Hozier, Morality, And The Sale Of Hope
Or, the evolution of my love for Hozier and its death at the altar of the hypocrisy of the liberal, capitalist status quo.
‘One must be vulnerable in order to write well, and be willing to bare that vulnerability to scrutiny,’ says Chintu. Chintu has believed in my writing for over a decade now. Writing is my fickle friend, and I prefer it that way. But this story I must tell, and I must take his advice in doing so, despite the fact that writing about the self is overdone and tired.
This is a personal essay, but it considers the issue of Palestine as the moral litmus test that it is for our world. It explores the cultivation of my love for this particular celebrity, the reasons for it (contributory, not causal) and my subsequent, and probably inevitable disillusionment in October 2023. The politics and history of the genocide are widely discussed, and this essay by comparison is rather frivolous writing on the subject. What I do want to stress however, is that while music, art and poetry might not be high on the priority list of people living through violence, they deserve the respite that art offers to our emotional and psychological wounds. A western, white audience is not and should not be the ideal subject for anyone daring to call themselves a ‘global’ celebrity. Yet this is how it has been, simply by the virtue of this audience and their privilege, which allows them to live in ‘peace’. A peace which has been historically and in present times, built entirely on the exploitation of people in the global south.
This particular story begins on a lazy afternoon in India, in a small-ish town. One of those afternoons where the ceiling fan drones and drones like a lullaby, silk sunlight covers your skin and you are floating in honey - suspended in time at the edge of 16.
At the heart of things, I have always been a snob. I have hardly ever had the credentials to justify it, but have almost always had the curiosity to work to get those credentials. Necessity made me a social climber quite young. Almost dying because of a cyst in my brain at 14 years of age did not help the desperate urge to live so fully, and neither did watching Dead Poets’ Society at 15, while still being ill. For the three or so years that I was sick and confined to an empty house for large periods of time, I sucked that marrow out of life like I was a starving dog. I read and read and wrote and wrote. Poetry, history, politics and most of all - mythology. After everyone in the house was asleep, I would hunch over the old desktop in my room and read about Persephone and Hades, about monsters from folklore - particularly sleep paralysis demons across different cultures, and variations of Satan across Abrahamic religions. Eventually I graduated to reading scripture. I was raised in a Hindu household, and was well-versed in the major epics of our culture. The sharp contrast between these stories with their grey tones, and the black and white morality of Western theology was fascinating. I had Dante’s poetry memorized then - a fact that fell as flat in my social circles at the time as it does now. These interests are not so uncommon in teenagers in the west, but growing up where I grew up, they ensured that I had a very lonely upbringing.
I was a latch and key kid before I knew that was a thing, in a country where it was considered taboo. Especially as a young woman, it was seen as a sign that your mother had no control over you and that consequently, you would grow up to be a ‘feminist-type’. The alienation brought on by long years of disease, the near constant ridicule from other kids because of how medication had changed my looks (I lost almost all my hair at one point), and the cruel and ignorant stance of their parents towards me (‘don’t play with her or you will get it too’, even though the disease was not contagious) - all had me convinced that there was evil in me that repelled society. The immense psychological stress of it and the threat of organ failure and allergic reactions to medication were making me hallucinate daily. It was like being on heavy psychedelics for two years - thrown in without knowing what to expect. The confusion that generally accompanies puberty was sharpened into a knife point, and everyday it sunk in further. It is no wonder I was drawn to the morbid beauty of ancient myths. I was experiencing the horror of my body and my mind turning against me. I chased art, poetry, music and books like they would cure me. The disease is gone, but I never could stop learning with the desperation that I acquired. ‘Casual’ hardly entered my vocabulary, some part of me always frozen, waiting for time to run out.
So, it is a lazy afternoon. It is 2013, and outside, the country is reaching a crescendo that will peak with the election of a Hindu-nationalist government that take like dry rot to the tapestry that formed the backdrop against which we lived our lives. I am searching for absolution in a God that is not mine, if I even have one. Flicking through channels and leaving the TV blaring VH1 - which was the only channel that played ‘English Songs’ (although, of course, most of them were American). That was the first time I heard ‘Take Me to Church’ by Hozier. There was so much about it that had me hooked. So much of it was universal - considering how popular the song is and how it skyrocketed the Irish musician to the halls of fame. So much of it was personal though - and the devil was definitely in the details with this one. Is it any wonder that it struck a chord in me? It was everything I had been reading, every interest I had, set to music.
Most of us are familiar with the song. It is a sombre, haunting melody. It is dramatic and gothic and almost unbearably intense. It captured the zeitgeist. So, clearly, I was not the only angsty teenager in the world (surprise!). Regardless, it took me three more years, and one move across the country to discover anyone who had heard of the song or the artist. The music video is about the persecution of and violence against a gay couple. I have known I was queer since I was 12, but I did not acquire the language to express that till I was 17.
The thing that stuck out to me, more than the music, more than his voice, were the lyrics.
