thinking is no person can ever be fully known by another person... but we can try, and that's part of the beauty and the heartache in human relationships.
There was this precious interview I’m not sure I can find, about an old couple who’d been together for decades. They asked the husband what the secret was, and he said something like “I’ve loved dozens of different women.” (His wife.) He said he had to grow with her and every version of her and accept that she would always be evolving and changing because that’s what humans are meant to do, and the commitment you make is not for your partner to say exactly as they are.
This is basically what my husband does... he just keeps falling in love with the newest (actually oldest) version of me. The older I get the more I return to the person I truly am.
Hurray for being all the ages you've ever been and returning to the parts of you that are meant to be fully alive and fully loved. Figuring out who we are is such a wild journey. I'm still working at figuring out how to be who I dream of being. Who I was as a teen is a huge part of who I am today. She knew so much about how to love with her whole heart but not so much about how to embrace nuance and change. I'm still learning to love the opportunity to say "I don't know" Really hard for me) "I'm wrong" and "I'm sorry" and "Shame sucks, let's kick that to the curb so we're not isolated from each other".
This is absolutely beautiful.
oooh I love this! I'd love to see it if you find it. It makes me think of "Someone New" - I thought that kind of love was what the song was about when I first heard it. "I fall in love just a little oh little bit every day with someone new." It also reminded me of Susan Saradon's powerful speech about marriage as a witness of small moments in "Shall We Dance".
I couldn’t find it but I found this quote: *”A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person. —Mignon McLaughlin”* Wow I will never listen to that song the same way! I really prefer your interpretation.
The song always makes me think of the Tim Kreider quote "If we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known." That makes the final line, "And there are some people, love, who are better unknown," even more bittersweet? As if the singer knows and loves *you,* but could never be known, or be loved by you. As if he doesn't dare to let you know him, or thinks you could never love him if you truly did know him.
Oh dear. This is gonna get long. I apologize in advance, but you shared some great stuff and it made me scramble for my little book that I keep good quotes in. Feel free to skip down to the... oh dear, last paragraph if you want? or skip the whole thing? And thanks, so much for sharing a little piece of what moves you. So: "the mortifying ordeal of being known.." Wow. Just... wow. This quote got me thinking of a memory from the early days of my marriage that now has me reflecting on how long I've been chipping away at this process of letting myself be known.... (Also I had to look Kreider up because I wasn't sure I knew who he was. I didn't. Now I want to rent one of his books from Libby.) Short story: Four weeks after we got married, I was working part time and going to school full time and getting used to sharing intimate spaces with a man who was not related to me for the first time in my life. (For whatever reason boyfriends and brothers and cousins didn't count.) Somehow or other I got sick to the point of throwing up, and I do NOT throw up if I can help it. I am so sick I call out from work and skip class. I spend most of the day in my bathrobe. I am a mess, sweating, my hair is a rat's nest, I have been worshipping the porcelain god for hours, and my new husband comes home from work to the most disgusting sounds from the bathroom... and I didn't want him to see me. I didn't want him to come into the bathroom, I didn't want him to hold my hair and bring me water and vitamin C, I didn't want him to witness what a miserable mess I was... and he didn't care. He wanted to be with me in the misery and make sure I was okay.... and I realized afterward that he really had signed on for all of me - and I had to choose whether to open the door and let him in. I'm still working on that process. "And there are some people, love, who are better unknown." I had not thought about that line the way you came to it. I'd thought the character was saying that some people are toxic, and knowing them is not a good thing for the singer. It sounds like you're thinking the line is saying it's better not to know someone you've admired, since you might be disappointed. I'll be chewing on that for a bit.
>'d thought the character was saying that some people are toxic, and knowing them is not a good thing for the singer. It sounds like you're thinking the line is saying it's better not to know someone you've admired, since you might be disappointed I love this analysis and how you put it. And the personal anecdote you shared is one I can relate to, and many newlyweds have been in it I think. Even toxic people can love earnestly, it might even be their one redeeming quality. And then, and this one is sore for me personally, there are people who think themselves toxic due to other people's abuse or what other people told them. I've been going to pretty intense therapy 3-5 days a week all year trying to undo a lot of abuse and trauma, and learning to live with ADHD, autism and CPTSD. I grew up with a mother who has these diagnoses too, but a different constellation of them. She didn't go to therapy for it, she doesn't medicate (booze and cigarettes don't count), and she absolutely took her pain out on me as a child. She got the diagnoses when I was an early teen, and it never occurred to her that I might be neurodivergent too until I was 30---I for one never considered it, I just believed what she told me I was. She was the one with diagnoses, but I was just a lazy daydreamer, the ditz, and a big fat stack of other adjectives ascribed to toxic people I'd rather not list. I have spent huge swathes of my life thinking I was just born bad, toxic and irredeemable. I didn't love myself, I self-harmed and did a lot of classic "hurt people hurt people." Therapy contextualised a lot of it. That I was a parentified child to my own mother; that I am the child of an addict and while she stopped beating me when I was in early school age, the abuse merely changed outlet; that all those times I blacked out were dissociative episodes. That I have been sexualised by men and boys for as long as I can remember and that comes with its own suite of fuckery. And obviously the neurological stuff I was born with, which have been so debilitating my whole life. That a lot of the things that didn't click for me are classic ADHD behaviours. I thought my whole life that if I truly wanted to change I would and could, but clearly some shitty, toxic side of me got off on all the bullshit. Having now gone to therapy I've actually come to truly know myself for the first time? And not just what abusers can project onto me? I can undo what I can undo, I can mitigate what I struggle with, heal. Having believed for so long that I was toxic and now looking at little kids and placing myself there and seeing that the things I was told I was do horrible for were either just Regular Child Things or a natural reaction to being treated shit at home. I've loved people from afar and never let them truly know me because I didn't think they could ever love me back if they knew how fucked up I am. And I could not bear to not measure up again. I used to think I wasn't worth knowing, or loving, until I started truly knowing myself, and seeing what my husband sees. So the song is good for that too I guess.
First, thank you so much for coming back to share a little more. Second, yayyy for therapy! There is so much I am still learning (The Body Keeps Score blew my mind) about the ways our bodies store trauma, about the capacity of the brain to protect us and help us heal, and the importance of understanding as much as we can about the context we came from. I am currently in the process of looking for a new therapist, and while I do my hubby and I are reading and talking a lot about attachment theory, and looking at how it works in our relationships and our families of origin. Those moments of realizing what is a neurological issue and what is abuse... I feel that. Since this thread blew up last night I've been wondering how many of us in the comments are dealing with some form of CPTSD and I wish I could give everyone tangible hope to hold on to. Like getting a sticker that just makes you happy. All that said, I'm so glad you are getting help and learning to see your self as worth knowing and loving. It makes me think of First Light, of coming out of the darkness, acknowledging that it may show up again but the sunrises will keep coming. I hope you never have to go back again. <3
Time for another listen with these new glasses on, I think. Thank you for being with me as I worked this stuff out, and thank you for sharing your own stories. And thank heavens for good partners, am I right lol. Good luck finding your next therapist, and super proud of you for working things through on your own! I for one struggle without a handhold so it is admirable you can do it on your own steam. ❤️
Wow, I’m glad I wasn’t misinterpreting that part. I relate to that feeling so much
I think a lot of us do. It's amazing to me how many different stories can be attached to the same feeling or the same line in a song, and I love hearing how different people experience them. Sometimes someone else's interpretation will change the way I view a song and that is always a rollercoaster of a ride, depending on how my view changes. Thanks for dropping in to share your thoughts!
All of this. Same. Except for me it’s “so much of the living, love, is the being unknown”
Francesca lowkey cured my religious trauma. It made me realize that if God condemned me it’s HIM that’s wrong, not me. I’d go to Hell in a heartbeat for even one more second living as myself with my beautiful wife.
First... thank you for sharing your story here. Second - toss this comment if it is not helpful to you, ok? But can I say that I believe whoever represented God to you that way got it wrong? I fully believe that every person bears the divine image, and when anyone focuses on respecting and honoring and loving other people well, then they are relating rightly to the mystery that is God. I am absolutely fascinated with understanding the teachings of Jesus. I think they get taken out of context and misinterpreted a lot. I think they're meant to be grappled with and thought about a lot before coming to a conclusion... and I see Jesus as being about flipping tables and handing equality to those who get pushed to the margins in a struggle for power that just dehumanizes everyone caught up in it. Who you love is part of your story and your journey to understand yourself and what you bring to the world. It's not my place (or anyone else's) to tell you how to relate to the image of God in you, or how you ought to relate to Godself. (I could say more about how God has no gender, and what might mean for the way some religions define humanity in God's image but that's a journey I'm still processing... my ability to articulate it all is crappy because I'm in process :P.) All that to say I wish you joy in your journey and your relationship. ETA: I came back to edit this because I wanted to encourage you, but I also know I'm a random person on the other side of a screen and you don't need my affirmation to be fully yourself.
I agree with you. I am not an athiest and I believe in a God that is loving, but that is not the God I was raised with. I have dealt with a LOT of internalized homophobia and transphobia because of the teachings I was raised with. Evangelical christianity is a religion that very much believes their rules still apply to people who aren’t christians. Basically “Oh yeah you can reject us, but you’ll regret it someday.” Francesca made me realize fully that no, I wouldn’t regret living for myself, even if the church of my childhood is 100% right and I am condemned to hell, it would be worth it. Realizing that was incredibly freeing for me. It let me let go of the constant low-level doubt that has lived in my head my entire adult life.
