#the quote is from a song

[evidently-endless]

i think we should remind musicians they can absolutely make up little stories for their songs btw. it doesn’t have to be about them at all. you can invent a guy and put him in situations to music. time honoured tradition in fact.

[ddruxyart]

Domestic bliss I know how bad you wanted it (x)

[revvethasmythh]

"I already know my last words Will not be regrets or advice You're my lover You're my lover" -My Lover, Birdtalker

[siriuslyinlovewithwolfstar]

sirius: I don’t need therapy. i’m completely fine!

remus: then tell me why you cried for one hour and then proceeded to lay in bed the whole day after listening to family line by conan gray

sirius:

[killingalive]

just like our parents

or: about growing up and becoming your parents

the story of a new name - elena ferrante // in case you don’t live forever - ben platt // cat's in the cradle - harry chapin // those who leave and those who stay - elena ferrante // my mother & I - lucy dacus // the story of the lost child - elena ferrante // como nossos pais - elis regina (translated)

[senblades]

Tell the crows they can have their pound of flesh

[zagreusapollyon]

Eurylochus:...captain?

Odysseus: I have to see her...

Eurylochus: but we'll die.

Odysseus:...I know.

Zeus in the back, throwing dat ass like he throws those bolts:

"To the thuNDER BRIIINGEEERRRR"

[54625]

"Have you no more memories?"

I am made of memories.

"Speak, then."

[nerdyqueerr]

The Amazing Devil truly knocked it out of the park with Fair in terms of love songs i mean its got everything. Domesticity, deep adoration, confessions of love when youre sure no one else can hear, a that's what she said joke, yogurt, genuinely dont think there's a more romantic song on the face of the earth

[taxinealkaloids]

kill your darling, it's just that easy!

[jeyneofpoole]

leda 1, 2, 3

[hawkesque]

x

[pxrty-crxsher]

"I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world."

-Patroclus

Art by: alex_loga_02

[ranna-alga]

"Do the Evolution" - Pearl Jam

[madbard]

I just realized another reason I love Hozier’s music. It’s not just that the lyrics are complex, or the music itself is beautiful - it’s that Hozier is a musical liar.

Take Cherry Wine. This is a song about an abusive relationship, told from the perspective of someone very much in love with their abuser. Throughout the song, the narrator describes their lover’s cruelty. Lyrics like “I walk my days on a wire” and “open hand or closed fist would be fine” make the darker aspects of their relationship all too evident. At points, the song suggests that they are defending this relationship to someone else who cares about them (“it looks ugly but it’s clean. Oh mama, don’t fuss over me”) and even the more beautiful and seemingly romantic lines later in the song (“oh but she loves like sleep to the freezing”) have dark undertones (what else is sleep to the freezing but death?) Still, I often come across the song being used in a wholesome, romantic context. A lot of factors contribute to this, but I would argue that this song mainly gets mistaken for a romantic song because of how soft and gentle the music is - it presents as a sweet love song in every way except the lyrics. Even those lyrics are told through the lens of someone defending their broken and abusive relationship, deepening the lie. Our narrator wants to portray this relationship as something dark, yet also immensely beautiful and encompassing. The result is a song about the agony and pleasure of a broken relationship, disguised so well as a love song in every possible way that it gets mistaken for something romantic. (Even if you are aware of the meaning, there is still that deep urge to experience the song as something romantic. Just like the narrator, the listener is drawn in by beauty and the powerful idea of love, so much so that it can blind them to reality.)

Variations of this can be seen in Talk. In this song, the narrator makes their intentions very clear - they are sweet-talking someone in order to hide their own thoughts and desires (“I try to talk refined, for fear that you find out how I’m imagining you”). Despite knowing this, the sheer power of the lyrics (“I'd be the voice that urged Orpheus / when her body was found. / I'd be the choiceless hope in grief / that drove him underground. / I'd be the dreadful need in the devotee / that made him turn around, / and I'd be the immediate forgiveness in Eurydice”) overwhelms the listener. We know the speaker is putting on a show. We know they have ulterior motives, and likely don’t even believe what they are saying. But their words are so beautiful that we don’t care. The intense, almost mythic music in the background is so lovely and deep, it makes the lyrics seem genuine, because what lie could sound so astounding and true? In this case, the song about smoke and mirrors and empty talk becomes a love song because the narrator is just that skilled at lying.

Even songs like Too Sweet, sung by a narrator who refuses to be with someone unless they allow their standards to slide, become ‘romantic’ and ‘sweet’ to certain listeners - not because the lyrics are impenetrable, but because so many of Hozier’s narrators are unreliable. His songs spin sweet stories, lies so stunning that listeners are willing to deny what they know in order to experience the beauty of that untruth, the complexity of that space between what is real and what we want to believe.

And isn’t that more true to the experience of being a person, and loving other people, than the simple truths we often see in these types of songs?

[cosqf]

It tore your heart out Oh, when you didn't understand Why you wanted what you wanted