I need to talk about Anything But for a second cuz good lord what a poetic and intelligent song. Once I saw that it was the circle Fraud everything about it fell into place and I’ve been marveling at how smart this song is since.
It starts off incredibly bright. It’s possibly the lightest and brightest song we’ve ever heard from a Hozier song to this point, which is strange because we are many songs deep into a thus far heart-wrenching breakup album. The tone contrast seems jarring, but we’ve had clashing sound/lyrics from him before.
On a casual listen, we hear all the markers of a traditional Hozier love song. (This is smart because this is obviously how fraud works; on the surface everything seems normal, until you start to see cracks later). We see nature symbolism, we see something that could be attributed to devotion and protection (“if I was a riptide I wouldn’t take you out,” “If I was a stampede you wouldn’t get a kick,” “if I had [death’s] job you would live forever”), and the chorus “But I would do anything just to run away,” initially left me thinking he meant to run away with his love. All the classic Hozier lines.
Of course, though, we know this is a breakup album, and it would be strange to have such a happy song placed so deep into it. And once we know that this song is the circle of fraud, the cracks start to show.
The use of negative things like riptides, stampedes, and death is very smart because of course we know that no one would want to get caught by any of these things, so of course we initially think Hozier is protecting his love. But then, the realization; these lines are supposed to mean that even in these natural things that would normally not discern who to attack, Hozier, being these things, would purposefully avoid his love, because he wants nothing to do with them anymore. He would not take his love’s hand if he were death, and although then they would live forever, he would never have to interact with them again. In addition, there really wasn’t any implied addition to “but i would do everything just to run away;” he truly wants to just get away from this person. He doesn’t want to be anything, but this person, for whatever reason, would make him to absolutely everything to get away. He wants to become a riptide, a stampede, death, and wants to do so and purposefully avoid his love.
Though all of this we realize this song isn’t about devotion, like we (or at least I) initially thought, but it’s about letting go.
It’s not that the song is about fraud, it’s that the song, is, in and of itself, fraudulent in it’s presentation.
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