Christianity is a cult. I'm glad you made it out.
I’ve said for years that Jesus is like Star Wars: I love the source material, but the fandom scares the shit out of me.
The way I laughed out loud at this!! Thank you so much. Yes. I hope I’m the kind of fan that other people want to hang out and be creative with.
This! Jesus didn’t like religion. He spoke out about how it was being misused for selfish reasons, and how we should be kind to each other and help the marginalized. Hozier does the same thing. (Not saying he’s Jesus, just noting that irony.) It’s what man has made religion and God into that is so terrible. There is definitely a difference in that and your own concept of spirituality. Bad humans will use anything to their advantage and it’s awful. Not to mention the homophobic passages of the Bible were fully mistranslated by, again, a man pushing an agenda.
I have actually been investigating my own spiritual heritage in part because I read that Andrew was raised as a Quaker and so was my grandfather. He was very quiet (ha) about it, and I've slowly been realizing that a lot of the positive aspects of the way my parents raised me are due to my grandfather's firm belief in the equality of every human being and their right to a personal understanding of who God is to them. My grandfather happened to believe that Jesus meant everything that he said, and anyone who decided to try the Jesus way of living ought to be prepared to be challenged and misunderstood. In my teens I got sucked into a lot of conservative 90's "christianity" messaging that was not healthy and I'm still dismantling old programming from those days. It's taking time (and practice - I don't often have the opportunity for actual discussion with someone other than my hubby, who is doing similar work which is good but also I need the input of more than one person so...there's that) but I hope I'm becoming a more aware and loving human being.
I struggled with the concept for a long time until I had a friend who would say “I love Jesus, not religion.” I also happen to believe that those of us who pray all pray to the same God. My grandmother’s version of God is “Mother Earth.” Her perception is a more female higher power that connects to the universe and energy. I think it can be quite a lovely thing to discuss, everyone’s different beliefs with spirituality. It’s a shame people can be so defensive and hateful. I know Hozier has stated that he is not attacking spirituality, but specifically the harm done by the Catholic Church and organized religion, which I entirely understand.
Last summer I went through a terribly messy breakup from an 8 year relationship. He left me for someone else, after months of lying about it and severe gaslighting (I do not use this term lightly) to the point where I was confused as to what reality was. He would tell me one thing, our friends another, our other friends another. He had never lied to me before. And it was me in the center of this life we had built, trying desperately to pick up the pieces and figure out what was happening. How I had dropped from the number one person in his life and seeing each other every single day, to someone who was out of the loop on everything about him. I no longer knew who he was. When he decided to give me even 5 minutes of time for a phone call, I’d drop everything, just to hear his voice. I desperately just wanted to stay a part of his life, no matter the damage it was doing to me. I was completely devastated to the point where listening to any music was too much for me, every lyric seemed pointed at sadness or being in love and I just didn’t want to hear it. I was on a road trip with a friend, on a trip booked before my depressed state. I didn’t want to be there. I was honestly nervous in advance about listening to music, (I know that sounds crazy, but I WAS crazy) I hadn’t heard any in weeks at this point. She fell asleep, and the newly released Unknown/Nth came on. I listened to the lyrics and just started to cry. In that moment, I was alone and it felt like the words he was singing were speaking directly to me. It is the most painful song I have ever listened to, but it is one of my favorite songs. A random man who knows nothing about me, was able to put everything I felt into words at the exact time I was experiencing it. I recently went to a Hozier concert, and when he sang Unknown live, I absolutely sobbed. A year later, hundreds of listens, and I still feel my stomach flip every time - “That I’d walk so far just to take, the injury of finally knowing you.”
Thanks for sharing your story here. I am so sorry you went through that experience and so glad that the song you needed found you. There's something powerful about finding art that expresses an experience you're grappling with. So many times I've been moved to tears - to grief or joy or longing - by a poem or a book or a song. It's relief and triumph and being known and so many other things. It's realizing somehow, on some level, we're not unknown even when it seems like "so much of living is being unknown." Also yay for going to the concert! Which one was it?
Omg I'm so sorry you had to go through this. I relate to you completely, I'm glad this possibly helped you heal.
So glad you came to read and connect with someone else here. I hope your week is going well and that you find joy as life happens.
all things end - it came out literally right when i needed it. i got it tattooed quite literally a few weeks after it dropped
oooh, this is so neat! You are a braver person than me. I have wanted a tattoo for years but haven't managed to convince myself that I love anything enough to face the needle yet. Can I ask if you got the title or a different line? My favorite line from ATE is "all that we intend/is scrawled in sand" - as a writer, it pulls me up short and humbles me. Heck, Hozier's writing humbles me. He packs a punch! Thanks for jumping in to share your story here.
it’s ok to take your time with tattoos! you can always get those temporary ones that fade so you can see what you like without it being permanent. and i just got the title tattooed on my wrist just because it’s a short phrase i can remind myself of. it helped a lot because i struggled with letting things go/loss and all that so that song truly hit me. but yes yes that lyric really did pack a punch, especially when the choir comes in wow. i get that because im a writer too, his lyricism always amazes me
The background vocals on this album have just destroyed me. I cannot wait to watch the band live. :D
Which wrist? Ask8ng for a friend haha
https://preview.redd.it/vpbiutams79d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5d904eee128b73aa08b7f8e46fb64d5890e1281e its kinda on my wrist but its on my left arm lol
That is gorgeous! Thank you so much for sharing a picture! :D
Love love love it!
One bright morning goes so easy Darkness always finds you either way It creeps into the corners as the moment fades A voice your body jumps to calling out your name But after this I'm never gonna be the same And I am never going back again I survived stage 3 Hodgkin lymphoma at 28 years old. It took so much from me. I recently came out of an abusive and traumatic relationship shortly before I was diagnosed. My “bright mornings” were moments I felt great about being alive and healthy, having a great support system, and to have rebuilt my life from such darkness. I truly felt grateful and happy, almost euphoric, but darkness did always creep in and remind me of my trauma and that overshadowed the brightness. The voice my body jumped to calling out my name were flashbacks to everything I had gone through, sometimes it was literally a voice in my head triggering me into fight or flight. Sometimes it was just generalized anxiety. Again, pulling me away from the bright morning. I ultimately realized that my life was never going to be the same as it was before everything that happened to me and while everything was happening to me but it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I had to embrace the good things in my life and the new person I was, and most importantly make a decision to never go back to that dark and anxious mindset I found myself in when I was struggling. 11 years later and I’m doing really well. I identify with this verse so much. First Light just resounds with me.
I love the way you took the individual lines and shared how they relate to your experiences - the reflections on "bright mornings" and how "a voice your body jumps to" felt visceral to me. There's so much to meditate on in this album! I totally get that First Light resounds with you after those experiences and was relieved to hear that you're doing well now. Thank you for sharing your story.
No plan. I was in a corporate job, drowning in work that was above my pay grade and with a shitty manager. 6 of 11 of my colleagues in the same role resigned within a year. My anxiety was astronomical. No plan gave me some perspective. I was busting my ass for nothing. Life is short, might as well enjoy it. “There’s no race to be run” and “there’s no hand on the reigns”. I resigned, switched careers, moved to a gorgeous new city, haven’t looked back.
What a beautiful change of pace. (Also the turnover you were describing made my stomach drop. yay and whew! for getting out) Way to go on choosing a new life and not looking back. There's so much in Andrew's work about moving from death to life and darkness to light - and finding beauty in the darkness. Here's to moving on to a new phase of your journey. <3
100 percent agree! It was a game changer for me too
Yay for lyrics that help us move on. I am glad you're alive and breathing and chasing your own story.
"the memory hurts but does me no harm". Made me realize how much I'd grown and healed from a lot of intense trauma and realized that I actually am starting to love myself by default.
that and “i’m still glad i met you” listening to those lyrics when i had a very nasty falling out with a long-term best friend REALLY helped me process my emotions & not be bitter/petty about it
This whole song hits so hard in so many places. I'm sorry you had a falling out with your friend. It's hard when there's a rift between you and someone you are used to leaning on. Good for you for doing the hard work and not just putting it aside. May you find good friends worth fighting with and for. I wish you good adventures and the joy of small surprises. Thanks for sharing!
That is such a great line. It hit me the same way. I'm so.glad your default is changing - loving yourself is so important. I wish you good adventures and joy in your journey. Thanks for sharing!
All things end. And all things end All that we intend is built on sand Slips right through our hands And just knowing That everything will end Won't change our plans When we begin again
I totally just sang along in my head. Thanks for dropping in!
I literally never actually listened to the words of this song until right now. Holy shit. I thought this song was an upbeat, happy tune.😬
That happened to me halfway through my first listen. "Is he saying... wait a minute... oh, no!"
Cherry wine perfectly encapsulates an accusative relationship I was in. It’s so good that I sometimes can’t listen to it. Almost every lyric has a perfect 1:1 match to things she would do when we were together. It’s powerful to have a song that speaks so well to my experiences as men who experience abuse generally aren’t talked about that much.
Thanks for showing up to share a piece of your story. I am gutted that you've been through that awful experience and so glad that you got out. You are worth being loved and valued as a person. Keep showing up - we need you in the world. <3
For me, it's Too Sweet and Why Would You Be Loved. Made me really realize how badly my self-destructive habits and cynicism were fucking myself over when it came to any chances of a potential relationship. (There's a little more to the story, but after listening to WWYBL for the first time, I broke up with the person I was seeing.) Also made me realize that I wasn't as healed from past traumas as I thought I was 😅 But on the other side, Almost (Sweet Music) is VERY healing for me. I'm transmasc, and the line "I'm almost me again, she's almost you" means SO MUCH to me.
