Hozier: Connecting Love, Literature, and Religion

Andrew Hozier-Byrne comes from an Irish Catholic family of artists—his mother is a painter and his father a drummer. It only makes sense that these two art forms would combine to create a beautiful lyricist who challenges religion and embraces love. Known as Hozier on stage, he has been in choirs and small bands throughout his youth, eventually making a proper name for himself with over 46.8 million monthly listeners on Spotify. Many have dissected his songs, being fed biblical and mythological allusions that satisfy any artist, writer, and lover who truly listens.

 Allusions to the Bible may be simple to hear but perhaps harder to understand; especially for those with less awareness of Christianity. From a clear, somewhat satirical critique in his first hit ‘Take Me To Church’, to exploring specific religious texts in ‘Be’, Hozier demonstrates his power to bend the Bible into a shape of love, forgiveness, and acceptance — all from the shape of the institution’s punishment, restriction, and critique.

 For a bit of history, Christian apologists (those who aim to defend and define Christianity as they see fit) have been defining the Bible for centuries. St. Irenaeus, Athenagoras, and Justin the Martyr are three very old apologists who, among others, are responsible for the modern church’s outlawing of homosexuality, rejection of other religious ideals, and abandonment of desire, lust, and secular love. The consequences of the apologists are visible in the modern-day anti-LGBTQ+ agendas of many Christian denominations, the Russian “Anti-LGBT law” against “non-traditional sexual relations”, and many of the political issues in the United States. Hozier presents in his music a love that yearns and a desire that challenges God, giving light to those who may feel in any god’s shadow.

“Take Me To Church” is Hozier’s most well-known song, and his most direct critique. Released in 2013 – the same year Russia passed what is known as the Anti-LGBT law – this song twists the ideas of worship and questions the authority and teachings of the Catholic church. Hozier introduces his love as someone unorthodox, mentioning the breaking of a norm during a typically church-related event: “she’s the giggle at a funeral / knows everybody’s disapproval.” He takes this character and, instead of denouncing her presence, he admits that he “should’ve worshipped her sooner,” she who is heaven’s “last true mouthpiece.” With this line, he adds an intimacy and sexuality to worship: their love is akin to “worship in the bedroom” and a “ritual” to create purity or cleanliness.

This is something that, in the eyes of many, desecrates Christianity; the basic idea of worshipping one’s lover like a God challenges the very first of the Ten Commandments: “thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Moreover, alluding to sex as ritual and heaven, Hozier embodies the sins that Christianity eagerly condemns. With this undermining of God’s power, giving it to his lover, Hozier questions those who choose a relationship with God over secular love. Furthering this, describes worship – “more bleak” as the Sundays roll on – as “hungry work,” implying a lack of benefits that come from a devout life. His lyricism and voice are mocking, confused at the church’s behavior.

In an interview, Hozier reflects that this song is less about faith, and more about how powerful men and organizations use God against people to control them.  He speaks about how ‘Take Me To Church’ can also be seen as a rejection of the limits placed on homosexuality by Christianity. The idea of placing secular love above that of religious worship applies to same-sex love as well, because it is something strongly denounced by the traditional Catholic church, and this is shown through the official music video. As a way to ensure his lyrics are not just used to support only heterosexuality, Hozier adds this visual aspect to enhance his opposition to the words of Christians like Justin the Martyr who threaten homosexuality’s place in the church.

Following this critique of the church’s unfounded limitations, Hozier uses the sacred texts against it further. Like John Milton’s Paradise Lost, the songs ‘Be’ (original and acoustic) and ‘From Eden’ directly reference stories from Genesis to rework the figures of Adam and Eve. Being “part prayer, part lullaby, and part […] request for somebody to just not change a thing […] in the wake of something terrible”, ‘Be (Acoustic)’ praises Adam and Eve’s humanity, refusing the idea that one should be ashamed of their nakedness or their love. When he talks about the two, he says it was “love that discovered the sin”. He goes on to say that this love and this sin is what “freed the first man”, subverting the idea that sexual sin leads to imprisonment and damnation. Though many apologists denounce lust and desire, Hozier argues through his lyrics that it is integral to the most foundational stories in the Bible. Yet, Hozier does not see this as a foundation of religion, but a foundation of humanity. The original “Be” has much of the same lyrics as the acoustic, but the delivery is much stronger. With a certain power and anger, Hozier still pleads with his lover, imploring them to “be as [they’ve] always been.” But he also declares that there is “nobody upstairs to receive us”, acknowledging that, though there may not be a God or a Heaven where they will be accepted, it does not make his words cower, nor does it diminish his desire to be with his love.

