I though a quick palette cleanser was in order after three back to back Fashion Week posts so I wanted to take time out to proclaim my love for my new favorite album:
I. First Meeting
I’d gained awareness of Wicklow-born singer-songwriter Andrew Hozier-Byrne long after the fanfare and confetti following the release of his hit song “Take Me To Church” and much discussion over the controversy of the graphic black and white video that accompanied it had dispersed. Apparently the rest of the world had been celebrating the musician long before I showed up on the scene. Every time I tried to excitedly tell a friend about this great new artist they’d stop me and say “yeah, you mean the ‘take me to church’ guy”. In my defense I don’t listen to the radio or have cable, so the fact that my discovery was even this close in proximity with the rest of the world’s is a small miracle.
The first song of his I actually heard was “Cherry Wine” while listening to a Spotify-constructed playlist called “Indie Brunch”. Most of the music on the playlist was, for me, no more than background noise, but this song halted me. It had a gentle, lilt and felt comfortable and familiar like a Sunday morning. I listened to it again; the lyrics were simple and emotional in a very human kind of way. I replayed it again and I saw that the recording was live. Oh my Gwad. This guy really sounds this good live?! I was hooked. The last songs I had this reaction to were Bob Dylan’s “Farewell Angelina” and “I want you” by Tom Waits. I listened to it many times on the train before actually taking a look at the entirety of the album or even learning the singer’s name, drifting off in an Elysian peace so impenetrable that even break dancing kids spinning on the subway pole couldn’t disrupt me. I bought the album on vinyl within the week.
Buying a new album, for me is a sanctimonious declaration of love and reverence for an artist. In today’s age of digital books and music where piracy is commonplace, buying a hard copy of anything is unnecessary even – but if there are two things I believe in giving money to it is print media and the arts. I’ve even forced my own mother to pay full price for the album. “He’s an amazing artist! We don’t get many like him these days.Give him your money so he can keep doing this!” I may have yelled hysterically over the phone. When the day came that my album was slated to be delivered I waited dutifully in my apartment, pacing like a nervous poodle with separation anxiety. As anyone who lives in New York knows, receiving a package is an extremely annoying process, but I was willing to do it for love. When the clock hit 8:01(deliveries stop at 8pm) I went through an irrational list of conspiracies “the delivery man with excellent taste marked it as lost and took it home, He’s enjoying it right now with tea and a book” etc. A knock came at the door 20 minutes past delivery hours and it took me less than 60 seconds to thank the delivery man, unwrap the album and have it playing on my Crosley. Ever since it arrived at my door, my vinyl of Hozier’s self-titled album has sat atop my record player like a wedding ring; In sickness and in health, till death do us part. Every day for the past two weeks I have come home battered by the city, closed myself in my room, lit candles and listened to the whole thing start to finish then back to front, perfectly sedate and blissful, except for the distant whisper of a thought that maybe my roommates will stage an intervention and ask me to listen to something else. Terrifying thought at the moment.
II. Overview
Despite being a new artist to the world stage, Hozier’s music has a well-loved, worn in and familiar feel thanks to an old soul and a trove of influences: folk, gospel, rock, soul, and blues lend themselves to the overall sound. The grisly narrative songwriting style of Tom Waits, the haunting, soulful quality of Billie Holiday, the indignant swagger of Pink Floyd,the natural born style of Jackie Wilson, the menacing soulfulness of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins –not to mention lyrical writing characterized by the gruesome poetic imagery of Seamus Heany, the wry literary loveliness of Oscar Wild, and the complexity of James Joyce, making each song feel like a long lost favorite. This album is also ripe with soul and heavy with themes of human experience: Life,death,love,sin, flaws. You will also hear a wealth of musical touches often forsaken these days in popular music; voices in harmony, cello, guitars (acoustic, electric, and steel) round out the sound.
The pacing of the album is also spot on. Everything bursts onto the scene with “Take Me To Church” and goes down tempo as the album goes on, finishing, where I began my journey, with Cherry Wine.
III. My Top Five
Each song title is linked to a video.
“Take me to church
I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
I’ll tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife
Offer me my deathless death
Good God, let me give you my life
No Masters or Kings
When the Ritual begins
There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin
In the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene
Only then I am Human
Only then I am Clean”
Obviously the most popular track on the album. Take Me To Church is an anthem defiant against institutionalized shame. There are allusions to original sin, confession, and the promise of eternal life in heaven. Its been discussed over and over again because, as I might have mentioned, I was late to this party. Great song though.
