Hozier’s Unreal, Unearth is a Museum of Layered Lyrics

By Tori D’Amico

Each time Hozier releases a new album, it becomes even more shocking that his first hit came out in only 2013. Since “Take Me to Church” put this Irish artist into the mainstream, his music has gotten only more layered and poetic—a seemingly impossible feat after a true no-skip self-titled first album. But Unreal, Unearth’s 16 song tracklist is stacked with lyrics that strike listeners' hearts even if they don’t unpack each literary reference, and overwhelms them with beauty when they do. 

Unreal, Unearth pulls in a few layers of classic references, most prevalently to Dante’s Inferno. Nearly every song contains a lyrical nod to a different circle of punishment, whether one Hozier implies is due to the pain of love or because of betrayal (which warrants a ninth circle punishment, for those wondering). 

In the most plain interpretation of its lyrics, Unreal, Unearth is an intensely visual album—something that contributes to my love for it. Hozier expertly pulls specific images and experiences to explain the intricacies of love, pain, and even cultural destruction. 

Without, well, unearthing each Genius annotation, this album would be worthy of a video-essay length explanation. But instead of writing that script, I’ve pulled lyrics from my personal favorite tracks and paired them with mostly Romanticism-era paintings—rather than the illustrations relating to Inferno or mythology which most accurately pair with its references. And, most importantly, in the style of a Tumblr lyric post from 2015:

“First Time” / Ophelia by John Everett Millais

Following the explosive second track, “De Selby (part 2),” “First Time” is a tender love song with grim mythological references. The narrator says the first time his lover kissed him, he “drank dry the River Lethe,” which in Greek mythology is the river which washes a soul of its identity and memory after death. He then goes on to say a part of him died the first time they called him baby, but then in the next refrain, that some part came alive then, too.

And as the narrator goes on to sing to us from beyond the grave, painting the image of a flower slowly wilting, I imagined him floating along the river—like Ophelia and her handful of poppies. Perhaps a painting with a promise of reincarnation would have been more apt, but Ophelia’s life hinging on Hamlet’s betrayal is like a final casting out of the self because of love and loss. 

P.S. I feel an affection unnameable for the way the second verse ended with “anyway,” and I just thought that was important to say. 

“Who We Are” / Courage, Anxiety, and Despair: Watching the Battle by James Sant

Concluding the first half of the album before transitioning into the fully instrumental “Son of Nyx,” “Who We Are” is a belted lament of the pain of life, growth, and love. The chorus lyrics “We’re born at night / So much of our lives / Is just carving through the dark,” speaks to a theme on the album of spending all our lives trying to make sense of our feelings. But what’s most significant to me in this song is that despite the pain this relationship has created, the narrator still craves to be held in the most intangible of ways by “someone with your eyes”—like water, or if nothing else, like a knife.

In the second verse, the narrator sings that he and his lover lost their way in chasing “someone else’s dream” and “something undefined.” This “phantom life,” when it becomes clear to them, or maybe only him, like a sharpened image, also sharpens like a knife. With the resignation that they no longer work together, “quietly, it slips through your fingers,” like trying to hold water—which to me, says that maybe, being held like a knife is more reliable.

Now, I’ll admit, I didn’t have this painting stored in my small Rolodex of art history knowledge—but I was charmed to find how much it connected to the song beyond the holding of the knife. As the three women, Courage, Anxiety, and Despair, hide from a battle unseen to the viewer, Courage holds back the other two while holding onto a knife at the ready. This battle could be anything, but Courage takes the lead—which I think is what “Who We Are” shows we must do when given the choice to love someone fully, rather than let anxiety drive us toward a dream that doesn’t suit us or despair keep us from loving again when it ends. 

“Abstract (Psychopomp)” / Still life of dead birds and a hare on a table by Adriaen van Utrecht 

As my personal favorite song on the album, there is a great deal to be said about “Abstract (Psychopomp).” Hozier tells in an interview with Belfast Telegraph that it comes from a specific memory of seeing someone rush into the street to retrieve an animal which has just been hit. He says it’s a “significant memory” and that this line reflects on his admiration for such a risk “in this very cold and brutal space.” 

And though many lines return to this moment, the song goes beyond a poetic call to an unfair death. The person running into the street is painted as a lover in the song, and seeing this is “the moment I knew I’d no choice but to love you,” for the narrator who feels his whole life is defined in this abstract moment. As he sings over and over, “see how it shines,” he points to many things: the animals eyes still with a bit of life, his lover's eyes tearful with compassion, and in my opinion, the shine of the world that is sometimes beautiful. 

While a painting of a hunted rabbit might not seem to shine like the guide of a psychopomp (in mythology, a guide to the afterlife), I think it actually feels resoundingly similar. This world is full of small tragedies, as well as large ones, but people throughout time have taken the hours and days to paint dead birds and a hare. They saw it shine. They trapped that abstract moment in a canvas to shine for us now.