This song tears my heart out. I love it. I’ve never seen a discussion by Hozier of what he was thinking when he was writing it, but a story always arises in my mind when I listen. It seems to be an exploration of the enslavement of women from the point of view of a man perceptive enough to question what he is doing and be troubled when the slave he is committing whatever you call a sexual act committed on a slave screams the name of the god of her people, lost to her. She seems to have come from a country the man despises, and yet she fascinates him. It could be an ancient story from any of thousands of years in our troubled past or it could be about a slaveholder in the American South or it could be a story of contemporary slavery. What an idea! Once again he has flipped the story to explore it from an unexpected point of view.
@marycb what a great (and unusual) interpretation! I never would have thought of it. But it fits with all the lyrics perfectly. The rape of a foreign slave and feeling guilty while doing it.
@marycb what a great (and unusual) interpretation! I never would have thought of it. But it fits with all the lyrics perfectly. The rape of a foreign slave and feeling guilty while doing it.
This song tears my heart out. I love it. I’ve never seen a discussion by Hozier of what he was thinking when he was writing it, but a story always arises in my mind when I listen. It seems to be an exploration of the enslavement of women from the point of view of a man perceptive enough to question what he is doing and be troubled when the slave he is committing whatever you call a sexual act committed on a slave screams the name of the god of her people, lost to her. She seems to have come from a country the man despises, and yet she fascinates him. It could be an ancient story from any of thousands of years in our troubled past or it could be about a slaveholder in the American South or it could be a story of contemporary slavery. What an idea! Once again he has flipped the story to explore it from an unexpected point of view.
@marycb what a great (and unusual) interpretation! I never would have thought of it. But it fits with all the lyrics perfectly. The rape of a foreign slave and feeling guilty while doing it.
@marycb what a great (and unusual) interpretation! I never would have thought of it. But it fits with all the lyrics perfectly. The rape of a foreign slave and feeling guilty while doing it.