2. Cherry Wine:
”
Her eyes and words are so icy
Oh but she burns
Like rum on the fire
Hot and fast and angry
As she can be
I walk my days on a wire
It looks ugly, but it’s clean
Oh mamma, don’t fuss over me
[Chorus:]
Way she shows me I’m hers and she is mine
Open hand or closed fist would be fine
The blood is rare and sweet as cherry wine”
This is the song that hooked me. Cherry Wine, while sweet in execution, is actually quite violent lyrically, crediting it’s sentiments to inspiration from Carole King’s “He Hit Me and It Felt Like A Kiss”. The recording has some very charming atmospheric nuances, as it was recorded early morning on an abandoned hotel rooftop. Sounds of soft wind and birds singing are serendipitous additions that were wisely never edited out. In fact, production on the song at all is sparse, which in this case, is ideal to keep the integrity of a good and simple song.
3. From Eden:
“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”
The narrative of this song is from the Devil’s point of view as he is looking upon and idealizing something good and innocent and recognizing it as a missing piece of himself. The central idea here being that sometimes in infatuation the desirable traits we think we see in the object of our affection are actually those we feel we are missing in ourselves, that maybe to have them would make us complete. Despite its narrator there is a humanistic charm in the way flaws and endearments are presented with the same tone of admiration. If we really are reaching back, the lyric “honey you’re familiar like my mirror years ago” is an allusion to the Devil’s remembrance of a time of purity and innocence as Lucifer in Heaven before his fall from grace. Musically this may be my favorite. Lilting guitar and and a choir of voices make up the soul of the song and it is carried out with a confident, tongue in cheek but tender tone.
4. Work Song:
“My baby never fret none
About what my hands and my body done
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
And she put her love down soft and sweet
In the low lamp light I was free
Heaven and hell were words to me
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”
Work song credits it’s haunting melody and slow and steady rhythm to its roots in gospel work songs sung in prison chain gangs. There is a brief and ambiguous narrative of toiling, unforgivable acts of the past, and feelings of wretched hopelessness, before we delve into the narrator’s thoughts which are consumed wholly by memories of their love. For me, this is the most beautiful kind of love song because nothing about the love in it is perfect. It’s more about how we as flawed humans can love one another and find a kind of earthly holiness and redemption through the experience. There is an organic reverence for the lover in this song, that the promise of their love outweighs that of heaven, hell, past sins, and overrides death.
“Don’t give it a hand, offer it a soul
Honey, make this easy.
Leave it to the land, this is what it knows
Honey, that’s how it sleeps.
Don’t let it in with no intention to keep it
Jesus Christ! Don’t be kind to it.
Honey don’t feed it – it will come back.”
This is a bluesy number with a lusty swagger. There is a very visceral element to the lyrics that could be interpreted as conjuring up ego, a demon, or a wild animal. There is also some incredible aural imagery towards the end; while repeating “don’t you hear me howling, babe” a dull and steady bass drum beat, cello tremolo, and tinny steel guitar glissando create a dark tension before the fever breaks and the song ends.
*Bonus* – Like Real People Do:
“I had a thought, dear
However scary
About that night
The bugs and the dirt
Why were you digging?
What did you bury
Before those hands pulled me
From the earth?
I will not ask you where you came from
I will not ask and neither should you
Honey just put your sweet lips on my lips
We should just kiss like real people do”
This song’s lyrics read like a poem, clearly a credit to the songwriter’s reverence for literary figures such as Oscar Wilde and James Joyce. It’s a macabre romantic fairy tale in narrative, written from the perspective of someone being dug up from the earth to be taken as a lover. The narrator is happy to be retrieved, but also suspicious of why they were stumbled upon in the first place, questioning what their new love’s business was digging them up in the first place, if they had ever meant to find them or if they were happened upon in a grisly treasure hunt. Either way the questioning isn’t too much worth spoiling the current state – I believe is the narrator’s thought process.
These are, of course, just my thoughts on the whole matter. As the man himself says in this interview “People hear what they want to hear. And that’s all right.” Mr. Hozier-Byrne, I’ll be seeing you Sunday, March 22nd at the Hammerstein Ballroom.
All In Good Taste 