How Hozier Made Me Feel Better About Love

Not including the people who have been living in a sensory deprivation chamber for the last year, it’s safe to assume we’ve all heard that Hozier song, right?

I’m a little obsessed with his music at the moment. Okay, maybe a lot.

While that Roman-Catholic-conflicted ear-worm may be riding the radio waves for ~~millennia~~ at least the rest of the year annoying the crap out of us, I can say with total confidence that “Take Me to Church” is the least impressive song on Hozier’s self-titled debut album.

Andrew Hozier Byrne — who is a mere five months older than me and rocking the man bun — got years of training working for the professional Irish choral group, Anúna, before he started laying down vocal tracks for his EP in his attic. I appreciate anyone with the gumption to manipulate the sounds of a room for a desired effect but he’s classically trained, too? Ooo, child! A sultry delta feel. Punctuated rhythms. Baying guitars. A delectable voice. That dirty, gritty sound reminiscent of southern rock and garage-blues. A little Tom Waits. Hozier blends it all together with a splash of the macabre I remember being so prevalent in my Irish Lit class back in college. His lyrics are raw, revealing the songwriter’s tender inner emotions in a way most twenty-five year olds are unable to articulate that well. It’s the opening of a soul for all to see — vulnerability in music at it’s finest.

So vulnerable, in fact, that I found his lyrics made me feel better about the way I love.

Let me explain.

Think about the beginning of any romantic endeavor. The way the nerves wrack your stomach. The way every text tone causes your heart to take up residence in your throat. The way you spend every day imagining, wondering — is there a future in this? Where are we going? Is this person someone I’m willing to devote time and energy to? Are they The One?

Every new relationship for me — even just a small fling — gets put under the mental microscope. I imagine how he’d fit into my social circle, if he’d be able to share a bed with me (the most violent of sleepers) — a feat only ever accomplished by my childhood BFF? I think of a million different ways we could fall for each other, postulate on possible confessions of unconditional love, and spend so much of my damned attention daydreaming that the thoughts end up invading my sleep. I found myself worrying that I might be absolutely off the deep end in the romance department.

Then Hozier came around. I’d resisted his music for months, skipping past “Take Me to Church” whenever it popped up on my XM station. I finally caved for one song — “Jackie and Wilson.”

The lyrics paint a pretty relatable picture — a boy meets a girl, projects the best self he can muster, burying every other version of himself “in the yard outside,” and fills the idea of her with all of his hopes and wishes for the future. He sounded a lot like me — maybe I wasn’t crazy, maybe this was just a normal human trait we’ve done a pretty good job of collectively hiding all this time. After all, getting to that place of vulnerability with someone takes a lot of effort — isn’t it natural to want to spend some time working out the kinks in your head? I like to think so. And it turns out I’m not alone in this habit; after getting the courage from Hozier to broach the subject, I found the majority of my friends and family do the exact same thing.

By the end of the song, the girl is gone and Hozier is left to put his love life back together. “I start digging up the yard for what’s left of me after our little vignette for whatever poor soul is coming next; she’s going to save me, call me baby, run her hands through my hair. She’ll know me crazy, soothe me daily — better yet, she wouldn’t care… we’ll name our children Jackie and Wilson, raise ’em on rhythm and blues.” The cycle repeats. Meet, fall, imagine the future, lose them — on to the next.

One theme sticks out from the album — there is nothing right or wrong about the experience of love. “There’s no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin,” and sharing that connection with another human being can be the “purest expression of grief.” A post-coital embrace can feel akin to death when tangled up in the right soul and when that seemingly right soul bails it’s perfectly fine to “fall in love just a little bit every day with someone new.” As a girl whose “mid-youth crisis is all said and done,” and a romantic and sexual past with “no shortage of sordid,” I find relief in knowing I’m not the only one on the planet who thinks love doesn’t require a background check, just mutual respect and a shared interest in kissing each other.

“Would things be easier if there was a right way? Honey, there is no right way.” Looks like I’m not a looney-toon after all, gang. Thanks, Hozier!