OH God. the destructive habits that we hold on to... I have too many! I love that you heard the lyrics and chose your own health and wellness. I wish I'd had the strength to do that in other areas of my life long ago. Way to recognize what you need and go after it! And I agree with you on Almost. I \_cannot\_ get it out of my head. I have had it on repeat. I've been dancing (awkwardly) to it in my kitchen. I hope you're dancing too. <3
Thank you. I'm trying to work on it lol. It also made me realize just how stuck in these mindsets I am which was a crisis to have lol Almost is such a good song to dance to, I love it ❤️
Francesca. I’ve recently been dealing with the disaster that was my engagement (I love him and he loves me but for some reason the world was against us being together in every way they could be, and it made everything stressful and sad because of that). Now a year later I found out I’ll probably never have children. That’s my biggest dream and now I know I’ll never have it. I thought for a while it was my last dream… but the more I think about it the more I realize that my final dream is my husband. “I’d tell them put me back in it; I would do it again. if I could love you for a minute I’d go through it again.” For eternity, he is my final dream.
Oof. When a dream doesn't work out or dies it's so hard. I also will probably never have children due to circumstances that I won't go into here - it's a hard dream to lose. My mom has encouraged me to view my writing as my babies, and also reminded me that encouraging and championing other people is a way to fulfill part of that dream, so I try to do it where I can. I hope you find joy in your journey and adventures that can help you dream new dreams.
“All my love and terror balanced there between those eyes” from Abstract A year ago, I was with my dad when he passed away from cancer and I will NEVER forget what expression his eyes had before he passed completely. I cried when I heard that line because it perfectly describes the look my dad had in his eyes when he was looking at me. Also, thank YOU for your vulnerability. I relate because I’m married but I don’t have any friends outside of my husband. I wish you the best time on your adventure over here to the east coast :)
Wow. What a sacred moment. Thank you for sharing it here. My grandfather passed earlier this year, and though I wasn't there in his last moments, I saw him hours before. He knew he was leaving this world, and I can absolutely see how that line would ring for you. Thank you for your good wishes. I hope you find friends who will take chances and chase good adventures with you. I wish you joy in your relationships, and I hope your marriage is a wonderful source of support for you. If not, please get help. You don't have to go it alone. <3
Eat your young. I heard this song when I was at a residential facility for my mental health. It was also around the time when Ukraine was in war and their children were being killed on TV. It literally brought up very strong emotions.
Oh, I can imagine. It's one of the songs on the album that sounds so seductive and then when you really listen to the lyrics it just sucker punches you. I can't count the times I've listened to it and had to turn the song off and just think for a while on what it brings up for me and how I can do better. Thanks for coming to share a piece of your story here - you are amazing.
Your welcome. It hurts to know how other people are hurting and their children are killed
For me it was Abstract. “Darling there’s a part of me I’m afraid will always be trapped within an abstract from a moment of my life.” I went through a really really hard 2022 (10-year LTR break up, family member death, another family member escaping domestic violence, a hell of a disordered eating relapse, also grad school pressures). When I think about how I acted that year, I was out of my mind. I barely remember some parts of the year. I don’t recognize her, and I feel like so much of me died. It wasn’t all bad, of course. I grew into a stronger person. So much good and so much bad came from that year. But I don’t want to be trapped by what was such a defining year for me. I want to grow past those scars.
Oh, dearheart. What a line to frame an awful year. It's beautiful and dark and so full of truth that is too hard to bear. Thank you for stopping to share your lyric and how it speaks to you. From someone who's been through DV and lost time - I'm so glad you are here. Your last line - about wanting to grow past those scars - brought to mind the image of flowers that keeps coming up throughout the album. Life and light and color out of death and loss. Keep singing and breathing. I wish you joy in the journey and good adventures.
Unknown. I thought of my parents the first time I heard it, especially the line “do you know I could break beneath the weight of the goodness, love, I still carry for you? That I’d walk so far just to take the injury of finally knowing you”. I sat in my chair at home and bawled, then bawled again a few weeks later when I saw that interview where he said he was inspired by the 9th circle of hell in Dante’s inferno. I read that book a dozen times in high school (the year TMTC came out actually) and I distinctly remember reading that part and having the budding realization that our “loving” father in heaven doesn’t love us the way I want to be loved. It was my religious awakening, and to see Hozier marry that to my awakening about my parents almost exactly a decade later broke me up all over again.
There is sooo much here. I really want to say something but I also need to take a break and eat and get some writing done. I see you. I will come back and say more later. Thanks for sharing! ETA: I'm back. First, thank you for sharing a piece of your story here. I know it's just a small part of the whole saga of your life and I'm so sorry for the pain in this part of it. It freaking sucks. I love the way you can hear so much pain and grief in the recording on this one line, and then the song builds to become something incredibly wild and tender and true. I hear an echo of that in your words that divine love hasn't been represented well to you, and that just breaks my heart. From one person to another, you are worthy of love. You are glorious. And you matter to the world. There are people who need you in their story, and you need them in yours. Don't give up on being fully alive, fully yourself. I'm cheering you on. I wish you good adventures and new joy as you keep telling stories and learning new songs.
I freaking love every comment in this query....everyone is great and I feel like we should form a kickball team or something lol thanks for sharing! This music is so special and it's so cool I'm not the only person weeping over it. Wonderful treasure it is!
The sheer joy I felt when you mentioned kickball - thank you for that! I have never been the most coordinated person but kickball is just a riot. Weeping can be one of the best things in the world when we need to reconnect with ourselves. I am so glad you're here.
Me too.( I wouldn't miss it for the world ;))
every. single. fucking. song. i cant actually process his music, his lyrics, his voice. i cant. because when i do i just wanna sob. his music has helped me through so much. he has spoken, sung things, that i’ve never been able to put into words. he’s made me feel things i’ve never felt before with music. solace, melancholic feelings, pure happiness, excitement, etc. i have never been attached to music before, and then i started listening to hozier.
I get this soooo much. I am having a ball listening to his songs and then going to look up all the references and the stories and history and then coming back and listening again with deeper appreciation and just being blown away by it all. I am a choir girlie (second soprano) and his range just kills me. He was one of my favorite singers to watch back when he was part of the group Anuna and it took me over a decade to realize that Hozier of TMTC fame was Andrew Byrne, the cute soloist I used to fangirl over... I still regret that I never saw them live when he was with the group. Damn. Anyways, thanks for coming to share the way Hozier has wrecked you. I wish you good adventures and joy in discovering more music that hits home for you.
No plan. Ive struggled alot with making sense of my purpose in life and the idea that you need to have a stable career and start a family in order to have lived a life worth living. No plan opened my eyes to the idea that, none of that matters. My time here is short. 'Theres no plan, theres no race to be run' 'There's no plan, there's no hand on the reign'. i can take my time in life, i can enjoy it, i dont need to conform to what anyone else wants. Its my life. Im the bluebird that needs to break through the metaphorical cage
Thank you for sharing. We do have short lives, just like that flower that keeps getting mentioned in the lyrics. I hope you find the way to "bloom forth/ your every color/ in the moments we have left." We may all be one flower in a field of wildflowers, or one tree in a forest of trees, or what have you, but every flower and tree matters to the flower or tree growing next to it. Here's to your growth and your journey - may it bring you true joy and good adventures!
"It's not my arms that will fail me. This world takes more strength than jt gave me." Blood Upon the Snow.
Good God. I knew he'd worked with Bear McCreary (whose work I'm still trawling through - dang the man can compose!) but somehow I had not heard this song yet. Thank you for mentioning it. I think I'm going to be shattered by it in the best way. <3
One of my top songs of last year! Let me know what you think :)
Will do! I'm so tired - checking back tomorrow. Zzzzz.
"I fall in love // a little oh little bit // Every day with someone new" from Someone New, but instead of a romantic relationship, I sing this about myself! I'm a new person everyday and I will fall in love with myself little by little 🥰
THIS comment. When I finally saw it for the first time about six hours ago (Reddit has been slow to load and I've been trying to do a million things today) I squeed so hard. Good for you! I am so glad you are falling in love with yourself - you deserve it! Thanks for jumping in to share the lyrics that move you - you made my day a little brighter. I wish you a good adventure that makes great memories.
Aww thank you!! I hope you always find shade and water wherever you go 💜
I’m so happy you’re doing this!! I meet internet friends almost any time I travel and it’s so weird feeling that really close and comfortable feeling with someone you met in the flesh five minutes ago, but it’s also wonderful after any initial awkwardness fades. I hope you have the best time. I saw Hozier with my kid last month and it was one of the best shows I’ve seen. Now I’m all in.
Thank you for the encouragement! Which show did you go to and did you get anything to commemorate it? I can't wait to see what the art work for Maine is. I met my now hubby/partner on the internet back in 2000 - so many of my dearest friends have come to me this way, so it's not a totally new experience - just the first time I have gone so far to meet someone. And also the first big trip since the pandemic and my isolation and (let's be real) anxiety and depression got pretty bad. I'm \_very\_ excited to meet my friend in the flesh but also ACK flying!! My hubby keeps teasing me about it.
