#he should either be heavenly (hozier)

[futuristicclambiscuitmaker]

season 3 jesus, but it’s either hozier (classic), michael sheen with a beard (santa jesus) or bildad (the shuhite) dressed in a costume

[lickthecowhappy]

Playlist Analysis: #5 - Like Real People Do

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#5. Like Real People Do – Hozier

This is a Crowley song.

Overview:

I wasn’t super aware of Hozier prior to what Neil, Michael, and David done to my brain in season 2. All the Instagram edits and animations told me how much people associated the band with the show so I decided I would intentionally seek them out for this playlist. I listened to this song based on the name, but it took multiple listens to decide that it fit. It may be clear by now that I spent a COMPLETELY NORMAL AND REASONABLE AND NOT AT ALL WEIRD amount of time curating this playlist. I didn’t choose anything frivolously. 

This song is present because it is a song of fear, NOT a love song, and it makes me sick. This comes after A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square because it represents the general direction of the characters for season 2. It’s about being curious and looking for answers but NOT asking questions; we know how much trouble one can get in for just asking a few questions. It’s about burying things that you want or need to hide. It’s also about running away from your problems. This is a Fall™ trauma song.

Lyrics:

I had a thought, dear However scary About that night The bugs and the dirt

This song is Crowley speaking to Aziraphale. Only in his mind – since we know they never talk about anything important. He is thinking about something that still frightens him. A time in his life when he was metaphorically buried under filth, corruption, and vermin.

Why were you digging? What did you bury Before those hands pulled me From the earth?

Aziraphale is the epitome of the British tradition of having a stiff-upper-lip. He buries every emotion he has unless he knows it is 100% safe to show it, and even then, he might still try his best to keep it hidden. He wears his Heavenly veneer like a Good™ little Angel; never betraying doubt, worry, or anything that could be considered anywhere near blasphemy. In Eden, Aziraphale may have metaphorically pulled Crowley from that filth, corruption, and vermin with his admission of giving away his sword (see I'll Be Your Mirror analysis). Was Aziraphale doubting the Great Plan even when only two humans existed?

I will not ask you where you came from I will not ask and neither should you

I wonder about The Fall. What was it like? Was Aziraphale witness to it? Did they see one another during the War in Heaven? By the Nopocalypse, Aziraphale holds command over a platoon (likely around 40 soldiers but up to 100). When blowing up his halo, he says he hasn’t done it since the war; so we know he fought. He’s a soldier, he was there, and he fought on the side of Good™. Did Crowley fight? Furfur claims he was there. But Crowley is an artist, not a warrior. Did he fight then, only to lose and develop the response to forever run from conflict? Or did he break ranks immediately because he was built to create, not to destroy? Did they hurt one another during the battle or show mercy or even have the opportunity for either option? Whatever happened, I’m sure neither have ever considered broaching the subject. It’s in the past and that’s where it should stay. 

Honey just put your sweet lips on my lips We should just kiss like real people do

But should it stay in the past? These two need to understand each other and you can't do that through smitten gazing and coded speech. It’s so horribly inappropriate for Aziraphale to say, “I don’t think you understand what I’m offering you.” I don’t think he meant to say Crowley is incapable of grasping the gift of redemption he’s offering. I believe his intended meaning was, “You don’t understand that I’m offering us safety. Who would complain about two angels in love?” But Crowley has been on both sides. He may be optimistic in general terms, but he's also terrified. He’s unforgivable. Last time he had strong opinions in Heaven, he was punished for it. He doesn’t want to fight and he doesn't want Aziraphale to fight. He wants to run. He wants to ignore the problems, and the dangers, and the promise of the end of the world by one side or the other and just be with the being he loves. To be together, carefree, the way real people live. “If Gabriel and Beelzebub can do it, go off together, then we can.”

