Or why you shouldn’t thirst trap until listening to the whole song
One peaceful day I was scrolling my boredom away on TikTok when Dante’s Inferno popped up on my For You page. My classics-loving soul is always happy to see the resurrection of iconic texts through trends. But this time, all the girlies were not just dusting off their old copies of Dante’s poem. They were doing it to the catchiest song I’d never heard before.
It all started as every TikTok trend does: a 15-second catchy song, bouncy rhythm and sweet Hozier’s voice. And, of course, words that can be interpreted as either being really hungry or going down on someone:
“I’m starvin’, darlin’
Let me put my lips to something
Let me wrap my teeth around the world”
Naturally, the Tiktok community chose the latter and wasted no time in producing an unimaginable number of thirst traps. And I, as a viewer and proud bisexual, couldn’t be more happy about it. I didn’t really understand what Inferno had to do with all these videos; I was just enjoying the view, but when the release day for the EP came, it all fell into place.
On March 17th,, which was also his birthday, Irish artist Hozier dropped his new EP Eat Your Young. It is his first major release since the 2019 album Wasteland, Baby! Dante’s Inferno is trending for the first time since it was required reading for school because this new EP is heavily inspired by it. According to Hozier, the second song, All Things End, alludes to the sixth circle of Hell. Despite the song’s doomful title, the lyrics are rather reassuring—and there is a clear and simple message that life is meant to be lived.
“And just knowing
That everything will end
Should not change our plans
When we begin again”
“All Things End, in a traditional sense, that’s a heretical statement. And it’s about a breakup, I suppose, which always seems like heresy at the time.” (Hozier) While the third and final song, Through Me (The Flood), is a pandemic-era reflection on loss.
And the first song, Eat Your Young, is about gluttony which also alludes to the third circle of Hell. Hozier speaks to the element of deceit, “Eat Your Young was more playful, more just thinking about destructive mindsets, and trying to write from the perspective, in a fun way, of an unreliable narrator—somebody who relishes in the idea of just taking what they can take, destroying what they can destroy, damn the expense.”
“Skinnin’ the children for a war drum
Puttin’ food on the table sellin’ bombs and guns
It’s quicker and easier to eat your young”
It’s about the brutal and corrupt world we live in, where the powerful exploit and ruin the young. It is about greed and constantly wanting more. Only Hozier could write such a frivolous-sounding song disguised as a sexy anthem—which is actually a concise and meaningful message about humanity dooming its youth. And if you think about it, it couldn’t be any other way. After all, this is the same man who, ten years ago, took us all to church. And while we all were blowing up his numbers and making Hozier famous over one song, it was actually a direct response to the anti-LGBTQIA+ laws being set in Russia at the time.
It is unsurprising that the queer community saw wlw written all over Eat Your Young. Hozier worships women. In a way that it seems like only Emily Dickinson or Sappho does. Throughout his career, he didn’t just “flirt” with the audience by making a few indistinct hints in his songs. Hozier actively, loudly and clearly supports the queer community.
Or maybe we just love him for his beautiful hair.
This EP marks the first release, followed by the full album titled Unreal Unearth later this year. I don’t know about you, but I will be eagerly awaiting new, sexy, political songs.