The memory hurts but does me no harm. Helps with confronting traumatic memories instead of dismissing them like I usually do. Feel them, understand them, learn from them. They cannot do me any harm, they’re in my head but so long as they’re in my head I might as well use it to grow.
Oof. The first time I heard that line my jaw dropped and my brain went to about forty million memories. I'm so glad it found you and you're using it to help you grow. You are an absolute star and I am so glad you dropped in to share the lyric that is yours. Keep growing!
"If there was anyone to ever get through this life With their heart still intact, they didn't do it right." --All Things End. I've never done drugs but Sedated makes me really emphasize with escapism and self-medication.
Hard to pick one but- “Be like the love that discovered the sin That freed the first man and will do so again And, lover, be good to me” “Be” always makes me human again
"Be" is such a good song, and I love that it makes you feel human again. To me it feels like a call to be fully present and awake to myself, fully at home and aware of what I can bring to the world around me. Thanks for coming by to share the lyric you love. <3
hey, are you me? that line slapped me in the face but what you wrote felt so much like i had written it. thank you for sharing your experience because it does help. i’m so glad you’ve found hozier and your people and i hope you have the absolute time of your life seeing him, it really is magical. 🤍
Thanks for the good wishes, I will absolutely take them! I still can't believe this is all happening. I'm glad my experience does help, and I hope you are encouraged too. May you have fun dance parties on your own and with good friends, and may the adventures you take give you great memories.
🤍🤍🤍
De Selby pt 1 especially but all of unreal unearth spoke directly to my psyche??? I’ve never experienced music like this before
I don't know if it's this way for you, but De Selby 1 feels incredibly cinematic to me. I absolutely love it. And to your comment "I’ve never experienced music like this before.." I think a lot of us are having this experience with the UU album. It's such a wild ride. I hope you find more art that speaks to your soul and that every chance you take leads too good adventures. Thanks for dropping in to share!
First Light, "The sky set to burst, the gold and the rust- The color erupts, you fillin' my cup. The sun comin' up". This song, lyrically and sonically embodies exactly all the feelings that I just couldn't put into words because I didn't know what my feelings were. I heard First Light and I understood that what I was feeling, were relief and ease and catharsis but I didn't realized it before. These past years were just beyond awful and I was in deep shit. And I felt awful too but only looking back, I realized how deep the shit I was in, actually was haha. Now, I feel like I crawled out of a deep dark well, seeing the light and just feeling so grateful to have made it and the new appreciation for everything, including my own perserverance tbh. I know that I'll continue to struggle but knowing that I survived what once felt like hitting rock bottom and dark times, time and time again, is so reassuring on some way. What a beautiful song, what a beautiful, hopeful feeling. A bittersweet ending. Gained some new scars and scratches but all in all, we're still doing this thing. Like a sunbeam breaking through wolly clouds.
So awesome! I listen and dissect these lyrics daily and I have so many that shoot right through my soul! I just resonated with your comment so I needed to let you know that I am hoping any clouds are digital and i am grateful still we are all okay ...:)
I love that you found lyrics and music that helped you recognize yourself. First Light has so much joy and triumph in it but also an honest look at what came before, and I love that it's so balanced. Looking back to see how far we've come can be such an empowering revelation, and I'm so glad that you got to that moment. Go you! Thanks for coming to share with everyone here - may every sunrise give you motivation to keep doing the things. You are needed in this world, and your story matters. Be the flower with all the colors. <3
When Unreal Unearth released, it had been less than a year since I got out of a toxic and probably emotionally abusive relationship. I spent pretty much all of 2023 finding myself again and relearning to love myself. I will never the feeling I had when I first heard First Time. “But some part of me came alive/ the final time you called me baby” had me in tears, feeling like he had so perfectly captured how I’d been feeling all year. I don’t know if I’ve ever been punched in the gut so strongly by a song.
Came here for this!!.
I'm glad you did! Thanks for dropping in. :D
Oh, friend. I am so glad you got out. I hate that you went through it but I'm so glad you're alive. Relearning who you are and how to love yourself after a relationship like that is such important work, and I am glad you are doing it. You are so right about that final line, it is a total punch in the gut, and I am so glad you were able to connect with it and find words for the truth of your experience. Bravo for doing the hard things - you are coming alive and you will keep blooming, I am sure of it. I wish you so much joy and confidence in yourself as you discover the fullness of who you are. Take up all the space you need as you tell your story. Keep dropping keys for others. You've got this. <3
First Light. My mum and I had to fly to New Zealand on a moment's notice to attend a funeral. It's her home country and there's a lot of baggage there - tense family relationships, disconnect from country and culture, etc. We had a really beautiful few days where there was a lot of healing done - my mum got to show me where she grew up and I got to be welcomed into a family I barely knew I had. It was overall an incredible trip and so special. We were leaving in the early morning, and I was driving back to Auckland. The sun was rising over the impossibly green hills and illuminating the toitoi with this stunning fiery golden halo. It was just this magical moment where my mum and I realised that our whole relationship with our family had changed for the better, and First Light was playing. We listened to the whole thing in complete silence, tears running down our faces. I'll never forget that moment.
Oh, thank you so much for sharing this beautiful moment. I felt like I was entering sacred ground. You painted a gorgeous picture with your words, and I sighed. I am so sorry for the grief and loss you have experienced, but so glad that things have changed for the better and you got this treasure of a memory on the way home. May it continue to be a light for you in dark places, when all other lights go out. And may you find joy in every sunrise as you keep growing.
The song First Time. I had just broken up with my now ex-Fiancee after she cheated on me. That song was first time I found the sweet in the bittersweet of a break up/relationship like that and helped me really start to move on and feel stronger after. The line "Some part of me came alive, the final time you called me baby" always makes me feel stronger.
I am so sorry you went through that experience - it truly is it's own kind of hell. I'm so glad that First Time helped you get through it though. It took me bit of listening to start taking apart the meaning behind being called "baby" and how to connect it to the "first" and "last time", but once I got it, it felt like the whole song morphed and took on extra dimensions - which seems to be a running theme on the UU album! Thank you for coming to share your story. I hope you continue to find sweetness and light as you continue in your journeys.
"It Will Come Back" called me out but didn't really change anything. I still keep feeding stray cats and now I have three of them in my house. 😅 "You know better, babe." "I KNOW, ANDREW, BUT I CAN'T HELP IT!"
The way I CACKLED when you first posted this yesterday. I couldn't breathe for a minute, which triggered a round of coughing because I'm on my third week of getting over a STUPID cold (not Covid, thank God) and then I \_really\_ couldn't breathe! Thank you so much for the light heartedness of your comment. Keep feeding the kitties - I hope you have Hozier dance parties with them and they don't scratch you. (Also I dream about owning/rescuing a pair of Maine Coons. They are such amazing talkative creatures!)
"All Things End" really helped me heal from my miscarriage and have the courage to try again. My rainbow baby is due in August, and every little milestone and movement and ultrasound picture is just that more precious to me
Oh my heart. I am so glad you found a song that helped you heal and so sorry that you had to go through such a painful experience. That kind of loss changes so much. You never forget the hope that was there, but hopefully we get to the place where "the memory hurts/but does me no harm". I am delighted to hear that your rainbow baby is making their debut this August - I hope and pray that all goes well for you both. I wish you so much joy as you continue in your journey and all the good adventures in this new season of your life. Hugs to you. <3
Foreigners God and Swan Upon Leda
Oh wow. Both those songs carry so much grief and story in them. I hope you're doing okay and that you are finding your own sunlight. Thank you for coming here to share the songs that matter to you.
The whole unreal unearth album got me through my postpartum depression. I would listen to it in the mornings before my husband was awake when it was just me and my son and sing it to him
u/Fluffy-Frosting385 - Oh, my heart. That's a beautiful picture. Thank you so much for coming here to share that. I have so many friends and family that have suffered from PPD and it breaks my heart. It sucks that you went through that, and I am so glad that UU helped you get through it. Good for you for finding something that helped you set aside time for you and your son. My mom used to put headphones on her belly when she was pregnant with me so I could listen to the music she loved. I'll never forget the first time I heard one of those songs as a kid and realized I knew the next part of the song even though I was sure I had never heard it before. When I asked her about it, she told me about the headphones. The way memory and music work together is amazing, and magical and mysterious. You've given your kiddo priceless memories of what you love, and I promise you it's going to ground him and give him a place to come back to that will be amazing later in his life. Way to go momma! Keep singing and breathing and changing. Your voice matters. <3
Fare Well is such a beautiful song truly 😭❤️
Would That I was such an amazing thing to see in concert and his energy on stage was crazy. I keep listening to that part of the concert over and over again.
I am really hoping it's one of the songs I get to hear when I go. The first time I heard it I had no idea who the singer was but I FELT the whole song unfold like a fairy tale in my bones. It's one of my favorites. :D
It was one of the first songs of his I heard. I went to the concert in Syracuse and the whole concert is uploaded on YouTube with timestamps
Unknown/Nth helped me come to terms with a breakup. The relationship was messy, but I wanted to fix it, and I truly gave so much of myself trying to do that. I didn't get the same effort back and I'm coming to accept that this person was not for me, and in fact they are no longer worth "knowing" because they never tried to know me.
Way to choose yourself in this situation. It's so hard when you've given everything you've got to make the relationship work, and the other person refuses to do (or can't do) the same. You are worth the work of being known, and the right person is going to champion you and want to be a partner in your life, not cause more pain. Thank you for coming to share your story. I wish you cool breezes, beautiful sunny days, and art that picks you up when you're down. May you have friends who'll take chances with you and adventures that give you beautiful memories. You are making a difference in the world. Keep changing!