Continuing to explore Genesis, Hozier’s song ‘From Eden’ adopts the perspective of the Devil, looking and longing for innocence. Hozier again is singing about a lover, but rather than being someone of equal humanity, he has “slithered […] from Eden / just to sit outside [her] door”. This song is similar to “Take Me To Church” where it idealizes a lover even at the cost of innocence and sin. Though Hozier grew up in an Irish Catholic family, his refusal to follow the ideals of Christian apologists and “remain pure” for the sake of religion demonstrates a clear resistance and critique of these preachings. His openness about sexual desire means sacrificing his Christianity – because, as Justin and Irenaeus agree, “Christians are sexually pure, or they are not Christians at all” – yet it means freedom to Hozier.

Moving on to Hozier’s most recent album, Unreal Unearth, listeners are introduced to Dante Alighieri’s ‘Inferno’. Each song in this album, according to Hozier, corresponds with one of the nine circles of Hell that Dante creates in his epic poem, The Divine Comedy. The 14th-century poet took inspiration from the Bible for this work. Readers are led through the nine circles of ‘Inferno’, the seven levels of ‘Purgatorio’, and the nine levels of ‘Paradiso’; creating this version of Hell and Heaven to explain how sinners are cursed, how they are forgiven, and how the pure are rewarded. Following the list of the Seven Deadly Sins (also known as capital sins or cardinal vices) created by another Christian apologist Tertullian, Dante plays with how sinners should be punished in Hell and how they are rewarded in Heaven. He transforms sacred texts into his own literary fulfillment and, taking this, Hozier adds his own modern musical twist to ‘Inferno’. The song ‘Francesca’ is Hozier’s companion to the circle of Hell punishing the lustful. This is the second circle of Dante’s ‘Inferno,’ because – like Adam and Eve – the sin of lust is considered, for many apologists, to predate all other sinful acts: there is no good that love, unrestrained by reason, does not destroy; there is no evil to which such love does not lead. 

 In his poem, Dante places the real-life Francesca De Rimini in this circle of Hell for having had an affair with her betrothed’s brother Paolo, who is there with her. Francesca is known to have been unhappy in her politically motivated betrothal but found true love in Paolo. Hozier dives into this situation in ‘Francesca’, explaining in an interview that here he is trying to “flip their punishment on its own head” and therefore challenging the concept of damnation and its reasoning. He clarifies in a B.T.S. interview that “Francesca is not repenting […] nor does Paolo”, which is reflected by the lyrics: “I'll tell them put me back in it / Darling, I would do it again / If I could hold you for a minute.” No matter how cursed they are by religion, Hozier’s representation of the couple is one of placing love above God – returning to the ideas of ‘Take Me To Church’ and the abandonment of the Ten Commandments. The musicality of “Francesca” also adds to the strength of the message: a loud, layered, and emotional sound embodies the intensity of not only the whirling, windy Hell that the lustful are cursed to but also that of love and its sacrifice.

I adore Hozier’s beautifully written and allusive discography. As someone who has never really been religious, but has seen how people will stand outside abortion clinics just to scream the words of some ancient male prophet, or how politicians yell about God’s power, his judgment, and his infallibility just to turn around to promote war, Hozier shows that even in those stories there exists a love that is above any of God’s opinions. Being so open about and embracing lust and desire as a form of love in his music, when so many denounce something so natural, is what I think draws many people to Hozier’s music. He mentions themes like abuse, drugs, and Irish culture as well in his music, but all seem to connect through the concept of love; showing us all the fear and the fire of the end of the world that happens each time a boy falls in love with a girl.