First Light - Blog Posts

literally the best explanation of what this album is oml-

thinking about the recurring theme of identity in unreal unearth, and how the speaker's sense of identity is most frequently tied to his relationship, and the connectedness between them, where the relationship was so transformative that it fundamentally changed him, and now that the relationship is dead, he needs to bury those parts of himself that were born out of the relationship and forge new ones, in which we follow him as he travels through the circles of hell in the afterlife to deposit those fragments of identity and moments from the relationship so that he can emerge changed and with a new definition of himself and his identity in this essay I will-

i wish i could explain the feeling i get when i listen to hozier. it’s a feeling in my chest, i feel like i could levitate, i want to scream, i want to sing, i want to dance, i want to cry, i want to cease existing at the same time. it’s everything all at once.

So, First Light wasn’t the first (ha) song from Unreal Unearth to grab me, but a couple days ago it hit me like a truck and I have so many thoughts?

As an album closer, First Light is the exhale, the emergence from hell, but I think it’s also sorta about Hozier, or the narrator rather, romanticizing the mundane? Like, these lines:

One bright morning changes all things Soft and easy as your breathing, you wake Your eyes open at first a thousand miles away But turning shoot a silver bullet point-blank range And I can scarce believe what I'm believing in Could this be how every day begins?

The narrator wakes up in bed with his new lover. At first they’re groggy, then they see him, and BOOM, that look, the one of recognition/love that completely pierces him to the soul, that makes him question if this is real, if this can last

The sky set to burst The gold and the rust The colour erupts You filling my cup The sun coming up

… it’s just the sunrise. Pretty colors on the horizon, and his lover pouring him a cup of coffee. Such an ordinary act, a commonplace moment, yet it means so much more.

Like I lived my whole life Before the first light Like I lived my whole life Before the first light

And yet that’s enough, to overwhelm him with this sense of change, of this new version of himself, of new joy so intense it obliterates all that came before…

One bright morning goes so easy Darkness always finds you either way It creeps into the corners as the moment fades A voice your body jumps to calling out your name But after this I'm never gonna be the same And I am never going back again

That morning, that moment, is lovely, but it’s ephemeral. Darkness can and does return, it always will. But his lover calls his name, and he can’t help but respond to it, and be changed by it, this new self he shares with a lover, the new self he will become even if it ends.

The only way is forward, and that’s the beauty and tragedy of it all. It happens to almost everyone, at some point or other, and it’s so normal but it matters so much.