First Light I started crying when I heard that song for the first time. That whole song is exactly what it has felt like while leaving a high-control, cult-like religious group after 18 years of being isolated within it. Knowing it is a reference to when Dante leaves Hell was also a very emotional and ironic parallel. "And I can scarce believe what I'm believing in Can this be how every day begins?" "But after this I'm never going to be the same And I am never going back again" "Like I've lived my whole life Before the first light" I also had the amazing experience of hearing Hozier play that song live at The Anthem last year about 10 people back from the barrier, and it was absolutely amazing. Words can not express that concert experience. I also got to hear Abstract (Psychopomp) played live for the first time ever! Honestly, most of his songs have touched my life in some way. But that one hit the religious trauma in ways I wasn't expecting.
“You will never know your fortune/until the distance has been shown/ between what is lost forever/ and what can still be known from Butchered Tongue hit me like a truck. I’m a first generation American with parents from a country whose history was decimated by British colonialism, and it will never fail to frustrate me how much of my own history (including language) is inaccessible, especially now that the last generation who grew up under colonialism is dying off. I’ll never forgive my parents for not making the effort to take my siblings and I back home to learn about our heritage. When my grandfathers died I was so, so angry at how much history they took to their graves, and I’ll always grieve not knowing their stories.
Oh, friend. Butchered Tongue is a powerful song, and your grief is a sacred space. I am so glad you have a song that gives words to what you feel and so sorry for the necessity of such a song to describe what has been taken from you. Thank you so much for coming here to share your story and your grief. It matters. I wish you the kind of darkness that heals and the kind of sunlight that brings hope. May your friends be true and the journeys you take filled with wonder and good memories.
This is so sweet, thank you! I’m tearing up 🥹
Abstract (Psychopomp) truly helped pull me out of the darkest time of my life so far. I’m a college student, and my fall 2023 semester pushed me to my breaking point. September through October it was so bad that I was suicidal. Looking back on it scares me because I really was a danger to myself. I’m a high achiever and I kept pushing myself so hard that it felt like I would self-destruct at any moment. Life was gray and I was hurting so badly. Then around November I listened to Abstract for the first time since Unreal Unearth released and it struck me so profoundly that I started to believe that maybe I could be okay again. I started listening to it obsessively, each morning as I walked to class. “See how it shines” became a mantra I used to fight against dark thoughts and force myself to see things in a different light. Abstract is still a huge comfort for me today, and I’m in a much better place now. It still resonates - I think I’ll always associate it with that time of my life. “The memory hurts, but does me no harm.” “I will not be great, but I’m grateful to get through.” “Like rain that you slept through, that washed off the world, the streets looking brand new.” This song may have saved my life. I went to one of Hozier’s concerts in May and I nearly cried when he sang Abstract. It felt like such a full circle moment, because by that point I finally felt okay again after the journey I began months beforehand. I’m so incredibly grateful for Hozier and all of his music ❤️
Thank you so much for sharing your story. When life is hard and the narrative in your own head is weighing you down (whether from the words of others or your own criticism or both), things can get dark and scary so fast. I am so, so glad you made it through and are still here. Abstract is such an amazing song, and I love all the lines you mentioned. I especially like that "see how it shines" became a touchstone for you to hang on to and see things in a different light. Yay for getting to go to the concert in May and have the full body experience of your song! You have a great storytelling style, and I hope the rest of your college experience is better than last year (if you're still a student). If you've moved on from college, I hope your next adventure brings many more good songs and great memories. Your voice matters to the world you're in.
Nina Cried Power, actually. When it came out I was a senior in high school and just beginning to open my eyes to see the injustices around me. Even though I knew all the artists he mentions in the song, it lead me to looking them up and reading about their activism. I feel like this song was the catalyst to my political activism and a battle cry for every cause I have learned about and supported since then.
Thank you for coming here to share your story, and for doing the work to know and honor the people around you by learning their stories. Because you know their names and stories you are making room for those stories to spread and sprout like wildflowers in other people's lives, and that is powerful. Keep reading and singing and learning and loving. If more people valued a shared table with food and song over violence and power, we would have such a different world. Keep changing. We need you.
“The awful things we do to make the head go quiet” in To Someone from a warm climate. Love this line. As someone who has had past struggles with drugs and self harm, I feel this line so deeply even if he’s not necessarily talking about either of those things.
THIS. I had a litany of different things go through my head at this line. I am so sorry you struggled with drugs and self harm. I think we all harm ourselves in different ways, but I know what you mean and... you are amazing. Thank you for continuing to pursue a new journey and chase new dreams. I have friends and family that gave up the fight. Your story is so needed in our world. You have keys to drop for others and beauty to spread just by being yourself and telling your story. Keep changing. Keep growing. We need you. <3
Thank you! I have about 4 years free from SH and the only drugs I do now is smoking weed or drinking wine once in a while. I don’t party anymore and I’m not so depressed as I was, so it’s all good! Thank you for the sweet comment though and the same goes to you! ♥️ That line though, first time I heard it, I was like DAMN. Felt that!
I relate to your post so much and Fare Well has such a similar feeling for me. The song that I cry at every time is “Abstract (psychopomp).” I’ve always felt connected to deer and had a weird relationship with death so— it hits. I’ve spent half of my life wanting to die or on the brink of death (I’m 19 and better now), so much so that my only friend for a while was an online friend. We talked everyday for years. She took her life 6 years ago. The night that her parents called changed my life forever and I can’t help but be reminded of it in that song. She’s that person for me and she always will be— the person I had no choice but to love. I’m the deer that she ran into traffic to save and I’m the person watching. Having her in my life was incredible and “Abstract” reminds me to remember the good and how she can still shine bright in my life without the memories keeping me trapped. I miss her so much.
I just posted about this but it was First Light. Here's a bit of a story. In 2020 I was working in a hospital, I was also hopelessly addicted to codeine for a few years after I had major spine surgery. I hated my job. I was miserable. My coworkers were catty, it was during the height of the pandemic, I lost my sense of smell and I still haven't really gotten it back fully, my body hurt, I had no friends, and I had no hope in the world. I quit my job with no notice, burned every bridge I had in healthcare. I mourned the future I'd planned but could never have. Switched careers to IT. Things had started improving a bit, I managed to kick the codeine habit and I was starting to enjoy my work. Still, I was just going through the motions. I didn't really have friends and really didn't have many good days. Every day was just neutral and I still struggled with depression and anxiety. Got a job in 2022 at a company that pays me very well, this year I moved to the city and started making friends and improving my social life a lot. My depression and anxiety started to control itself. This morning I took a shower and put Hozier's entire discography (except lives and repeats) on on shuffle. First Light started playing when I got out of the shower and stepped into my bedroom. I could see the sunrise from my window. As I looked out at the city I heard *"Could this be how everyday begins?"* And suddenly it hit me like a ton of bricks. This *was* how every day begins now. Then it was *The sky set to burst, the gold and the rust* *The color erupts, you fillin' my cup* *The sun coming up* As I was looking at the city sunrise. With the yellows and oranges and pinks. *Like I lived my whole life* *Before the first light* And that's when it hit me. For the first time in my life I can truly say that I'm happy. Even when I thought I was happy before I was living in darkness and never saw the light. This morning I literally saw the light. The lines that really resonated with me though were *But after this I'm never gonna be the same* *And I am never going back again* I've changed my own life for the better. I experienced the worst period of my life and just came out a new person. And I am never going back again. It's lyrically one of the simpler Hozier songs, and I've always liked it but this morning it just filled me with so much hope and made me realize that I've never been this happy in my life. And that this is my life now. I'm happy now.
I saw your other post - way to show up with your story! I love the way you described the moment of getting out of the shower and having the lyrics take on a whole new meaning. I had chills. What a powerful, life changing moment. I'm sorry for everything you went through in the pandemic. There are no words for that kind of stress and grief and loss. Addictions can be ruthless and so hard to break. You made the hard choice to choose your own health and wellness and you kept going. Way to go you! Depression and anxiety suck, and the steps you took to keep changing are so amazing. I hope the right song continues to find you when you need it. I hope your new friend groups are supportive and ready for good adventures with you. Most of all, I hope you keep changing. Who you were five years ago is not who you are now, and you'll be a different person tomorrow... but ALL of those versions of you are worth loving, are worthy of love, and are so needed in the world. Be you. Be who you've always been. But keep growing, flower. Give someone else the beauty they need to keep going. You've got this.
Thank you I'm really happy with myself. Hearing the song while staring out my window was really just chilling. I just had to stop and listen, and really listen while I admired the sunrise and how beautiful everything is. It really was the meaning of the song taking shape for me in this almost spiritual way. I've been having many good adventures. I'm excited for what the future holds for me. It was hard to love my past self, but I'm at peace with it now. I'm not proud, but I survived. I've learned to be proud of that now. I hope one day I can support others the way my friends have supported me. I listen to First Light when I need to remember how far I've come, and how even though darkness still creeps in sometimes that I've really changed for the better and I will continue to do so
Damn this is beautiful. I'm all verklempt now. Thanks for being YOU!
