Hozier is here with his brand new album and the introduction to the album is a classic Hozier piece. Titled, “De Selby (Part 1),” The explores the darkness of the mind and soul in the absence of love and light.
“De Selby (Part 1)” is the first track on Hozier’s third studio album ‘Unreal Unearth’ released on August 18, 2023. The album premiered singles such as “Eat Your Young,” “Unknown / Nth,” and “De Selby (Part 2)” were released in the months preceding the release.
In a ‘behind the scenes‘ video, Hozier explained that ‘De Selby’ is a character from the novel ‘The Third Policemen.’ According to Hozier, De Selby is a part-genius and part-lunatic who sees the world through a dream-like lens. In the same video, Hozier explained the meaning behind the song;
“It just reflects upon darkness and falling of the night, let’s say, and viewing that as very freeing in which all things are lost in that darkness. That’s kind of aligned with the thinking of De Selby… It seemed very appropriate to explore that theme of darkness as something that’s very freeing in which you are free of everything and the predicament of that is when your mind is empty it resists that a great deal.”
Listen to “De Selby (Part 1)” by Hozier
Hozier “De Selby (Part 1)” Lyrics Meaning and Song Review
In the first verse of the song, Hozier explores darkness and emptiness in its truest form. Let’s say in the initial moments the world was ‘created’ by an all-powerful being. What was there before everything else was?
Nothing. Emptiness. Only God itself, in an endless vast of blackness.
No stars. No colorful galaxies. No humans. It was the kind of darkness and loneliness that even God could not stand.
The likes of a darkness so deep
That God at the start couldn’t bear
There is a certain bliss to the darkness and emptiness. Today, we are all so distracted by everything and something happening at every second of passing time. We move from one distraction to another, constantly feeding on stimuli. But we never seem to be content. Maybe lack of distractions is where content lies?
Mirrors reflect. But, what would it be like if they showed what’s inside us? We probably would not enjoy a whole lot of it. But is this the problem with the mirror? Likely not.
In the third and final verse of the song, Hozier plays God. We all do, every time. We create–in our heads–worlds upon worlds of our innermost dreams and characters. We fill the void of our minds with our own creations of people and things and destroy things and people who stand in our way. We create lust in our heads. And this consumes us.
We are the gods of our own universes.
The outro of the song is sung in Gaeilge (Irish). According to Hozier, this section adds an element of romance to the theme of the song;
Although you’re bright and light, you arrive to me like nightfall, you come like nightfall. You and I sort of mixed up together, you and I metamorphosized. So that same idea of, you can’t see where one begins and where one ends, that is an actual metamorphosis of some kind.
In a sense, love and darkness hang on a fragile balance. A little more of one could consume the other. The song could be exploring the idea that no matter how bright and pure love is (or seems to be), there are always elements of darkness that reside underneath the veil.
Let us hear what you think about this song in the comments below. Read the complete lyrics to the song on Genius.