metaphors in hozier's 'would that i'

the song doesn't make a lot of sense until you decode the metaphors he uses in it, but then it all clicks. the use of extended metaphors for his present and previous lovers is really important and significant because it tells the listener a lot about how he experiences these different loves in very different ways, and why his current love isn't 'just another date', but something entirely new that he values very highly and cherishes to the point that he 'worships' it.

hozier compares his past loves to plants - he describes his past lover as having 'hair like the branch of a tree' and calls her a 'willow', and, when talking about forgetting other loves in the wake of his current lover, he says that he watches 'still living roots' be destroyed. plants are beautiful, but they require a lot of care. there's a specificity to each type of plant, because different plants have different needs in terms of water, types of food, mineral content, soil pH, and the list goes on. it's easy to accidentally kill plants with just one misstep. they are delicate and difficult and progress is slow because it takes years and years for trees to grow and reach their full potential, start producing fruit, etc. hozier is saying that his past loves were a lot of work and they didn't give anything back easily, even though he had to give them everything to try and make them work.

by contrast, hozier calls his new love 'the fire', 'flames', and so on. fire is wild, all-consuming, and can be terrifying. but fire is also powerful and free. when we think about fire, we mostly think about destruction - wildfires or burning buildings or similar disasters - but fire is also life. before human ancestors had fire, they were cold and vulnerable and in the dark. but, after fire, their survival was completely revolutionised: it was an entirely new way of life. for the first time, they could control when it was light; they could keep warm in the winter; they could cook food, and, subsequently, their diets were transformed; they could protect themselves much better from predators. fire represented energy, innovation, life. yes, it was dangerous. but it was also majorly useful and ultimately it was something they needed, not just to stay alive, but to live. to call your love not just a fire but the fire - as in, the first fire, the only fire, the fire to rival all other fires - is to call it the introduction of warmth, protection, light, growth, energy, and power; it is to call it the biggest advancement possible in your lifetime; it is to call it the single root cause of a metamorphosis. the speaker is commenting that this newest love has entirely changed the way that he sees and experiences love.

the metaphors also allude to the speaker's own inner turmoil and problems with love and loving. when hozier talks about his prior trysts, he uses precise, controlling language: he's very specific when he talks about exactly what the relationship was and how it worked in his first verse, detailing what was 'under' him and what was 'over' him. then, in the next verse, he repeats the verb 'must', giving that verse a desperate, urgent tone. 'must' is a harsh verb and it doesn't leave much room for debate. the level of control that hozier is exerting (or, at the very least, trying to exert) over this relationship is made clear linguistically, but is also mimicked in that extended metaphor of the willow tree. taking care of them is long, hard, and mostly fruitless work, and maybe he even feels like it's his duty to take control of the relationship because he feels that his lover needs that control, maybe because she isn't giving him anything much back, just like that volatile, hard-to-care-for willow tree. that same verse sees an allusion to the time that he 'fretted fire', and, if the tree is control and stability, then surely fire is the opposite - anarchy and disorder? - except that he comes to see fire as freedom. he manages to let go of the need to be in control. he finds a relationship where he doesn't need to be the one doing everything: he doesn't address his past lover(s) at all (perhaps he knows it's pointless, since they won't respond?), instead talking about them passively, but he does talk a lot about what he does, relying heavily on first person singular pronouns. in the fourth verse, he addresses someone else for the first time - his 'flame' - personally, and the fifth verse is entirely directed at her. he talks about her actually taking action, actually doing things. when he says that she 'licked off the grain', i think that he is alluding to her taking all of his bad memories, all of his felled willow (and other?) trees, and simply taking away the rough, uneven parts (the grain), leaving him with the smooth wood, and that she is able to do this because he no longer has any reason to lament his past failures in love - he has his 'flame', and the trees of his past can't use their roots to trip him up or push their branches in his face any more, and so he is simply left with happy memories, the best of his ex-lovers, whatever is left that he can still appreciate and be thankful for. and that's significant because he's found a love who has helped him let go of the need for control. he doesn't need to control the relationship any more, for his sake or for his lover's, because she is here and she is willing to do things with him and for him and give back to him and help him to be free, and offer him warmth and protection and energy and all these things that fire is, and he doesn't need to do anything except love her back, because fire only needs one thing to stay alive, and everything else simply becomes fuel. if his love is her flames' version of oxygen, then everything else is just flammable material. nothing he does can make her stop loving him because fires aren't difficult to keep alive, they are difficult to put out. fires don't need food with specific mineral ratios or a certain volume of rainfall or the right soil pH. they just burn. she just loves him - that is what she does. and he watches 'in awe' because that kind of unconditional love is so far removed from his carefully-measured, carefully-controlled previous relationships.