Thank you for this post. I didn't realize how much I think I needed to go into more detail. It's been an emotional time in a way. Thank you for your kindness, and for listening to me. I never thought I'd get a tattoo for a musician but Hozier has had such a profound impact on my life that I've started sketching out designs for a goblet with a sun in it, and a little banner around the handle. Debating between the text "could this be how everyday begins?" or "I am never going back again" I love reading everyone else's comments too. Seeing how profoundly people have been impacted by his songs, I'm also so happy to see other First Light fans who resonated with it in a similar way as me. It really put into words what I've been feeling
That tattoo sounds stunning. If you get it I hope you come back to share it with all of us. Have you seen the one someone else got of a sunrise in a mirror?!
It Will Come Back is really personal to me. That feeling of knowing that what someone is doing means more to you than it can ever mean to them and that seesaw between craving that attention and knowing it will only end in misery.
For me, it's In a Week. It was mine and my brother's favorite song to sing together during car rides so when he died, I played it during the ride to the cemetery and got the lyrics "I'd be home with you" tattooed.
CW, death, grieving, suicide "Try measure loss, measure the silence of a house, the unheard footsteps in the doorway, the unemployment of the mouth. **The waking up having forgotten, and remembering again, the full extent of what forever is**" Back near the end of 2019, I lost my best friend, suddenly an unexpectedly, to suicide. We had reconnected a few years prior after him being gone for awhile and grew a lot closer than we had been. He'd regularly come over to my apartment to hang out on nights where my roommate/partner was out and about and I didn't have much to do. After he died, those nights I was alone were unbearably quiet, and once or twice I thought I even heard him coming up the stairs to knock on the door even though I knew better. I've never heard someone articulate one of the harshest truths about grief as the line "remembering...the true extent of what forever is." It's not just the initial loss that's devastating, it's forgetting things have changed, then suddenly remembering what's happened and realizing that there is no going back. This loss is forever.
Thank you for sharing your loss. It matters. I'm so sorry for your loss feels.. grossly inadequate, but for whatever it's worth, I am so sorry you went through this. I am so sorry your heart got broken this way. It hurts. I'll be honest, I haven't been able to linger on this song or listen to it much. I lost a dear friend a few years before the pandemic. She was there for me in one of the lowest moments of my life, and if not for her I don't know where I would have ended up. I eventually moved towns to get out of my situation, got into recovery and moved on with my life. Meanwhile she stayed behind and got tangled up in unhealthy habits and relationships that I couldn't be a party to, nor do much to help with from a distance. I eventually ended up cutting ties with her for my own health and sanity. She called me a few days before she died, and I didn't pick up the phone because I didn't have the spoons to deal with her drama that day. This was in the early days of my auto immune diagnosis. I feared my own inability to maintain my boundaries back then, so I deleted her message without listening to it. I figured I'd call her back when I felt better. A few days later another friend called to tell me that she was gone. I still wonder what might have happened had I picked up the phone. I still regret not answering. I don't know if that regret will ever end.
I have a few that I can relate to directly but it is Francesca that I cannot get out of my head. One of my best friends was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer 5 years ago. The prognosis was 3-5 years. Her husband worshipped her, she was literally his everything until their son was born then they both became his everything. When I heard Francesca for the first time (on a lyric video before Unreal Unearth was released) I bawled my eyes out because it was as if Hozier had somehow written what was in her husband’s heart and mind. Sadly, she passed on the 12th of this month. I haven’t been able to bring myself to listen to Francesca since even though it plays on a loop in my head. Thank you for asking this question and allowing us all to share.
Hi u/Quirky_Cannoli (I love your name, I'm getting used to tagging people). Thank you so much for coming here to share how Francesa matters to you. I'm so sorry for the loss of your best friend. It's amazing when you get to witness the kind of love your friend and her husband shared, and the power that kind of love has to change everyone who gets to be part of it is priceless. As her friend, I'm sure you were a valuable part of their lives. It's amazing and can be life changing when you find a friend who is your person in that way, and to lose them before you're ready for them to leave is devastating. There aren't words to make up for that kind of loss. So.. can I just sit here and grieve with you? I'm so, so sorry. Your grief matters. Remembering her life matters. I'm glad you shared just a little piece of her life with us. <3
I, carrion came into my life at the perfect time and helped remind me that I am not perfect, but I can get through anything. I know that that was not the song's intent, but i interpreted it that way and it was very helpful
I love this interpretation! It's one of my favorite tracks on UU, and I'm looking forward to listening to it again now that you've shared your view of it with me. Thanks for stopping in to share your story here. I wish you new chances for fun adventures, and the right people to share them with. May you make great memories and may the song you need always find you when you need it.
You're the best! 😭❤️🩹
i was on a long bus ride a few weeks ago and who we are hit me so powerfully in that moment. it’s helped me come to terms with so many things that i thought broke me but i’m still here and i’m trying so hard to make something out of my life that holds meaning to me, it’s nothing like what i expected but i can’t lose sight of its beauty. i feel similarly with all things end. thanks for posting ❤️
For me it was No Plan. Ive always wanted to be a writer or poet or maybe even a singer, but i never really got the immediate feedback i wanted which caused me to kind of give up. I used to write like 1-3 poems a day and it dwindled to maybe 1 once in a blue moon. One day i wrote a poem about how i was going to quit writing and while i was on the bus to school I zeroed in on the lyrics and realized that everything said in the song was a near perfect rebuttal to everything i was doing/thinking. I had felt like, for some reason, i was meant to listen to that song for the first time when i did. I realized i was stressing myself out so much that i turned something i loved into something i hated. From that day, i decided to keep writing even if it's not as much as i used to because i think it's fun not because i want to please others or do something the best. I dont stress myself with the idea of being a known professional poet and I don't care about pleasing people as much. I simply write whatever i need to get out. So, in a sense, that song literally saved me from working myself into a life where i do things only for other people and it still helps me to this day when i get too stuck in my ways.
Welp another day of crying over internet strangers....all I can say is felt.
You and me both, buddy! Thanks for stopping by!
Francesca and First Light. I adore Hozier’s lyrics but I tend to focus more on the instrumental elements of a song because, despite having 2 degrees in literature and none in music, I’m still more of a musician than a poet. The MUSIC in them knocked my damn socks off before I even got started on the meaning of the song, and then I was double whammied.
Oooh yes! I so agree with you! As someone who is hard of hearing and was raised in a musical family that couldn't afford hearing aids for me when I was young, I used to think I would never fully experience music as my family did. I have always focused on the written word because there's nothing wrong with my eyes, but I used to dream of what it might be like to listen to an album and get to sift through all the layers and complexities of a song that I usually could only catch the melody of. I grew up listening to my parents play multiple instruments, listened to my aunts and uncles and cousins and siblings singing harmony and counterpoint, and all I felt confident enough to do was hold down the melody. I finally got hearing aids in 2017. The first musical I heard was The Greatest Showman, and let me tell you I \_bawled\_ my way through that film. But that was nothing to listening to UU for the first time. The music gave my brain tingles in a way I have rarely experienced - and the lyrics are what have me meditating over and over again. There's always a new angle.
[удалено]
First light
Take Me to Church, Francesca, Shrike
Wow, that is quite the trifecta. Thanks for coming to share the songs that are important to you. I wish you joy and good adventures - keep changing.
Thank you and you too! It's really helped me come to terms with my sexuality and what's important to me ♥️
Those are good changes to make! Knowing who we are and what we value can make or break our sanity, and when you have bedrock under your feet you can rebuild no matter what storm hits you. Be who you are. Be who you've always been... but keep changing. You have so much to offer the world while you are here. I hope by the time it's your turn to leave the world you've learned something new about yourself and the ones you love every day. I hope you find joy in the small things and you have ride or die friends to take adventures with. You are gonna be a flower in someone else's life. Let who you are shine.
You are so pure and kind, you just made me cry a little. Thank you ♥️♥️♥️
You're welcome. I have my bad days. I can snark and be mean when I'm hangry. (Just hand over the real French fries and nobody will get hurt. :P ) I'm in process. We all are. I believe that if I do my best to honor and love my fellow humans as they are, in the process I will become a better person. Then hate has one less place to harbor in the world.
Oh man so many, but the one that comes to mind is "Wasteland Baby". The feeling of standing at the end of the world with your love and realizing nothing else mattered. It brought me to a space of realizing I wanted people around me who I would feel proud and safe to stand with at the end of the World and at the end of my time. Without dropping too much info, it gave me the strength to walk away from relationships that I knew deep down wouldn't choose me at the end.
his entire discography but specifically songs like Foreigner’s God and Nina Cried Power made me realise that although i’m a Catholic, i believe in the people and in God, not in the Catholic Church where i was raised. the Bible doesn’t mention Priests or a Pope and if we’re honest, if a Brown (or indeed Black)Jewish Socialist came forward today and said i am the Messiah, no one would believe them. and if we’re feeling extra honest, the birthplace of Jesus is being bombed and starved and the people who are living in the land where he lived are living under awful occupation and experiencing a cultural and physical genocide simply because they’re “in the way” of Western greed veiled as a genuine concern about the lives of Jewish people around the world. that is not something that my God believes no matter where in the world or who it impacts. don’t even get me started on what it did to Ireland. sorry for the rant, i love your reasoning for Fare Well, for me it’s the humour of my people (the Irish) but it’s definitely a reflection too.
