From Eden

TommyG nailed it. This is about a man in love with a married woman (or one in a committed relationship) whose husband (or boyfriend) is cheating on her. He's there to comfort her, finding her in a "tragic" and "lonesome" state. He tells her it's happened to him ("you're familiar like my mirror years ago") and he knows how painful it is to have the idealism/chivalry/innocence of your relationship "die screaming" ("Honey ask me, I should know"). However, he knows his intentions are far from pure, and just like the snake in the Biblical tale, he's slithering to her door hoping to tempt her into having sex with him (or otherwise cheating on her other man).

The copy of the lyrics on this site are missing an important part of the second verse that makes the meaning of the song much more clear: "Babe, there's something broken about this/But I might be hoping about this/Oh, what a sin." Even though he hates seeing how broken she is, he's hoping it will benefit him in the long run, and he hates that he thinks that way.

Or at least that was my interpretation of it. One way or another, it's a beautiful song.

The author who "slithers" from Eden is clearly a reference to the serpent in the Garden of Eden, there to tempt this woman, the object of his desire, into sin. There is a reference to the "other man" she will be cheating on. In this context, there is only one person the song is addressed to. "Honey" and "Babe" are one and the same. She is more hesitant to engage in this affair, while the author shares that he once would have felt the same moral reservations, but experience has taken away that idealism/innocence/chivalry.

This song is about an affair and is lyrically broken up into two parts featuring his lover and his wife.

He refers to his lover as Babe. She is mysterious, alive, broken like him, looking for way to escape. She is not judgmental like his wife, and loves him in the moment. In the chorus he refers to his wife as Honey. She is familiar, boring, and the lyrics speak to the reasons why his marriage is failing. He has to slither back home from Eden where he has sinned with Babe. “just to sit outside your door” is a metaphor to the fact that when he’s home with his wife Honey he’s still mentally far away with Babe in Eden.

I might be wrong, but I think that when the author says, "To the strand a picnic plan for you and me," he is using the German word strand, meaning beach. :)

I like to interpret this song differently. I think it's about a gay man who is in love with a straight man. He describes himself as the serpent in the Garden of Eden, for the sin of homosexuality is his crime. He is madly in love with another man who is in the closet, describing him as both positive and negative adjectives, because he is beautiful yet not true to himself. "Vacant stares" is the man's response to the gay man's invitations to homosexual activity. The man is familiar to the gay man, like looking in his "mirror years ago", when he was in the closet too and feared a open homosexual life. "Idealism" is the perfect nuclear family, with a man and a woman, and "chivalry" is men looking after their ladies. His "innocence died screaming" was how he faced homophobia, which he thought he would not have to face. The gay man persists the closeted man, "sitting outside your door" is a metaphor or trying to tempt the man out of the closet and love him back. He describes his "sin" as both precious and wretched, which alludes to the sin of homosexuality, also the theme of Hozier's song "Take Me To Church". "A rope in hand for your other man" is about the closeted man's father, who would be ashamed to have a gay son, or about God, who would be angry that men were committing this sin.

I think this song is about the dark beauty of sinning in the name of the heart. This love is so real he will slither, like the animal that was damned to be on it's belly, to sin with her, and DAMN her man lol.

Its LOVE, or really infatuation.

I see a lot of people saying it's about a man and woman, but none have noticed, it's is actually from the point of view of the devil. (I'm not kidding, Hozier confirmed it in a 'Track By Track' video on his channel) Anyway, I think the whole song can be looked at as Satan talking to and about God. Here we go:

Babe, there's something tragic about you Something so magic about you Don't you agree? Tragic, that those who worship him can only see him once passed away, dead. And magic, all the miracles he has performed.

Babe, there's something lonesome about you Something so wholesome about you Get closer to me A story of how the devil came to be is that he literally fell from grace, the devil was once an angel, but wanted to become the equal of God, since God is the one and only, he made Satan fall from heaven down to hell, then Satan continued being evil from the lack of God's love and the want for revenge. Leaving God all alone, lonesome. But something so wholesome, so pure, that is God. Satan wants to get closer, back to heaven, back to God, or, to pull God down to hell, get closer to him.

No tired sighs, no rolling eyes, no irony No 'who cares', no vacant stares, no time for me This is the Devil's thoughts as he fell from grace, God wasn't tired or bored of letting go of Satan, there was no rolling of eyes, no time for him.

Honey, you're familiar like my mirror years ago Idealism sits in prison, chivalry fell on its sword Innocence died screaming, honey, ask me I should know I slithered here from Eden just to sit outside your door Satan is saying to God how familiar he looks to as he was a time ago, his ideal situation now sits with him in the prison of hell, and chivalry (all the qualities expected of the ideal knight (oh my goodness this fits so well because Angels are often considered God's Soldiers!!)) was lost, fell on its on sword, for he lost all those qualities in his descent. Satan lost his innocence in a fury, and Satan, often depicted as a snake, dithered out of Eden, God's home, only to sit outside the door, wanting to return.

