Yeah, I've always read it as the subject of the song being both the Angel of the Codeine Scene and the Angel of Small Death.
As far as being the Angel of the Codeine scene... that's what the people in the scene go around worshipping, really. Opiates tend to start small and get more intense as they grow, and I feel like that progression is a lot of what's being pointed out. Little by little, they progress to harder and harder iterations. Like practicing rituals to learn to be a better religious person. Tiny steps to be a better person, or in this case a more addicted person.
And the Angel of Small Death feels like wordplay to me. Small death obviously references orgasmic pleasure, but there's something else. There's an Elliott Smith line that talks about heroin that goes, "A little less than a human being, a little less than a happy high, a little less than a suicide," and it just rattles around my head whenever I hear this song. Basically, heroin addiction as being a half-life (which, now that I think about it, Hozier's referenced while talking about Sedated), somewhere between being alive and dead, a small death.
@marycbon I see what you mean now. xD
Yeah, I've always read it as the subject of the song being both the Angel of the Codeine Scene and the Angel of Small Death.
As far as being the Angel of the Codeine scene... that's what the people in the scene go around worshipping, really. Opiates tend to start small and get more intense as they grow, and I feel like that progression is a lot of what's being pointed out. Little by little, they progress to harder and harder iterations. Like practicing rituals to learn to be a better religious person. Tiny steps to be a better person, or in this case a more addicted person.
And the Angel of Small Death feels like wordplay to me. Small death obviously references orgasmic pleasure, but there's something else. There's an Elliott Smith line that talks about heroin that goes, "A little less than a human being, a little less than a happy high, a little less than a suicide," and it just rattles around my head whenever I hear this song. Basically, heroin addiction as being a half-life (which, now that I think about it, Hozier's referenced while talking about Sedated), somewhere between being alive and dead, a small death.
I hope that's coherent?