No masters or kings when the ritual begins
There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin
‘No masters or kings’ would eventually become my politics, ‘rituals’ would eventually become the grounding, legitimisation and romanticisation of the routine of everyday life.
The sweet innocence of gentle sin would remain (perhaps forever) elusive.
You have to understand, I did not even consider the possibility of leaving India till I was sitting in the airplane that would carry me to Edinburgh. There were no expectations of ever seeing ‘global’ pop artists in India back then, and even when they did come, the tickets were way beyond my means. Besides, the nation was erupting almost constantly. I was rather brutally being introduced to the political realities of an India fracturing, the termites of religious intolerance eating the country inside out. I was birthing a political consciousness sans anaesthesia, and somewhere along the way, the obsessive love of music I had cultivated during the previous years briefly let go of my hand. I had moved to Delhi to go to university, and the near constant insecurity of brushing shoulders with people whose intellect was a result of generations of cultural privilege was enough to make me bury almost everything that was unique about me. I tried, and often failed, to hide the intensity of every feeling I had. I felt like too much, almost constantly. Too gauche, unlike the cool, disaffected young academics I was surrounded by. I must admit that some of them were brilliant and remain so - artists, researchers and photographers - their privilege does not negate the undeniable value of their art. However, I could only admit this once distance dulled the edges of my bitterness.
Hozier in this period crystallised into a secret crush. Too embarrassing to be proclaimed publicly for the new, sharp tongued, quick witted and cleverly disdainful woman I was committed to becoming in order to appeal to the Delhi elite; too precious to let go. It was always just the music and the lyrics, but at some point, while stuck in an emotionally abusive relationship, the man himself morphed into a testament to the fact that good men could exist. Or more precisely, that men could exist who understood the sweetness and sharpness of life, could articulate it and could put this expression out into the world unashamed. In a life where I was intellectualising everything, including my visceral reaction to the intimate violence I suffered constantly, I could go home and drown in all the things I had refused to feel all day, and I could do it while someone with a great voice was crooning about the kind of love that I craved. I was always aware that none of this was real - my fantasy never crossed over into obsession, but it walked the line. It did not matter that I would never meet him - that was definitely a good thing in my head. A crush is always a hundred times better when it is still in your head. He is a celebrity, and my love for the whole brand of him was simply another way of escaping the horrors outside.
As the tempest of my teenage years passed, I knew I had to get out. I pointed my finger at a map, played Russian roulette (geography edition) and settled on Edinburgh. My brain was sharp, and my grades reflected this somewhat - it was good enough to get me here. I came to shake the yolk of the ugly relationship that I was in, and everything else fell away as a consequence.
Suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, almost three years in therapy, and completely alone, I came to Edinburgh. I am perfectly settled in a less than perfect relationship with a man who tries his best everyday. The prison in my mind however, expands constantly. This artist was the one thread I had carried through to the present, and it had become a crutch, and in the worst of times, I leaned all my weight on it. My crush on the man himself had passed, transferred more intensely onto his music. I got to attend one his concerts, which was surreal. I got to actually meet him, which was beyond surreal. Not positive or negative, simply something that didn’t compute - because if you attach that much meaning to words and notes, the flesh and blood creator will almost never live up.
I must caveat everything by saying that celebrity worship is and has been the biggest folly of our generation (read here and follow Antonia George, whom I have recently discovered). I was aware of this, and in my worldview, I believed myself immune to it (re:snob). I wasn’t watching hour long video compilations of him, I wasn’t crying or fan-girling over him, I wasn’t interested in the colour of his eyes or hair or whatever it is that superfans do. I was simply in it for the way that the lyrics seemed to understand the intensity with which I felt things. In a world where I was made to feel shame for feeling things so strongly, his writing had become the one thing I could relate to completely. If there was a Venn diagram, the circle of my thoughts overlapped completely with a Hozier song. This somehow seemed better to me,morally superior somehow than being interested in what this man wore on an outing or whom he was dating.
I was wrong, of course, because it was equally, if differently, bad.
Because this man, after two weeks of his silence over an ongoing genocide, released a statement so profoundly disappointing, that it shocked me out of the fairytale in my head. Only on being shocked out did I realise how I had thought I knew this man, a complete stranger, enough to feel betrayed by him.
This is the heart of all celebrity worship, is it not? The idea that this man, this stranger, understood me in an esoteric, grand, transcendental way, and that this somehow meant that I understood him - that I could measure my real life relationships against a personality that I was assigning to him based on the 40 odd songs he had released. Not to mention that behind any successful musician there is an army of workers. That at the very least, the production of music has not been a one man job for several decades now. At least not for pop musicians with millions of streams on their Spotify. I was assigning to this stranger a sense of morality that he might or might not live by, and in doing so, courting disappointment. I was livid, and for a while my rage at him and my rage at myself were indistinguishable.
This is not a tale of perfect behaviour. I am not a perfect woman. Blinded by my anger, and fuelled by my disillusion - I sent several angry messages to him (or more realistically, to his social media team) about his lack of conviction. I was suddenly a keyboard warrior - something I had never thought possible. I had found a new low and I had dived into it. It felt bottomless. It made me ugly, and angry. It did not do very much else.