I knew that look dear Eyes always seeking Was there in someone That dug long ago So I will not ask you Why you were creeping In some sad way I already know

Aziraphale is always looking for answers; for a solution. He tries to find any way to avert the apocalypse in season 1 even after Crowley (who convinced him to do it in the first place) has given up. He seeks to protect Jim and uncover the truth in season 2. In the Companion to Owls segment, he admits his doubts about the righteousness of Heaven and fully prepares to fall. He’s 100% convinced that is the path he’s chosen. Crowley knows what it was like to fall and he doesn’t think Aziraphale would like it. He knows Aziraphale wouldn’t like it. They’re reflections of one another. Opposite but the same. Crowley dug long ago for answers and ended up swallowed by the muck. Aziraphale dug for answers and found Crowley. Crowley doesn’t need to ask what Aziraphale has questions about because he already knows.

I will not ask you where you came from I will not ask and neither would you Honey just put your sweet lips on my lips We should just kiss like real people do

The subtle change in this chorus from “neither should you” to “neither would you” says that there has been some mutual understanding that they aren’t going to talk about it. “I guess there’s nothing more to say.” There is still a longing for sweetness, but Crowley still fully intends to retreat in the face of adversity.

I could not ask you where you came from I could not ask and neither could you Honey just put your sweet lips on my lips We could just kiss like real people do

The change from will/would not to “could not” is significant here because of the change between willingness and ability. It’s no longer about choosing not to communicate, it’s about lacking the resolve, or the tact, or the emotional capacity to have the difficult conversation required to truly understand the hidden feelings and fears of the other person. Rather than face these difficult things we haven’t ever had to say out loud, put sweet nothings on your lips and share those with me instead. 

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[paradisepriest]

Can we all agree that "From Eden" by Hozier is the ideal Ineffable Husbands song?

Like, come on. The title, first off. Guess who is quite literally from that cool garden. But let's go through the lyrics:

"Babe, there's something tragic about you / Something so magic about you / Don't you agree?" Crowley is a fallen angel. Pretty magic and tragic. Hard not to agree there.

"Babe, there's something lonesome about you / Something so wholesome about you / Get closer to me" This could apply to either of them; supernatural beings living alongside but aloof from humans are pretty lonely. Michael Sheen's Aziraphale is obviously wholesome AF, but book Crowley fits this description well from Azi's perspective, too.

"Honey, you're familiar like my mirror years ago" UM because they have been besties for SIX THOUSAND YEARS. Plenty of familiarity! But also Crowley used to be an angel, so there's some familiarity there, too.

"Idealism sits in prison, chivalry fell on its sword / Innocence died screaming, honey, ask me I should know" Okay boy howdy. This is some commentary on the state of heaven and hell if you ask me. I like to interpret it as Azi becoming increasingly disillusioned with the heavenly bureaucracy.

"I slithered here from Eden just to sit outside your door." CRAWLY THE SNEK is pining outside the bookstore.

"Babe, there's something wretched about this / Something so precious about this / Where to begin" A love affair between an angel and a demon is both heartwarming and not completely kosher.

"Babe, there's something broken about this / But I might be hoping about this. / Oh, what a sin" The epitome of their gee-I-wish-he-loved-me-but-he-cannot pre-Armageddon vibes.

"To the strand a picnic plan for you and me / A rope in hand for your other man to hang from a tree" I don't know about y'all, but I'm picturing their frequent stops by the park for the picnic part and then the swap-bodies rouse for the "other man."

In conclusion Good Omens the book came out in 1990, which left Hozier plenty of time to be inspired by these gay magical husbands and release this song in 2014. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

[lightholme]

I don’t just find meaning from meaningless. That’s a vast oversimplification. And I don’t have somebody dictate meaning to me, either. There’s plenty of gurus, preachers, and writers of self-help books who can do that just fine, but that’s not good enough for me. I make my own meaning, and nobody is more qualified to do that than I am. Following someone else’s ideas verbatim would never make me satisfied, because it wouldn’t be a perfect fit for me as an individual human being. And if I thought it was meaningless I might as well just drink a gallon of military grade LSD, pop some extacy, listen to music a few hours, then blow my brains out. So no, I’m not a follower of Camus, not really. I’m not a follower of anybody at all. I stole some of his ideas, but I’ve stolen a lot of my ideas about the world from people a lot smarter than me. Maybe meaning is out there somewhere, immutable and in perfect form. Who knows? I’ve seen no evidence of that whatsoever, but maybe the greek pederast who’s 2200 years dead and thought you could figure out reality by sitting in a room and doing fuckall knew something I don’t when he wrote those ideas down with a bird feather on sheep skin.

