âShrikeâ can be read as a gay story about unrequited love
Okay so Hozierâs new album is amazing and Iâve had it on repeat for a couple days. âShrikeâ is one of my faves but I felt like I was missing some meaning and no one seems to be talking about this. Itâs a long analysis, but I promise itâs worth it:
âI couldnât utter my love when it countedâ is a reference to the fact that for many queer people coming to terms with their sexuality, itâs much harder to say I love you. The rest of verse 1 reinforces this idea and also tells us to pay attention to bird imagery. Itâs about to get important. âThe first chorus is where things start to get interesting. âWords hung above, but never would formâ continues the idea from above. The reference to a cry at a final breath could be drawing our attention to birds of prey. Now our speaker tells his lover that heâll be reborn âAs a shrike to your sharp and glorious thorn.â Shrikes are birds that use thorns to kill their prey by impaling them. They also use these thorns in mating rituals. Now, itâs easy to read the lyrics and think that sharp and glorious are both adjectives describing the thorn. However, Hozier deliberately pauses every time after the word sharp. When we consider that maybe heâs using âsharpâ to also refer to a sharp-shinned hawk, a bird of prey who commonly hunts other birds, things start to make more sense. Glorious thorn is a euphemism for a male part. Heâs saying that heâll be the little bird that will submit to this more dominant hunter with a glorious part. â verse 2 says that this lover erased our speakerâs preconceived notions of (straight) virtue. Easy enough. In the second chorus, âhung like the pelt of some prey you have wornâ suggests that the sexual relationship these two shared was just another conquest for this lover. However, our speaker canât let go of that experience. In verse 3 he tries to run away to the city but finds himself âflying like a birdâ back to the country âhedgerows where bodies are mounted.â In the countryside he can embrace his sexuality and finds himself drawn to this lover who can mount him again. âI was housed by your warmth, thus transformedâ suggests that he housed this lover inside of him and thus came to terms with his sexuality. If youâre still with at this point, notice that Hozier never uses pronouns to describe the lover in this song, unlike in his other ones. We know that heâs traditionally been awesome about queer politics. This song is about two gay men and itâs really ashame that this isnât being talked about more.