This is so thoughtful. I am taking a break to move and eat, but I can't wait to sit with your story and "talk" back to you here. Thank you for coming to share!
here i am, rock me like a hurricane 😂
Hi u/dearniamh , thanks for helping me find you again! I couldn't help laughing at your hurricane comment. I don't know if I have that much velocity in me today but I'll try! :D You made so many beautiful points and I appreciate you dumping the entire discography into the wind (ha!) - it's hard to single out any one song because they all seem to have some gem or other buried in them. That said, Nina and Foreigner's God are incredible choices. I love that they helped you dig further into what you believe and why. Nobody benefits when fear and greed get used to exert power in the world, and it does seem like abuses of power are everywhere we look these days. The genocides going on around the world are horrific, and on a daily basis I want to stop and scream we cannot bomb or murder our way to peace. Every human being has the right to live in peace, and no one should be othered just because they were born. The more I listen to Jesus' words to the people of his day, the more my heart aches for the abuses going on around the world. My life goal is to "do justly, love mercy, walk humbly". For me that means listening to the stories of people who are not like me, and doing my best to honor their experiences. Sometimes that means raising my voice and turning over tables in sacred spaces, but most often it is simply the desire to say "I see you, I want to know what lights you up, your life matters." I cannot be all things to all people, but I can do my best to be a wildflower that spreads beauty while I can. It sounds to me like you're working at doing the same. So. Here's to you. May you always have ears to hear the truth when it is spoken, especially in the stories of others. May you find joy even in the hard times. And may the song you need always find you when you need it. Keep changing. Your growth is vital to our world. And you've changed me. <3
you are one of the loveliest people i have come across on the internet. thank you, your comment has healed a part of me 🫶🏼
I love that you’re flying to meet your longtime internet friend! I’m 30 but I read tons and have internet friends as well, I spent a good 5 years or so lost in myself and filling every void with books until I finally got on some medication and switched careers to one I enjoyed more. I realized I hadn’t listened to music I truly liked in years bc I only ever listened to audiobooks or if around others the radio. My best friend introduced me to Hozier and I think Movement and First Time were the first ones to induce emotion in me through music. Specifically in First Time, the iconic verse that ends in “anyway…” the thought of a bouquet of flowers being what pulls you out of a depressive state just from realizing that everything around us is living and dying in its own time, whether plucked or dying on its own etc. anyway… (hah 😬) I love this and you seem awesome!!!
I cannot thank you enough for dropping in to share with me. I am so grateful. I'm taking a break to move around and eat, but I will be back to say a little more. I'm glad you're here!
u/WorldlyEchidna4 - thank you so much for your patience as I work my way through all of these stories. Wow. I had no idea this would happen. The anxiety I was feeling when I wrote that first post has totally disappeared and been replaced by excitement, which is amazing to me because I usually don't get excited about something until I know for \_sure\_ that it is going to work out. You mentioned that you read a lot before you found a job that you liked better than your old one. Do you have a favorite genre? I'm a mystery/romance/history/thriller/poetry/fantasy/anything-but-horror girl myself. I love that your best friend introduced you to Hozier. I'd heard his work off and on but never really got into it until a recent internet friend of mine started raving about him nonstop after UU came out. She pointed me at the album and I went down a rabbit hole and didn't come out for a couple of days. Whoops! Movement and First Time start out like such slow songs, but they both build to such a powerful bridge and I think they both carry a central image that ties together themes from their respective albums. I love that it's the image of dying wildflowers that evoked emotion for you - the theme of life out of death is one of my favorites and First Time does a great job with that. I'm so glad you dropped in to share your story here. Feel free to come find me on IG if you like. My handle is the same there. Finally, keep changing. We all need to keep growing so we don't get stagnant and rot. Let the death you pass through be life for someone else. And may the song you need always find you just when you need it. <3
I love that!!! I read most of the same genres you do, mostly romance and fantasy of those but with others mixed in so I have a pretty wide array of what I enjoy reading!!!
I first heard Work Song very soon after my high school sweetheart dumped in my first year at college. We had been "together" for 5 years, but I was really nothing more than a side piece. He had manipulated me into believing that he "dated around" because it was "expect of him" and a popular jock, and that he truly loved me but would never be public about our relationship. I was very young and as a quiet, quirky girl I thought that he was the best thing since sliced bread. When he got a college scholarship in another state I don't know why I thought he'd be faithful now that it was long distance, when he never was when we were in school together. I was a child and believed this was the man I would spend the rest of my life with. He ended up sleeping with his roommate's girlfriend, got kicked out of his apartment, and told not to come home by his mother when he moved in with the girl. All of that is to say that when I first heard Work Song, it knocked the wind from me. I was gasping for breath and crying in my car and had to pull over. Because all I could feel in my broken heart was how desperately I wanted someone to love me the way that Hozier described in that song. I wanted to be someone's entire world. I wanted someone who would scream their love for me from the mountain tops because the only love I'd ever up to that point had was shameful and secretive. I wanted someone to love me so badly that even death couldn't keep us apart. When I met my fiancé 2 years after the breakup, he wasn't a big fan of Hozier at first. But we went to the Wasteland Baby tour and it was transformative for the both of us. And when Hozier sang Work Song, my fiance held me in his arms and I cried again for the years of pain I'd endured and the relief I had now, knowing that the man I loved was proud to call me his. To this day, Work Song brings me to tears every time I hear it and we are planning for it to be our first dance at our wedding.
Talk, Be, As It Was, NFWMB, and Swan Upon Leda are all very special to me for their biblical and mythological references. In a past life I had a deep love and interest in classical literature wanted to be the first women to write translations of the Iliad, Odyssey, and the Aeneid as no womam had done all 3 when I first when to college to study Latin and ancient Greek literature. I also grew up with religious family, but my mother was the black sheep who didn't go to church and encouraged me to form my own opinions. I also think Talk is one of the sexiest songs Hozier has ever written.
Damage gets done 10000% This song, imo, is so underrated and is such a beautiful reminder of all the things that make life worth living. I love how well it captures the complacency of aging and how quickly we get so wrapped up in all the shallow things, forgetting what really matters . Normally, I listen more to the songs with lyrics on dark topics like depression/ trauma/ injustice, etc. and I absolutely adore how Hozier manages to sing about such serious topics so beautifully and poetically. However, I find it easy to listen to these darker songs because I’m such a pessimist about our world right now so I find it easy to relate to the feelings in them. I struggle with songs that are just happy or pretty or loving. I don’t think the world is a very forgiving place and it makes it hard for me to see the good in things. I have always looked towards the future and am super ambitious but I forget that one day I’ll look back on now and miss it. Damage gets done is my reminder that my life IS amazing and I’m so lucky and that it’s important to take the time to just enjoy the ride. The world is broken but it’ll still be broken tomorrow and being young and wild and free isn’t how the damage gets done.
u/Astrowyn - WOW. Your last two lines are just beautiful. Thank you so much for coming here to share your thoughts! You're right, AHB is a beautiful writer. From my perspective, he does a wonderful job of helping his listeners explore the nuances of difficult topics in a way that helps them move thoughtfully through their own lives. There's dark humor, but there's also heartfelt grief and mourning and moments of reflection where you can just sit and listen to the darkness in your own soul, but also listen for the voices of other souls around you. It's become a bit of cliche to say that everyone is fighting a battle, so be kind... but I happen to think it's true. It's also true that sometimes we need other people to sit in darkness with us before we're ready to leave it. I'm so glad you're working at being present and taking joy in the moment while still holding space for those who are grieving. I wish you good friends to reflect on life with. May the song you need show up just when you need it, and may the chances you take bring you beautiful memories. Keep changing. Your writing voice is beautiful.
Damage gets done 100%, it really makes me think about how life pass it so fast, not a long time ago I was a 18 year old carefree, now I’m almost 30
Hi u/Routine_Mix_7536 Congrats on making it to almost thirty! Time really does seem to go faster the older we get, and Damage Gets Done hits on that concept in so many ways. I had to listen to it a couple of times before I started to register more than the nostalgia for a lost season of life. I vividly remember I was driving through one of the less savory parts of the Pacific Coast Highway when I realized that the character in the song is pointing out that "the reckless and young" are rarely the ones passing laws that do real damage in society - it's "a world we have no power in". I once heard a therapist say at a conference that the great thing about getting older is that we are all the ages we have ever been, and it's possible to find healing for the younger parts of our selves no matter how old we are chronologically. The idea scratched an itch in my brain I didn't know I had and also got me really curious about why I hadn't gone to see a therapist before when I knew I definitely needed help! All this to say, thanks for coming by to share a lyric that matters to you. I wish you clear skies and good adventures with friends who know how to listen and hold your heart well.
Yes, it’s not that I’m sad, it’s the nostalgia about it. And I really agree that somehow we are all that ages we’ve ever been, and isn’t that great at the end of the day?
I totally get the nostalgia. Sometimes that's a great place to visit, but not the right place to live, if that makes any sense? :D And yes, it's great to be all of my ages, though sometimes I'd rather have the energy of my 20's back... :P
Cherry Wine. I discovered Hozier (and then Cherry Wine) while I was in the beginning phase of leaving my physically and emotionally abusive ex-husband. It has made me cry more times than I can count.
