on the apocalypse
Hey y’all,
First, I have to apologize for the gap in the newsletter. I’ve been traveling these past few weeks, and things have been a whirlwind, but I’m glad to be back. It’s August now, a month of savoring the last dregs of summer and (for me at least) one of anxious waiting for what is to come.
Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a huge Hozier fan. And by “huge fan,” we are talking top-0.05%-of-Spotify-listeners sort of “huge fan.” His most recent album, Wasteland Baby, is particularly compelling because it combines the same passionate tenderness that characterizes all of his music, with a call to justice in our world.
One of my favorite songs on the album is “Be.” The song begins with an electric guitar riff, and clapping. When Hozier begins to sing, he starts to construct an image of an apocalypse which is actively upon us: “When all the worst we fear lets fall its weight/When the gyre widens on and when the wave breaks.” Almost certainly referencing William Butler Yeats’ poem, “The Second Coming,” Hozier belts out a familiar story of impending doom.
When the chorus comes, Hozier asks his lover: "Be that hopeful feeling when Eden was lost." Here, he reads the fall from Eden as a liberating phenomenon, subverting “paradise” by rejecting the sense of inherent meaning attributed to it. Thus, the disobedience of Adam and Eve which led to their exile from Eden becomes an action of protest against authority, and it is joyful in this action. Later on, he urges his lover to “Be/Be as you’ve always been.” It would be easy to read this as submission to the doom and destruction, as some sort of nihilistic acceptance of a world for which all hope is indeed lost. And yet, within the reading of a loss of Eden as “hopeful,” is a call to love radically, even when the material circumstances of the world are falling to pieces.
The apocalypse that Hozier speaks of, then, is not so much an ending as it is a turning point. Perhaps, like his read of the fall from Eden, our current moment is apocalyptic in the sense that it offers an opportunity for transformative change. Hozier urges ongoing love for one another through this change. While this seems logical, we must not forget that the actions of those who seem to yearn for apocalypse are those of total abandonment of one another, harsh and violent otherization, and aggressive individualism. Theirs is an apocalypse of nihilistic loss and destruction.
The word apocalypse (apokálupsis) in ancient Greek means “unveiling.” It is a word that suggests not absence, but imminent presence. The apocalypse in “Be” is one that responds to the increasingly dire state of the world with a felt sense of true interconnectedness and radical, perceptive change.
And while this song is, indeed, about a transformative global shift, it is also personal. When I first listened to the chorus, the idea of being as you’ve always been struck me as a tricky one. Like most people, I’ve struggled not to reject my younger self. The glow-up, always progressing forward, entirely future-centered mindset of much of the world is a hard one to escape. I always find myself rejecting the past and looking forward to who I might become if I just work hard enough to mold myself in that direction. I rarely simply am. And I’m all for growth (seriously, y’all), but I imagine that what Hozier offers here is the opportunity to “be” in the present, and to hold all of ourselves (including the parts we most despise) and each other.
Indeed, as cliche as it may sound, we are lovable and able to love as we are.
Talk soon (I hope) —
Lily