I preferred a direct approach at commentary too. I abandoned it for the most part when I was 8 years old and got made fun of for using the “fancy” word “incinerate”. And yes, I am communicating direct meaning to you now, but you’re not like most people. I tailor the way I communicate my ideas to each individual person to transfer the ideas I have inside my head in the most effective way possible. That’s the whole point of writing, of language. The symbols and sounds mean nothing, the meaning and thoughts they represent mean everything. You should never mistake the medium of communication for the thing itself being communicated. In your case, I don’t filter much (if at all). But as for the rest of the people out there, you’re not going to change any minds with being direct. It’s an awful form of communicating information in a way that influences anybody. If someone is doing something wrong and hurting others, direct confrontation will actually make them dig in their heels MORE. Because to a lot of people, they are their ideas, they can’t step outside themselves and compare ideas outside their sense of self. So if you challenge their ideas in anyway, they react as if they are under attack. If we want to get scientific, the same areas of their brain light up as if you’d just punched them in the face.

Comedy and satire is way better at reaching people. If you can laugh at something, then it’s not as scary anymore. If you can laugh at your ideas, perhaps then you might discover that maybe there are flaws deserving of ridicule. It’s not an attack on someone’s ideas, or seen as such, as long as you don’t become insulting. And yes, it is disingenuous. And yes, it is manipulation. But ALL communication is manipulation of one form or another, and all the interactions you have with others influence them in subtle ways and bend them this way or that to get something from them --good or bad-- whether you’re aware of it at the time or not. The only difference between me and most everyone else is that I realize that this is taking place and try my best to use it in positive ways that make people happier and hurt less.

So call it a magic trick if you wish. But if I put on a stage magician outfit and saw a woman in half in front of a crowd before putting her back together: the reaction of joy from the crowd, the applause: that’s real, and you can’t tell me it’s not. I’d have made the world a little bit brighter, and that is what matters. Whether or not it’s a trick is irrelevant, and sometimes a lie can tell a greater truth, and there’s nothing immoral or contradictory about that. As for the author’s intent, it doesn’t mean anything to me on a personal level. My own interpretation and what that work of art does to influence my own life and the lives of those around me in a tangible way, that is what is important. I don’t care Hitler’s intent when writing Mein Kampf. It’s interesting to me on an intellectual level, perhaps, but the writer’s intent means nothing to me in practice, I intend to follow precisely none of the ideology of  Mein Kampf.  Instead, I use it as a guidebook of the kind of guy I DO NOT want to be. It’s not theoretical, that’s what I take from the book and the actions I take as a result. The author’s intent is a good thing to think about, and to find out. I don’t deny that. How you apply it is what’s significant. It’s not about the absurd, its about how you choose to react to a universe that doesn’t care about you or know that you are there. Man’s search for meaning is innate, but we live in a universe that does not have one, and this conflict creates the absurd. Camus did not worship absurdity, I do not worship it. The absurd in webster’ dictionary is not the same Absurd Camus speaks of in his works. My decision to create my own meaning in the face of this conflict of my human desire for meaning in a meaningless universe is what matters and is what Camus tried so hard to convey. It’s not an ideology of hopelessness, in fact it’s the opposite. It’s an ideology of hope, it makes you realize that you have control of what is important to you and who and what you love. There’s no man in the sky dictating it to you, no preacher, no politician, no guru. Ultimately, nobody is looking out for you in some heavenly realm, and being a good person and making the world a better place rests entirely on your shoulders. So get started. The universe is your oyster.

Hozier’s a pretty good band, though. I don’t care about Sisyphus because he doesn’t exist. He’s just a vehicle to convey an idea that relies on existing mythology people can relate to and identify. In your words, it’s a “magic trick”. If it is, it seems to have been a good one, because Camus is still read in universities in all over the world and is respected by many as one of the great philosophers of our time. His work influences millions. The point of The Myth of Sisyphus is that the struggle to find meaning in a meaningless place is meaning all oit’s own, and is actually extremely liberating when you realize the implications. It’s up to us, each and every individual, to find meaning. We’ve got that power. The Myth of Sisyphus means nothing. The Myth of Sisyphus means everything.