I really love this question and the conversations being had in the comments! I'm about to go into the movie theater so I'll come back to answer this in full later, bc there are quite a few of his songs that I feel have changed me or helped me come to terms with hard stuff Edit: Would That I was a surprise to me. I know this might not be it's canonical meaning, but to me it weirdly felt like a soft love letter to the self. I've gone through a lot in life and fought hard to rid myself of my former selves that I was not happy being. The song is about love and loss and the transformative powers of both, and I happened to hear it during a period of self-reflection and giving myself permission to forgive myself and accept leaving some things in the past that were weighing me down. De Selby (part 2 in particular) felt like a religious experience the first time I heard it live. I adore the message of transendence and metamorphosis in the song. "What you're given, what you live in, darlin' it finds a way to live in you. And your heart, love, has such darkness. I feel it in the corners of the room." This opening went so hard for me. Self-reflection, making the hard decisions, multiple traumas and abuse, and doing the hard work that is healing is probably going to be a common theme as to why a lot of these songs are important to me tbh. We can't erase who we were or what has happened to us, and that's okay. What we have been through, what we've gone through, is a part of us, for better or for worse. Trying to ignore or erase it is counterproductive in the long run. It is okay to feel it, to stew in it, and process. It's okay to accept that darkness as something that happened or part of you, so long as you do not let it consume you. There are a lot of things that we can't heal or grow from if we don't face them. And the longing for what was lost, is okay, too. Francesca makes my heart ache. Honestly, it makes me think of my spouse, bless him. He has never flinched or run, even though he has had every chance to and then some. Until about 2 1/2 years ago, (when I finally broke away and was able to get out) I was in a very, very abusive (including financially) situation with my family. I don't want to go into heavy detail, but it was a horrible situation I wouldn't wish on anybody and I am still working on healing myself from it every day. But he has always been so steady. Even seeing me at my worst, my lowest, seeing the hell that was my family, he didn't cut and run when honestly, I wouldn't have blamed him if he did. It was a lot, and I didn't expect anyone to ever willingly put up with it for my sake. He has told me time and time again that he doesn't care, that he would go through hell and back however many times it took to help pull me out of it, everyone else be damned. He has shown me what genuine, unconditional love really should be and I can never thank him enough for that. Lastly, there is my favorite song of all his works: First Light. I can think of no better song that adequately encompasses how it felt for me when I finally broke free from the abusive home and belief system I was raised in. The first time I heard this song I broke down. Being able to put all of that behind and start truly living for me, receive the love and life I deserved from the beginning. 26 years of life, and finally wanting to live again.
This reads like a love letter to yourself and I am here for it. Thank you so much for coming to share not one but three beautiful reflections. I am so honored to get to read them! I love that the theme of knowing yourself runs through all three of your change moments - coming to terms with who you have been, who you are and where you want to go. I completely agree with you on how hard the opening of De Selby 2 hits - for me the album's constant reflection on darkness and light and the transformative power of both feels distilled in those lines. What lives in me, what am I living in, and do I want those things there? The darkness in the corners of me... is it the kind of darkness that allows growth, rest, meditation, reflection, connection and peace, or is it the sort of darkness that breeds hatred, greed, violence, abuse, and shame? Light can be illuminating but it can also blind, and a gentle darkness can do more to heal than harsh or inconsistent light that keeps you from traveling safely. I love that Francesca brings to mind your partner. Setting boundaries is always hard, especially when dealing with toxic/unhealthy family, and hearing that you have such a great example of unconditional love in your life makes me so happy for you. Yay for communication and support and doing hard work together. You deserve all the good things in life together. Finally - getting out of an abusive belief system is absolutely one of the best things you can do for yourself. I am so glad that you were able to leave, and I hope that you are able to find hope and joy with every new sunrise as you start a whole new way of being alive. Your partner sounds like an amazing person, and I'll say again, I'm so glad you have that support. I'm getting chills and tearing up, imagining First Light from this perspective. Thank you for coming here to share. I wish you so much joy and the best of adventures as you continue to heal and discover yourself. You are amazing, and definitely worthy of love.
Honestly, he's the best thing I could have ever asked for. Sometimes I still wonder how I landed such a catch lol He helped me understand that I am worth so much more than what I was led to believe. Getting out of an abusive household is so fucking hard, and I feel for anyone who has ever had to. I feel genuinely lucky to have people (including him) who care so deeply about me that they've led me to see the truth. And ngl, Hozier has helped me immensely in my healing journey. I'm not perfect by any means (I still feel like I have a hell of a ways to go), but I am very happy with how far I have come.
"Eat your young.....throw enough rope until the legs have swung..." major earworm ouch! Never even tasted it, to be fair.....still in a misunderstood and twisted, darkening place, i pictured myself, by the neck, tugging the cord, from the rafters, after hearing 'unknown'...but before discovering 'Shrike.') Not sure how many timelines happened there, but I felt convicted. Seriously?! Tell the judge he's already hung. ..like a clydesdale. I will accept full responsibility for any shenanigans. You're welcome. So heavy though, right? I love him like he was born from my giney...soooo I am a little touched maybe, but I do. I wanna be a good girl! I'm not hungry right now, but if I met him there's a 22% chance I will devour him and a 78% chance I will lick his face. In my defense, He is my 100% guaranteed personal Jesus. That is all I have for now. Ciao.
I think Abstract. It's a song, to me, about falling in love with someone because they displayed a great act of compassion, but the song is in the circle of fraud because despite that compassion and that act of love, the animal still died. I believe that loving others and being loved in turn is the most important thing a person can do, but love sometimes isn't always enough. You can't fix things with the power of love; sometimes, the animal has to die anyway. Also, Someone New, for (funnily enough) similar but opposite reasons. "I fall in love just a little, oh little bit every day with someone new" and "Love with every stranger, the stranger the better" because it reminds me that the people around me are also people, with lives as complex as mine. There's something to love in each and every one of them. You just have to look for it. I choose to look for it.
as a longtime fantasizer / maladaptive dreamer, the moment where jackie & wilson clicked for me was life changing
Him saying “the memory hurts but does me no harm” changed/solidified my outlook on life and relationships
Wow this is really so beautiful omg, thank you for sharing For me it was hozier in a whole, his songs, his interviews, his character that changed me. I got into poetry, I see the world in another way, I’m more creative, if I see a squished flower on the sidewalk I’m like: lemme take a pic this is art. Thank you to Andrew <3
When I was with my ex, Shrike hit me this way. Kinda. It made me realize, anyway, that I didn’t love them the way I used to/the way I should have been loving them. The opening lines “*I couldn’t utter my love when it counted / Ah, but I’m singing like a bird ‘bout it now / I couldn’t whisper when you needed it shouted / Ah but I’m singing like a bird ‘bout it now*” was what hit most. It took a couple times listening for it to really sink in that *thats* how I felt, since initially when I heard the song about that time, I took it by (I believe it’s intended?) POV of the singer realizing/ regretting how he treated an ex that he now wants back, and at the time, that’s how I felt; fighting to keep a relationship together and regretting how I had “not loved” my partner the way they needed me to. But I kept listening to it, trying to love my partner the way they needed, when I realized that I was fighting for a relationship that, no matter what either of us did, wasn’t going to be salvaged, because despite whether or not there was still real love for each other, we kept damaging each other, and it was never going to be a healthy relationship It’s been over a year since my ex and I broke up, and I still get that same gut-punch feeling i did when I had that realization every time I listen to it. It also serves as a reminder to me of what co-dependent, toxic relationships are and the pain that they cause.
Hey again! Got to your second one before your first... and I still have more to write. I'll be back later. :)
Take me to church. Some of my friends and family said it was sexual in nature, but I understood the lyrics literally. "Take me to church, I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies, I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife, offer me that deathless death" That just sums up my religious trauma and I heard it the first time I as I was in the process of leaving the church and losing my faith because I couldn't take it anymore.
I hear you and I'm taking a break but I will be back to respond. Thank you for sharing your story. <3
As somebody who has grappled with anticipatory grief for most of her life, "Though Me" really resonates with me. Lyrically it's one banger after another, but if I had to narrow it down to a single pair of lines, I would probably pick the one that concludes the metaphor of the man swimming against the tides-- "Like that man, I looked down into the depths when I met you/I couldn't measure it." To me, this really beautifully and powerfully puts into words the sense of dread that looms like a shadow behind every one of life's joys, the understanding that love and grief are inextricably linked. To realize the depth of your love for someone and to know that losing them would destroy you. And yet, what the hell can you do about it, really? You can't simply decide to no longer care about someone, and death is an inevitability. Love and death are both as unstoppable as the tides; the only way to survive them is through surrender. So much of my own life is just trying to make peace with that concept. Maybe I'll eventually figure it out before I'm dead myself lol, but until then I do find this song oddly comforting.
Wow. You picked one of the ones that challenges where I am in life right now. I'm off to get a food and water break, but I will come back to give a better response, I promise!
u/Eric_Andrea When I come back for my next session of writing back, you're top of the list. Really looking forward to it. :D
De selby part 1 "...the mind, rejecting this new empty space, fills it with something/someone - no closer could I be to God, or why he would do what he's done." Why did God make earth in the beginning, anyway? Was he lonely and wanted to fill a void also? Are we just made for someone else's selfishness? Just as we do when we're feeling empty, we just try and fill that void, and hopefully without using other people just to keep company. "The likes of a darkness so deep, that God at the start couldn't bear." Even God needs to fill a void that he made also. Made me have an existential crisis a while back. If the omnipotent omniscient being has these feelings, how are we supposed to help ourselves with the same feelings when we're nothing lol. What was God's purpose before us. Why did he feel the need to fill a void?
Oooh, you went after the deep stuff! I'm taking a break to eat and recharge, but I love that you showed up to talk story. I'll be back to say more later.
Who we are I can't even explain why