I’m not here to lecture on Zionism (or ethno-states in general), but safe to say, if that is your politics, this is not your corner of the internet.
Slowly, logic returned and my anger was replaced by disgust. Here was this man - who wrote of oppression and of power. A man who spoke of justice and of the ‘truth’. Here was a man leaving all that on the altar of the status quo. After writing lyrics like,
‘The swan upon Leda
Empire upon Jerusalem’,
he released a statement that essentially validated the existence of that empire. While my friends embodied Palestinian sumud (resilience, steadfastness), not knowing which of their friends or family were still alive, the world rushed in to equalise 76 years of injustice, displacement and grief.
If this was any other celebrity or singer (many others have said and done incomparably worse), I would scoff and move on. I do, as a matter of fact, separate art and artist. But here is this man, making and selling his art about the occupation and dehumanisation of a people and then turning around disrespecting the very same people. If he could commit to writing, marketing and selling this song, he could commit to a free Palestine. I’ve been subsequently told (over and over) that he has been more vocal about his support, and this makes no difference to me for 2 reasons,
It is obvious to me that he turned when the tide turned, instead of using his platform to help turn it. We have Kehlani, Macklemore and Dua Lipa as examples, so he would not even be trailblazing.
It reminds me of how willing we are as a species to forgive our favourites for anything. Public memory is a joke.
The whole point of the connection I had formed with his music was that it was profound. What good is that profundity, what use is the intellect, when even in profiting from the pain of a disenfranchised people, you cannot give them the platform they deserve?
I obviously got a lot of hate from his fans. Some of it was justified, considering I was essentially keyboard shouting at a stranger on the internet. However, it also reaffirmed the fact that our priorities are incredibly misplaced. The most common sentiment was, ‘What do you want him to do? Leave him alone, he is just an artist.’
What a world we live in, where our friends are held to higher standards than our idols.
This is a man who wrote, ‘Nina Cried Power’, a song precisely about the power that artists hold in our society. Surely, he must know better. I cannot assign to him even the benefit of ignorance.
A girl from Pakistan, who also followed him, saw my comment on his post reached out to me. She said she understood how I felt. It made me realise that there is nothing ‘global’ about these artists. To them, the people of the global south are like props. We do not really exist. We add to their numbers, and they use us to display how progressive they are, but beyond this they do not think of us. Even to the best of them, when we die we are still just numbers.
Losing this faith was difficult. This imperfect god of my thoughts was no god after all but simply a false prophet - disingenuous and lacking depth at best; an acolyte of fame and money at worst. The way in which this knowledge hurt was in itself enough to knock me off my high horse. The hope I placed in the existence of him was a symptom of my desire to worship something; anything. A need for a god that religion does not satisfy for me. That, however, is no reason to do another mortal the injustice of pinning your faith on them.
In writing this and letting it go, I am doing myself a service. My convictions and morals are stronger than my desire to be understood. This reaffirms my faith in my own self - this unmasking of desire and the failure of its fruition.
I am still learning the balance of being. I do not want to lean into extremes, and am naturally skeptical of them. I can listen to music and read books without needing the morality of their creators to be pristine. This particular artist however, is no longer for me. All of it has been tainted too thoroughly - the man, the music and everything in between.
Weeks after this initial turmoil, as I spoke to my partner about how I felt, he said something that tied everything up with a neat bow - ‘You’re just upset that you were fooled by him.’ I told him I did not understand. ‘They sold you the idea that Hozier is an individual and not a brand with a marketing team, as they do with every other musician who makes it big. Only this time, you bought into it. You are upset because it is essentially a very effective advert, and you thought that you were smarter than that.’ As much as the words stung at the time, they were true.
Thus, the one last thread of feeling tethering me to the girl who floated in sunlight was severed. She has floated away to the past, no longer dragging herself to the surface in my weakest moments. I mourn her some days, but I cannot conjure her back. The sale of hope was such that I paid my dues and opened the box, only to find it empty. I am more cautious now, and more pragmatic. Jaded and cynical, even. I still find ways to make hope bloom most days. One less spot of colour in my life does make me sad, but it is a fleeting sadness. It is not here to stay. In the end it is for the best. Tomorrow is another day, and maybe something or someone will speak as deeply to me as the first time I heard a song by him. This time, I will take down the pedestal before they can sit.
P.s: I do not plan on monetising my Substack any time soon, but here is a link for a fundraiser for Sana’a and Sujood - two Palestinian sisters who need the funds to evacuate alongside their family. Please donate what you can.
Wonderful. I agree that Palestine is the moral litmus test for the world and that so many are failing that test. I don't think I agree with your partner, though, about you "only" being mad because you fell for Hozier's marketing. You could be upset with him over that, but the fact remains that the other things you said about him are still true; he wasn't just letting YOU down, he was failing the moral litmus test after having profited off an image of doing otherwise.
You write so beautifully!