If you were to ask me what my favourite song of the decade is so far, I would probably choose "Eyes Wide Open" or one of Aurelio Voltaire's songs. Yet, at the same time I could very well place this song up there as well. Back in my review of "I Hate U, I Love U" or as I call it, "Drone on and on the song", I called this song "Drone on the song done right". Well, the more I thought about the more I thought that this would be a good review to do, because in a decade that gives us so many amazing gems, it's always fascinating how we focus on one gem over many others.
This is going to be a difficult song to talk about because, I know that some people don't like this song, and that it can make some people uncomfortable, and yeah, it does make me a bit uncomfortable too, although I think it is more the music video rather than the actual song. Yeah, if I do a list on the best music videos, telling you right now I'm not going to be talking about this one. However, to me the feeling of discomfort is not a strong one, and dare I say, it is an interesting one.
The sound of this song is very depressing, and that makes sense, as the song came from a place of anger and frustration, with the Catholic Church specifically. This isn't the first song I've talked about with religious themes, I did a review on the musical atrocity "Dorbees - Making Decisions" a while ago, and I've done "Hero" by Skillet as well. However, those were both abominations, as they were both songs I took a dislike towards. The songs from Dorbees were annoying and poorly done, Skillet is bland and dull. Notice how neither of those criticisms were based around the fact that they were religious songs. However, this is my first Ace review where I talk about a song that is against the Catholic Church.
The lyrical content is not entirely based around this though, and if it was then it would most likely be an Abomination. It actually uses clever metaphor of comparing somebody's lover to religion, and when you analyze the lyrics, you see how demanding the lover can be. Lines like "To keep the goddess on my side/ She demands a sacrifice/ Drain the whole sea/ Get something shiny..." are all things people have said they would do for their loved ones, you know "Grenade" by Bruno Mars, but that song tried to use that in earnest, and this song more uses it to show the compassionless lover, or the demanding nature of religion. This is one of those lyrics over music songs like "Innocent".
The great thing about lyrics over music songs is that they are essentially poetry put to music, or maybe even poetry made for music. The problem is that they can usually be either too simple, or too complex, which is tricky to gage because everybody understands things differently. Have any of you read the poem "Introduction to Poetry"? I'm not going to give away what it's about, but it took me until I was eighteen to understand what it actually was about, and I read it while in middle school. It's not that it's a difficult poem to understand, but I can be a bit slow on the uptake. On the flipside, some songs and poems, and even movies get a little too close to home with their metaphors, symbols, and personifications. See the Nostalgia Critic's review of The Matrix to truly understand. I think this song strikes a middle ground, once you get the main idea of the song, the metaphor and meaning come easily.
Since I'm talking about a song and not poetry, I should mention the musical aspect itself, because in honesty, this is the part that really ties it together. I know I criticized the piano in "I Hate U, I Love U", and although it is kind similar here, it works because 1). It is not just one key left to drone, 2). It fits with the mood of the song and 3). importantly, it isn't the only instrument in the song. The piano only opens the song, and then before the chorus, we get some nice drums that come into full swing by the chorus. There is also some kind of droning "Ooh!" in the background, but it adds to the song instead of detracts from it. Letting sounds drone on is not immediately a bad idea, much like how using all your speed boosts at the beginning of a Time Trial is not immediately a bad idea, but it can become one if you don't know what you're doing.
Hozier's voice is very nice on this song, I can't really explain it, his voice just sounds nice on this song. It's also much more different than some of the whispery or whiny male voices we have in pop like Ed Sheeran, Passenger and Lukas Graham.
Although this is not in my top 10, I do think that it's in my personal top 20. If you want to make a song that sounds like it's droning on, this may be a good place to start. On the other hand, if you want a song that has strong lyrical content and some really good instrumentals, than you may want to add this song to your collection, but then again with all the success it has gotten, I think you already have.
I'm the Entity of Darkness, and I'm feeling in a bit of an 80's mood next time.
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