Babe, there's something wretched about this Something so precious about this Where to begin So wretched, this whole predicament, yet something so precious, so unique about it, he doesn't even know what to say about it.

Babe, there's something broken about this But I might be hoping about this. Oh, what a sin Satan is broken, yet he was hoping for all this in a way, he is his own sort of God, but oh, what a sin it is.

To the strand a picnic plan for you and me A rope in hand for your other man to hang from a tree This could be talking about Cane and Abel, and how Cane led Abel away from their parents, Adam and Eve, and then Cane committed the first murder, killing Abel because he had made a greater offering to God then Cane, and Cane was overcome by jealousy, thinking God loved Abel more.

Honey, you're familiar like my mirror years ago Idealism sits in prison, chivalry fell on its sword Innocence died screaming, honey, ask me I should know I slithered here from Eden just to sit outside your door Honey, you're familiar like my mirror years ago Idealism sits in prison, chivalry fell on its sword Innocence died screaming, honey, ask me I should know I slithered here from Eden just to hide outside your door Chorus, same idea, x2

The song could be looked at less religiously, but I think it fits. Great work as always by Hozier.

Paradise Lost, Book IX, as Satan admires and spies on Eve before tempting her and bringing about her downfall:

"Such Pleasure took the Serpent to behold This Flow'ry Plat, the sweet recess of Eve ....her Heav'nly form Angelic, but more soft and Feminine, Her graceful Innocence, her every Air Of gesture or lest action overaw'd His Malice, and with rapine sweet bereav'd His fierceness of the fierce intent it brought: That space the Evil one abstracted stood From his own evil, and for the time remaind Stupidly good, of enmity disarm'd, Of guile, of hate, of envy, of revenge..."

I love how Hozier expands on Milton's (non-canonical) imagining of how Eve's beauty stopped the Devil in his tracks, and then goes a step further by developing this into a fully fledged, very messy romantic relationship.This song seems like a pretty radical departure from the account in Genesis, until you realise that the groundwork had already been laid in a 350 year old poem!

This probably would have spiced up the story if it had gone this way, I think. Satan and Eve were a couple of rebels and Adam was always a bit dull for her in my opinion. Besides, who doesn't love a bad boy?

This song is about the forbidden fruit of a woman in another committed relationship. He found his twin flame but she is in a committed relationship already so he's trying to battle with his feelings which are good but he knows they are based in the corruption of good values like chivalry, innocence, idealism, all the things that are lost when having an affair. He found his spiritual mirror (twin flame) which is why she feels so damn familiar and appealing to him.

“From Eden,” to me, sounds to me like there’s a woman he’s in love with - or having an affair with - who clearly has a significant other.

Babe, there’s something tragic about you. Something so magic about you. Don’t you agree? Babe, there’s something lonesome about you. Something so wholesome about you. Get closer to me. Something about her sadness draws him in.

No tired sighs, no rolling eyes, no irony. No ‘who cares’, no vacant stares, no time for me. He doesn’t get the most dreaded parts of a relationship since she’s with someone else. Him not having that portion of it means she has no true time to be invested in him and be exclusive.

Honey, you’re familiar like my mirror years ago. She reminds him of himself when he was younger.

Idealism sits in prison, chivalry fell on its sword. Innocence died screaming, honey, ask me I should know. Ideally, he’d like to be with her the way a real couple should be… but in an ideal world, they’re together in a wholesome manner, and not just having a fling on the side which is anti-chivalrous. He knows firsthand because he’s experiencing it in their relationship. Before this relationship, he was probably against adultery, but now he’s sucked into his own hypocrisy and his innocence on this subject has died.

I slithered here from Eden just to sit outside your door. He’s referring to himself as the serpent in the story of Adam and Eve. He is the one who suckered her and lead her into temptation, much like the serpent did to Eve. He’s sitting outside her door… waiting? For her to give all of herself to him?

Babe, there’s something wretched about this. Something so precious about this. This sin is very wrong to him, but being with her feels so good.

Oh, what a sin. This line is the most obvious. Adultery is listed as a sin in the Bible. But I think he’s saying this in a “how sweet it is” sort of way.

To the strand a picnic plan for you and me. A rope in hand for your other man to hang from a tree. Here I think he’s saying he’d (her man) kill for her. To make her completely and utterly his. He dresses up in the previous line, presenting the idea to her with a nice date first… but ultimately abandoning that scene for the kill.