#hozier butchered tongue

[not-reallyanywhere]

that man has the capability to make me go absolutely feral

[p4nishers]

girls (gn) when "And as a young man blessed to pass so many road signs/And have my foreign ear made fresh again on each unlikely sound/But feel at home, hearin' a music that few still understand" and "In some town that just means 'Home' to them/ With no translator left to sound"

[burninglights]

Hozier’s Butchered Tongue is so resonant for me. Though my mother tongue wasn’t subject to a campaign of eradication like Scots Gaelic, Gaelic and Welsh, I have lost most of it to assimilation.

I’ve been relearning it for about a year now, and while it is very much a butchered tongue in my mouth, the act of speaking it is an act of resistance, of recovery, of joy.

It is still singing in me, here, above the ground - that has to count for something.

The lyrics are in Scots Gaelic (which I have been Learning more about the history of thanks to @ayeforscotland ‘s server — I highly recommend you watch his in defence of Scots Gaelic video) and my own mother tongue Setswana, and translate to “I feel at home, hearing a music few still understand.”

Finally, the person in the last panel is singing/shouting against a backdrop of newspaper headlines (one reads ‘Independence Now!’ as a nod to Welsh & Scottish independence movements) because fighting to bring back the Welsh, Gaelic & Scots Gaelic languages is a continuing challenge.

Special thanks to @relnicht for all his help with the Scots Gaelic!

[redwolf17]

🙃 Regular reminder that while Hozier has amazing love songs, he is ALSO very outspoken about his leftist politics, specifically anti-fascism, anti-racism, reproductive rights, Palestinian rights and more.

Take Me To Church and Foreigner’s God are scathing critiques of organized religion, specifically the Catholic Church and the colonization of Ireland.

Moment’s Silence is about oral sex but it’s ALSO about how that specific sexual act is often distorted to a show of power rather than that of love.

Nina Cried Power is an homage to various (mostly Black) civil rights activists from the US and Ireland and a call to follow their path.

Be criticizes anti-migrant policies and Trump and his ilk.

Jackboot Jump is about the global wave of fascism and about protest and resistance.

Swan Upon Leda is about reproductive rights and the violent colonial oppression of Ireland and Palestine.

Eat Your Young is about the ruinous way the 1%/capitalism and arms dealers prioritize short-term profit over everything else to the detriment of the youth/99%

Butchered Tongue is about Irish and other indigenous languages being suppressed and erased by imperial powers.

If any of the above surprised you, please, please delve deeper into Hozier’s music, you’re missing such an important part of his work.

[ragesingoddess]

haha hahaha yeah I enjoyed the new hozier album ig

[ravenzer]

if u american hozier fans like butchered tongue may i direct your attention to

[lmaowhosemaddie]

Hozier speaking Irish on the same album where he unabashedly sings abt the preservation of native tongues in the face of colonization/imperialism….. this album may kill me dead, i fear.

[dansnotavampire]

no one butchered tongue posting? no one crying about the preservation of native languages or lack thereof? no one emotional about what it means to lose your language to colonial violence and have it only preserved through place names you can't translate any more? I'm going to kill someone

[anragaire]

if anyone wants another layer to Butchered Tongue, consider Hozier's choice mention of Hushpuckena (Choctaw) and look up what the Choctaw nation did for the Irish during an Gorta Mór (The Great Hunger).

https://www.choctawnation.com/about/history/irish-connection/

[baginamybeloved]

I’ve heard Butchered Tongue a few times, and I know this song is supposed to be about the violence of the colonization of Ireland, and the fight to survive of a language, and how there are scars left in the language that will never heal, but like as someone from a country that was colonized, and this colonization erased a big amount of the indigenous culture, this song is a love letter to the indigenous population that’s often overlooked, and suffered from great damage from the colonization, most of the country worships a foreigner’s god, and speaks a tongue that isn’t ours, there’s barely an echo of our indigenous culture in our daily lives, and hearing someone speak an indigenous tongue is pretty much a miracle, the story of who we are as a country was erased by colonization, and this song is a reminder of what was taken from us.

