Andrew Hozier-Byrne, known better by his stage name Hozier, is an Irish singer-songwriter who has drawn attention for the meaning-laden lyrics and calm-soothing sounds in his two albums: Hozier (2014) and Wasteland Baby! (2019). On the surface, he appears to be a regular folk and blues artist singing about love and sex, but by listening closely, you realize that his music is far from the norm. The way in which Hozier uses his lyrics and music videos to portray action reverses the traditional power dynamics between men and women, and further reveals the artificiality of those dynamics. Hozier’s music can be better understood by applying the theories that philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler advances in her book Gender Trouble. Butler’s theories find that humans constantly perform gender in a way that has no correlation with anatomical sex and instead follows societal constructs centering around gender performance, gender identity, and anatomical sex. By applying Butler’s theories, it is revealed how Hozier simultaneously and paradoxically deconstructs gender norms while reinforcing a gender-based social hierarchy.

Applying Butler to Hozier’s music first reveals how Hozier deconstructs gender power within his music. Butler finds that “gender requires a performance that is repeated. This repetition is at once a reenactment and re-experiencing of a set of meanings already socially established; it is the mundane and ritualized form of their legitimation” (Butler 2500). Music is an example of this ritual as it conforms to society’s expectations of gendered power—men chase women, and “act” upon them romantically and sexually, while women either passively observe or follow the man. However, Hozier takes these expected repetitions of gender power and changes the actor. In lyrics such as: “Scarcely can speak for my thinking / what you’d do to me tonight” (Dinner and Diatribes), “If I was born as a blackthorn tree / I’d wanna be felled by you / Held by you / Fuel the pyre of your enemies” (NFWMB), “Dragging along / Following your form / Hung like the pelt / Of some prey you had worn” (Shrike), and more, Hozier gives himself, the singer, the passive role and the women whom he loves the powerful role. In these lyrics, it is the woman who is taking action—Hozier is the inactive prey that she drags behind her, the blackthorn tree that she cuts down and burns. The woman is the active player within his music. This shatters gender norms and power as they are known within mainstream society. Butler finds that “For that masculine subject of desire, trouble became a scandal with the sudden intrusion, the unanticipated agency, of a female “object” who inexplicably returns the glance, reverses the gaze, and contests the place and authority of the masculine position” (Butler 2489). Hozier uses his lyrics to give women both agency and power, reversing power dynamics in a more profound way than many female artists (such as Nicki Minaj or Cardi B) who sing about sexuality and love, but still unconsciously give men the positions of power and action within their music. Hozier subverts societal expectations of gender and proves that gender identity’s link to agency and power is not compulsory and inherent, and further that these expectations themselves are artificial and easily subverted.

However, a deeper dive into the impact of Hozier’s deconstruction of gender roles reveals that his music still reinforces a gender-based hierarchy, just in a different form. Butler finds: “the very notions of an essential sex… are also constituted as part of the strategy that conceals gender’s performative character and the performative possibilities for proliferating gender configurations outside the restricting frames of masculinist domination” (Butler 2501). The key phrase here is masculinist domination, or more accurately, “domination.” Butler states that the deconstruction of gender can still play into misogynistic, male dominated culture, and this same idea can still be applied to Hozier’s music. The most blatant example of this is seen in the music video and lyrics for his song Cherry Wine. Hozier sings “The way she tells me I’m hers and she’s mine / open hand or closed fist would be fine / blood is red and sweet as cherry wine” (Cherry Wine). The lyrics of the song relate to a woman abusing her husband. Solely as a song about abuse, it is incredibly powerful to deconstruct the idea that only men can take action against their spouses, and instead subtly put women in a position of power. The lyrics are further influential because situations where men are weaker or do not have power in a situation are seldom discussed, especially within music. The music video, however, is about a man abusing his wife—the more stereotypical power dynamic. A shallow analysis reveals that this is another change in power dynamics that proves how arbitrary gender norms and power are. However, it is evidence of a pattern: Hozier’s music still falls into misogynistic, male-dominated culture in that his vision of love and a world where women are more equal involve women taking the position of men. Look to song lyrics such as “I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies” (Take Me To Church), and “No grave can hold my body down // I’ll crawl home to her” (Work Song)—women having domination over men with no give and take is not equality. In summary, his lyrical descriptions of equality are not truly feminist, but instead parody feminism by creating a world in which men and women are not equal, but have simply switched positions of domination within society.

While applying Butler to Hozier reveals layers of hidden meanings within his music, there are limitations in using her work for analyzing Hozier’s music. The most obvious limitation is that there is no true way of knowing Hozier’s motivations or thoughts behind these songs. It is unknown whether he was attempting to bend gender roles, or whether he set out with the goal of writing music that did so. Butler herself spends more time discussing gender identity in relation to drag performances from cisgender people and what they reveal rather than the relationships between heterosexuality and gender performance. While she touches upon how gender is performed for all, there is no focus, and thus we must extrapolate from her writings in a less direct manner. There is also the limitation of society itself—while we are willing to accept feminist music, even beginning to widely discuss the deconstruction of gender within music in the omnipresent hierarchy is a discussion not easily accessible to all. It is incredibly difficult to get out of the mindset that there must be someone, man or woman, dominating society, because this is the only state of being we can remember.

Works Cited

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge, 2006.

Hozier. “Cherry Wine.” Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdSCCwtNEjA

Hozier. “Dinner and Diatribes.” Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlLx7oE7q3I

Hozier. “NFWMB.” Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YnHZhrfAJE

Hozier. “Shrike.” Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmANuYm-H1s

Hozier. “Take Me to Church.” Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVjiKRfKpPI

Hozier. “Work Song.” Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH7bjV0Q_44