Lyric by lyric, in depth analysis essay on “I, Carrion (Icarian” by Hozier
(buckle up, it’s a LOT im not normal about this song)
Hozier’s “I, Carrion (Icarian)” is a reimagining of the Greek myth of Icarus as a love song, one that centers on the ecstatic, terrifying surrender of falling in love. Hozier has explained that the song imagines Icarus as so deeply in love that he is unaware he is dying; the speaker does not care whether he falls, as long as his loved one is by his side. In this way, the song becomes about the feeling of lifting off, the lightness that accompanies new love, while holding space for the knowledge that it could all collapse inward. The beauty of the song lies in its ability to hold those two realities at once. It feels transitional as it follows the hurricane of “Francesca,” where two characters are trapped forever, and shifts the perspective to someone who is simply carried by the wind.
From the opening lines,
“I feel lighter than I have in so much time / I’ve crossed the borderline of weightless / One deep breath out from the sky,”
Hozier establishes both the physical sensation of flight and the emotional experience of a new relationship. Icarus is literally suspended in the air, but the speaker is also describing the intoxicating lightness of love, that sense of being untethered from gravity itself. There is a desperation here to make love worth it regardless of consequence, mirroring Icarus’s belief that his reckless ascent would carry no cost. Feeling “just a breath away” from the sky paints an image of blind faith, faith in flight and faith in love.
That sense of transcendence deepens with
“I’ve reached a rarer height now that I can confirm / All our weight is just a burden offered to us by the world.”
This line refers to the myth of Atlas, condemned to hold the sky upon his shoulders after the Titanomachy. The world’s weight becomes something imposed rather than innate, suggesting that love allows the narrator to temporarily shrug off the burdens of existence.
Despite the rising danger, the narrator remains willfully and blissfully unaware.
“And though I burn, how could I fall / When I am lifted by every word you say to me?”
In the original myth, Icarus serves as a foil to his father Daedalus, whose wisdom and caution contrast sharply with Icarus’s youth and naivety. Icarus laughs as he plays with his father’s tools, unable, or unwilling, to see the danger directly in front of him. Hozier channels this same innocence, presenting love as a force so powerful that it disregards even the sensation of burning.
This denial of one's own condition is further shown.
“If anything could fall at all, it’s the world / That falls away from me.”
Rather than portraying Icarus as doomed by his ascent, Hozier reframes the narrative so that the world itself is rising. He believes he will never falter and that he will essentially be the last thing that could possibly fall, alluding to the fact that he is not the one falling, but the world who rapidly approaches his still position.
The ironic antithesis between realism and idealism is again portrayed through the vivid calmness expressed in the following lines:
“You have me floatin’ like a feather on the sea / While you’re as heavy as the world / That you hold your hands beneath.”
The violence given by the myth is transformed into relief and gentleness. Icarus falls to his death in the sea, the description is brutal. Hozier challenges this, having him gently float instead, because of the love he is receiving. Once again, a reference to Atlas, who was condemned to forever hold up the sky and Heavens.
The literary motif of Atlas persists throughout the song, with slightly different meanings, all subtly referring to support and heaviness.
“Once I had wondered what was holdin’ up the ground / But I can see that all along, love, it was you all the way down.”
This is a reference to the mythological phrase “turtles all the way down,” or the idea that the world is held on the back of a giant turtle, which in turn is standing upon an even larger turtle, ad infinitum. This idea has its roots in Hindu mythology with the idea of the World Turtle and World Elephant, and incidentally, is also the name of a well known John Green book.
“The following anecdote is told of William James. After a lecture on cosmology and the structure of the solar system, James was accosted by a little old lady.
“Your theory that the sun is the centre of the solar system, and the earth is a ball which rotates around it has a very convincing ring to it, Mr. James, but it’s wrong. I’ve got a better theory,” said the little old lady.
“And what is that, madam?” inquired James politely.
“That we live on a crust of earth which is on the back of a giant turtle.”
Not wishing to demolish this absurd little theory by bringing to bear the masses of scientific evidence he had at his command, James decided to gently dissuade his opponent by making her see some of the inadequacies of her position.
“If your theory is correct, madam,” he asked, “what does this turtle stand on?”
“You’re a very clever man, Mr. James, and that’s a very good question,” replied the little old lady, “but I have an answer to it. And it’s this: The first turtle stands on the back of a second, far larger, turtle, who stands directly under him.”
