Work Song

First thing's first: Hozier is too clever by half, and you can bet he knows it.

This is a song about love, true enough. Intensely attached, profoundly limerent love than transcends death and makes the world, the things one has to do, and even the potential of an afterlife fade into irrelevance. A love that reaches in, unquestioning, and loves, protects, and raises up the loved in spite of faults and sins and crimes. The rhythm encourages the listener to leave it at that. Just a love song, all about the redeeming qualities of love. How it can get you through the day and save you from yourself. A traditional topic applied with a rhythm that reinforces the old-fashioned homeyness of the sentiment.

Yeah. Not quite. That's there. You're supposed to hear it, and that's been covered beautifully by multiple posters here already. But the whole story, as always with Hozier lyrics, is a bit more than that.

The first hint comes early, and is pointed out by the music itself.

"Boys workin' on empty Is that the kinda way to face the burning heat? I just think about my baby I'm so full of love I could barely eat"

There you are. Getting through the day, miserable about what you have to do to earn an income, distracting oneself with thoughts of love. Then that last line, "so full of love I could barely eat." And the music pauses, the driving, worker's rhythm stops. That's a cue. You're supposed to stop and think about that line. Is it a reference to courtly love, the lack of desire to eat that comes from intense limerence? Absolutely. But that alone would not necessitate a pause in the music, it wouldn't need to be pointed out. It wouldn't have the touch of strangeness that the pause adds to such a driving, rhythmic song. What else could make someone not want to eat? What is he hinting at?

"There's nothing sweeter than my baby I'd never want once from the cherry tree 'Cause my baby's sweet as can be She give me toothaches just from kissin' me"

There's a juxtaposition here that shouldn't be missed: The nutritious, healthy sweetness one would find from a cherry (rejected), and the sickly, rot-inducing, unearthly sweetness of artificial sweets (accepted). Another point: Unlike a cherry, the sweetness of his baby is intense enough to cause actual pain, and there is some implication that it feels sweeter for the pain it causes. There's also a bit more play in mentioning a toothache, because it would make you disinclined to eat for very physical reasons. In summary: his love is more satisfying and sweeter than food, even as it unavoidably causes him pain.

Chorus, let's save that for the end.

Next verse:

"That's when my baby found me I was three days on a drunken sin I woke with her walls around me Nothin' in her room but an empty crib"

It starts the same, this time tortured by life choices and one's own sin rather than one's economic obligations, misery abounds, and he is redeemed by love. Then there's that fourth line again. No pause this time, the line's disturbing enough. Why is the crib empty? The most optimistic interpretation is to say that it's hope for the future, for a family, but I suspect it's meant to imply the opposite. There was potential for simple family-life, for wholesome growth, but like the cherry's nutritious sustenance, it was rejected for something sweeter, more satisfying. The crib is empty, and it will stay that way. After all, he already has his "baby."

"And I was burnin' up a fever I didn't care much how long I lived But I swear I thought I dreamed her She never asked me once about the wrong I did"

A fever this time, heat from inside rather than outside. He's progressed from working outside, honestly, in the heat, to "drunken sin" and fevers. Is he making a living anymore? The statement that he doesn't care how long he lives implies he might not be. This is rock-bottom, where you want to give up. Until you remember your savoir. A fever dream. Something that will forgive you, make everything okay, love you in spite of it all. No questions, no guilt, no shame for all your sin and sickness.

"My baby never fret none About what my hands and my body done"

The tenor of manual labor in the first verse is important here. His baby doesn't care about his work, his virtues, his effort, just as she doesn't care about his sins and vice. Hands and bodies work in both ways.

"If the Lord don't forgive me I'd still have my baby and my babe would have me When I was kissing on my baby"

Here he is giving up any fear of damnation and any desire for salvation, preferring instead the earthly sweetness of his love. Her forgiveness, her heaven will be the only freedom he will feel, the only thing he will have, the only thing he can consume or care about. Complete devotion for all time. Devotion that transcends virtue, sin, hope, and fear alike.

"And she put her love down soft and sweet In the lowland plot I was free Heaven and hell were words to me"

There is an implication that the love has to be activated in the first line here. It isn't a constant, comforting thought, but comes all at once. And then you have a grave being referenced, as if the love itself can cause death. Then what comes after death, the afterlife: It, like food and family and (likely) honest work, has been rejected.

Now the chorus:

"When, my, time comes around Lay me gently in the cold dark earth No grave can hold my body down I'll crawl home to her"

It's about addiction, kids. You start out with a normal life, occasional comforting thoughts, and active desire. Then it gets worse, but at every point the drug redeems the situation, even as you give up food, honest work, health, family, your future, and ultimately your life in exchange for its embrace. But it's a love song, a beautiful one. There is no regret, just the desire to crawl back, even when the worst comes to pass. The music itself drives it home, as it keeps going on, pushing and driving, even as more and more of the narrator's world is stripped away. Even as the world is quite literally stripped away by death. It only pauses once, and that's early on. Not an uncommon story, but portrayed uncannily well in so many ways that I had to write about it here.