YMMV / Hozier

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Are "Take Me To Church" and "Angel of Small Death & The Codeine Scene" sung by women?
  • Some people interpret "Someone New" to be about loneliness. Others interpret it as being about fleeting moments of connection between strangers. Others suggest it's about hook-up culture.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: "To be Alone" has some elements that make it almost sound like it's describing Intercourse with You. The phrase "Feels good, girl, it feels good" being said repeatedly in the chorus doesn't help.
• Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: Many of his songs have been analyzed and interpreted in very different ways by listeners. His poetic style lends itself very well to this.
  • "Work Song" has been interpreted as a fairly straightforward love song about someone with a difficult life who keeps going because they have a sweetheart at home. It has also been interpreted to be about addiction, the "baby" in the song said to be drugs or alcohol.
  • "Take Me To Church" has been interpreted in a variety of ways (the fact it has some obvious Christian symbolism doesn't help) but Hozier has said it's about the Church's suppression of natural human sexuality (especially homosexuality).
  • Besides its obvious surface-level interpretation of describing two corpses rotting in the countryside, "In a Week" has also been interpreted as metaphorically describing the peaceful afterglow of sex — especially considering that an earlier song on the same album, "Angel of Small Death and the Codeine Scene" references the euphemism "la petite mort" for "orgasm."
  • "Unknown/Nth" on the surface is a song about being betrayed by someone you thought you loved. With Unreal Unearth being openly inspired by the circles of hell in Dante's Inferno, some listeners have interpreted it as being sung by the betrayer, usually said to be Lucifer or Judas Iscariot, from the deepest depths of Hell as a message of regret for what they did.
• Genius Bonus:
  • Scholars of French or readers of Shakespeare might recognize the translation of an old French euphemism for orgasm (la petite mort) in "Angel of Small Death and the Codeine Scene."
  • "No Plan" was inspired by, and directly references, a lecture by astrophysicist Katie Mack about ways the universe might end. "As Mack explained, there will be darkness again" specifically refers to the heat death hypothesis.
  • "De Selby" parts 1 and 2 are named for a character in The Third Policeman, a slightly mad philosopher whose theories drive the story. Some of these theories are referenced on the lyrics, namely his "Atomic Theory" that the things someone interacts with become a part of them and take on aspects of that person in turn.
    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
  • "Francesca" is named for Francesca da Rimini, a 13th century Italian noblewoman who was murdered by her husband after he discovered her affair with his brother. She also appears in Dante's Inferno in the second circle of Hell.
  • "Butchered Tongue" explicitly references the brutal treatment of Irish rebels against the British during the 1798 rebellion.
• LGBT Fanbase: Yeah. Many LGBT listeners greatly resonate with his lyrics, especially "Take Me to Church." Lesbians and bisexual women in particular really like him. He's embraced it, being vocal about LGBT rights and often using gender-neutral language in his lyrics.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Some of the more... squirrelly parts of his fanbase like to claim he's a member of The Fair Folk and/or spends part of the year in the Underworld with Hades, often to explain his long hiatus between his first two albums.
  • Lesbians love Hozier.
  • Today on Hozier liked... ^Explanation Fans have taken to going through his Twitter to see what tweets he's liked. They are often very strange.
• Misaimed Fandom: "Take Me to Church", whose lyrics include "She tells me worship in the bedroom // The only heaven I'll be sent to is when I'm alone with you" and whose music video is a Gay Aesop, was very popular with Christian choirs.
• Nightmare Fuel: "In the Woods Somewhere". That poor fox...
• Signature Song: "Take Me to Church".
• Squick: "In a Week" features a surprisingly graphic description of two corpses slowly decomposing and being eaten by insects and other animals. Still lovely, though.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: A few fans weren't happy with the "Cherry Wine" video. The song itself is from the perspective of a man in an abusive relationship, shedding a light on how female abuse towards males manifests. The video makes it so that the man is abusive, which some felt was playing into the All Abusers Are Male trope and missing the point of the song.

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