Unreal Unearth - Blog Posts

went to the bookshop today to buy the divine comedy so I can get that sweet academic validation from understanding the unreal unearth references and damn the hozier fans been at it I could only find one copy on an otherwise empty shelf 💀

the duality of hozier fans

GUYS

IM GOING TO A HOZIER CONCERT

I GOT TICKETS TO GO WITH MY BROTHER IN JULY AND IM SO FUCKING EXCITED THIS IS AMAZING

Do you know, I could break beneath the weight...

Of the goodness, love, I still carry for you?

That I'd walk so far just to take

The injury of finally knowing you

I, Carrion (Icarian) / Let Down

Ok so hear me out ‘cause I’m going insane over this, but the parallelisms between Let Down by Radiohead and I, Carrion (Icarian) by Hozier????

The "protagonists" of the two songs start from two diametrically opposite situations: while Icarus flies high and free in the sky (he has “reached a rarer height”), Radiohead’s alienated is grotesquely compared to a bug crushed on the ground (“shell smashed, juices flowing / wings twitch, legs are going”).

Both these situations result, among other things, from the words that others have said to them. Words full of love that become the wind under Icarus’s wings, they’re what makes him fly, but also what distracts him from realising he’s falling towards his death (“and though I burn, how could I fall / when I am lifted by every word you say to me?”). On the other hand, the verse “let down again” and all its variations indicate how the ‘bug’ has always been disappointed by other people. We can assume that the words it’s used to hear are a lot of things but uplifting, but maybe it’s also what makes it so much more aware of what surrounds it than Icarus.

These different experiences have led them to have very different values/ideas. In fact, the ‘bug’ says “don't get sentimental / it always ends up drivel”: it warns itself against hope because it knows that if it starts getting “sentimental” the fall that’ll follow will be that much worse.

On the contrary Icarus is all about 'sentimentalism' (which is also given by the way Hozier writes) and this is because he has the support of the one he loves, who holds up his sky (“once I had wondered what was holdin' up the ground / but I can see that all along, love, it was you all the way down”).

In a sense then we could think that the ‘bug’ was right: Icarus does fall. However, for him the sheer euphoria and the all consuming love he felt while flying are worth the fall – he has no regrets and just one wish: to fall besides with his lover.

This is the exact opposite of what the ‘bug’ thinks: for it the risk of getting hurt even more is just not worth it – it only knows pain and that’s why the rational side of him warns him against hope since it’ll cause even more pain. However, there’s also a side of it (the “hysterical and useless” one) that cannot help feeling hopeful: it feels like “one day it’s gonna grow wings”, that one day a “chemical reaction” (which could refer to the idea of 'to have chemistry' and so could mean love - obviously not necessarily romantic love, but in a more general sense) will get it out of its hole.

But then the “floor collapsed” also for the ‘bug’, even if it already was on the ground: a ‘from bad to worse’ type of situation.

In conclusion, we could say that both Icarus and the ‘bug’ fall because they try to be more than human (in very different ways). Icarus is not a god and so he doesn’t have wings (“I do not have wings, love, I never will”): instead of getting down to the grown and build something stable with his lover who’s carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders all alone (“while you're as heavy as the world / that you hold your hands beneath”), he recklessly keeps flying higher and higher until the sun finally burns his wings to ashes.

On the other hand, the ‘bug’ just allows itself to fall because, by refusing to feel “sentimental”, it tries to eliminate its humanity since a fundamental part of being human is to feel emotions. Precisely because it tries to lock away their 'sentimentalism', it falls a second time – something that might have been avoided if only the ‘bug’ followed that hope and actually tried to make its situation better.

Ok, so does anyone else see my vision? Are these the signs? No but really, I hope this makes sense.

wait guys let me cook for a second

(my roommates aren't home for me to bother them. i'm going crazy)