and those last two lines of the last verse are so beautiful: "long as amber of ember glows/all the 'would that i'd loved' is long ago". he's saying that even when the flame burns out, even if she stops loving him, even if she is dead and gone and buried, the freedom that she gave him will remain in the 'amber', that beautiful colour linked to energy and the sun and wealth (because isn't that what love is?), of the last, residual 'ember', the dwindling remains of the love and freedom they shared. and as long as he can hold onto that freedom, even if it does dwindle down to embers and ashes - treasured memories and the fears that you'll forget what their smile looked like or the way they scrunched their nose when the disliked something or the cute expression they assumed when focussed - then he never has to go back to feeling like he needs to grip onto a half-hearted relationship, where he must always be responsible and in control and doing.

but yeah i just love that fire metaphor. can you tell??? probably not

Dog Days - Ethel Cain (2019, Carpet Bed EP)

i’m sorry but big sean’s “hell yeah, i’m a dick, girl, i’m addicted to you” in fob’s The Mighty Fall is akin to shakespeare like that is *poetry*

reminder to writers/self

its ok to write shitty poems its ok to write shitty song lyrics its ok to write shitty stories its ok to be unoriginal its ok to reuse a line from something else you wrote its ok to reference other works its ok to be proud of shitty writing its ok to be proud of great writing its ok to be proud in general its ok to not use overcomplicated intricate wording in writing its ok to write about dumb shit its ok to write about fictional events its ok to write something awesome but have one weak line you cant really fix its ok to write something terrible but have one amazing line that doesn't fit its ok to write about emotions you don't really grasp its ok to write

taylor swift, from anti-hero // fatima aamer bilal, how do i say i am unwell without being a burden?

hozier performing an acoustic set of from eden, dublin 2019. I get brought to tears every time I watch this.

(don’t ask me how to get the full footage bc idk 😭 the concert was professionally recorded because it was supposed to be televised but it never ended up happening. somehow some fans managed to 🏴‍☠️this specific part, I just screen-recorded it and have had it saved for 4yrs)

I've just come to the realisation that at the beginning of Vore (first fifteen seconds), along with the scratchy guitar chord, there are chewing and swallowing sounds. The song is quite literally from the point of view of being stuck in the throat of a God.

do you ever hear the lyric “people will dissect us ‘til this doesn’t mean a thing anymore” and feel complicit to some sort of crime

i don’t mind - sturgill simpson

A House In Nebraska - Ethel Cain (2022)

“i love you so much that i would die for you” okay, but what about loving someone so much you would live for them? what about loving someone so much that your love for them makes you want to read and write and dance and cook and listen to new music and learn new things; all so that you can share these things with them? is it not so much more romantic to say that for you, i would live? for you, i would live for as long as i possibly can so i can love you for as long as im able to? because i will never be able to give you everything that you deserve but for as long as i am living, i can try. because you feel like flowers blooming in April and you feel like the warmth of the sun on my face and you feel like the moon’s reflection on the surface of the ocean and you feel like a soft summer rain storm and you feel like Home. so for you, i will live. for you, i will stay.

lana del rey’s “there’s things i want to talk about but i’ll just let you live”

taylor swift’s “writing letters addressed to the fire”

jane austen’s “if i loved you less i might be able to talk about it more”

fatima aamer bilal, from moony moonless sky.

[text id: if i am a sunflower, as you say, would you be my sun? / every time you called me your sunflower, i ate back the words, “would you be my sun?”

not that you weren’t already. i just wanted you to know there’s a reason why my gaze shifts whenever you shift.]

the lyricism in Epic the Musical is criminal -> each song seems to hit like a fucking sucker punch note: i haven't read the odyssey- my interpretations are purely from the song "-.w-.

"Why are my eyes and my heart and my soul so heavy?" Just keep your eyes open "I keep on trying to embrace you both... why won't you let me?" Keep Your Friends Close

'why won't you let me?' I SWEAR TO GOD -> his delivery on this specific part legit makes me feel so many emotions it hurts.

Just keep your eyes open "So much has changed, but I'm the same. Yes, I'm the same!" Keep Your Friends Close

Odysseus is literally pleading here -> he's so strung out and burdened by what he's done, that even in a dream what he wants feels out of reach

stars, idk what Jorge Rivera-Herrans laces his songs with but it is GOOD