[ismellpestilence]

Butchered Tongue is so....

There's something painful about being completely cut off from the culture of your ancestors. You know that there was once a connection there but its gone now and you have no idea how to get it back. You're just stuck wondering when and why things didn't get passed on to your parent or grandparent. Why did they let you assimilate?

Knowing that if your grandparents went to participate in your lost culture, they would be reclaiming it. But somewhere in the generations there is a point where it crosses from reclaiming your culture to being a tourist. And you're pretty sure that you fall directly on the other side of that line.

All you get is an heirloom or two, and a surname no one can pronounce. And that's it's you're lucky.

[p4nishers]

when hozier said "As a child it was the place names/ Singin' at me as the first thing/How the mouth must be employed in every corner of itself/To say "Appalacicola " or "Hushpukena", like "Gweebarra"/A promise softly sang of somewhere else" and when hozier said "And as a young man blessed to pass so many road signs/And have my foreign ear made fresh again on each unlikely sound/But feel at home, hearin' a music that few still understand/A butchered tongue still singin' here above the ground" and when he said "The ears were chopped from young men if the pitch cap didn't kill them/ They are buried without scalp in the shattered bedrock of our home/ You may never know your fortune/ Until the distance has been shown between what is lost forever/And what can still be known" and then he said something like "So far from home to have a stranger call you, "Darling"/And have your guarded heart be lifted like a child up by the hand/In some town that just means 'Home' to them/With no translator left to sound/A butchered tongue still singin' here above the ground" and when he wrote butchered tongue i died

[mochifiction]

Not a Transformers post but Hozier released his album and no I’m not sane or okay. I wanna talk about Butchered Tongue because there’s barely any discourse about it and I am absolutely inconsolable about it. While there are a lot of elements/ central themes of Irish colonization and the preservation of Irish language and inherently history/ culture with it, as a Person of Color, I was so deeply moved. It is a song of beautiful mourning, of sorrow in the blood and scars that run through the dying of or absolute death of a language. However, it is also a celebration and expression of admiration and awe over the strength and perseverance of language and those who wield it. Every verb, noun, accent, rolling of the tongue. Every simple sound, letter, article. All of it is an act of defiance of the voice to the oppressor. It is a fibre of being healing the deep wounds inflicted by the colonizer. Every utterance screams “We are here and we are moving onward even while still bleeding.” Even then, Hozier still captivated the grief that comes with the fact that…not all cultures have that. Not every community has the ability to learn their languages. Some are gone entirely. Some stopped being passed down for the sake of survival and assimilation. The anguish that comes with a bloody tongue, one that cannot speak what it was born to utter, to scream to sing…it’s a feeling difficult to put into words. To have this song in the Circle of Violence not only brings to light the physical violence against the Irish in their colonization, but the invisible consequences of such brutality on the colonized. The murders and scarring didn’t stop at flesh. Even some languages that survived didn’t escape without scars and wounds, infused with the languages of their colonizer (ex- Tagalog having pieces of Spanish in it). This was a love letter and kiss of praise yet also a funeral dirge to those wounded by colonization, and I have never sobbed so hard over a song before. It stirred such deep grief in me that I cannot explain.

[touchlikethesun]

not to be that person but what do you mean butchered tongue is the least streamed song on unreal unearth. what do you mean people can listen to lines like "and as a young man blessed to pass so many road signs / and have my foreign ear made fresh again on each unlikely sound / but feel at home hearing a music that few still understand" and just. move on. sort that song into the skip file. what. what do you mean.

anyways butchered tongue is the best song, the most haunting song off unreal unearth.

y'all just don't fucking listen to lyrics anymore.

[akajustmerry]

"You might love him initially for his good looks and sultry sounds, but Hozier’s legacy will be one of championing international anti-colonial solidarity through his art, as well as his actions in a time of rampant injustices." 

The Powerful Anti-Colonialism Of Hozier by Merryana Salem

[expired-blueberries]

thinking about Butchered Tongue and Foreigner's God...