“But what does this second turtle stand on?” persisted James patiently.
To this, the little old lady crowed triumphantly,
“It’s no use, Mr. James - it’s turtles all the way down.”
– J. R. Ross, Constraints on Variables in Syntax, 1967
Yet even as the song acknowledges transcendence, it follows the pattern of ambiguity and foreshadowing.
“Leave it now, I am sky-bound / If you need to, darling, lean your weight to me.”
“Sky-bound” works as a double metaphor; it portrays flight while gesturing toward death, as many religious traditions associate upward movement with the afterlife. The narrator offers comfort to their lover even while knowing their own fate may already be sealed.
That same acceptance is expressed in the following line:
“We’ll float away, but if we fall / I only pray, don’t fall away from me.”
Like “Wasteland, Baby!”, the feeling is that the end of the world becomes survivable, even beautiful, because of the presence of the writer's lover, shifting focus to separation as the main danger, minimizing the sorrowful effects of actual death.
The perspective suddenly takes a realistic and conscious turn throughout the bridge:
“I do not have wings, love, I never will.”
After so many metaphors denying the possibility of failure, the narrator admits the truth. Unlike Icarus, there are no wings, no ability to fly, this idea only being built up because of the desire to appear extraordinary in the eyes of a lover, but bearing the pressure of living up to this idea eventually leads to exhaustion. Just as Icarus’s artificial wings ultimately fail him, this relationship, too, is revealed as unsustainable.
The fall is no longer hypothetical, but hints to the death of Icarus resembling the “death” or ending of this relationship.
The incompatibility between the two characters the story surrounds is made even clearer.
“Soarin’ over a world you are carrying,”
reinforces the imbalance between the speaker’s weightlessness and the lover’s burden. The narrator is willing to let the world fall away entirely if it means offering their lover rest, even if that collapse costs everything. followed by, at last, the acceptance towards the idea of his imminent death.
“If these heights should bring my fall,”
Like Icarus ignoring Daedalus’s warnings, the storyteller accepts the risk of eventually plummetting, while being fulfilled by the heights he has reached, because of the intensity of his love.
The bridge is beautifully ended with the comforting suggestion:
“Let me be your own Icarian carrion.”
This is an interesting play of words, which can be interpreted in multiple way, whether you choose to read the terms as separate: Icarian being a reference to Icarus, soaring too high for safety, adventurous in flight and the world Carrion meaning dead putrifying flesh; or altogether - Icarian carrion: dead purifying flesh of a former Icarian. The stubborn ambition that becomes deadly. Unfortunately for Icarus, despite the people watching from the shore “believing them to be gods,” he was mortal; enchanted by the sun, Icarus disobeyed the instructions and flew up towards it, causing the wax of his wings to melt and send him plummeting into the sea to his death, confirming that humans can't overcome their natural condition.
It is a juxtaposition between being uplifted and death, the act of the former being resultant in the latter. It can also be heard as “I carry on,” acknowledging persistence.
Carrion is also a term for birds that eat dead flesh, like vultures. The image of a person flying being referred to as a type of bird that eats the dead, and referring to the dead in a self-reflexive manner, implies self-sabotage. The narrator is putting themselves into this predicament that will ultimately lead to his own destruction, leaving room for even further interpretation of actions such as autosarcophagy (self-canibalism)
The album “Unreal Unearth” follows the structure of the 9 Circles of Hell, as presented in Dante's Inferno. the punishments of the sinners in Dante’s Inferno are extreme reflections of their sins on earth, so whatever it is that they have done in life, their fate is to eternally re-live their sins through their punishment. The song reflects the persistence of a relationship that has ended being perpetually haunting.
The outro of the song repeats the very first line, only now giving it more depth:
“If the wind turns, if I hit a squall / Allow the ground to find its brutal way to me.”
Even here, falling is reframed. The narrator is not the one plummeting. Instead, the ground is at fault, for rapidly and brutally rising towards the sky. The impact is inevitable, but it is described as something external, something approaching him rather than caused by him, as stated earlier ( "How could i fall?" "If anything could fall at all/ It's the world that falls away from me.”)
In his euphoria, Icarus could not comprehend his current state of falling, only the dynamic sensation of it.
“I, Carrion (Icarian)” is ultimately a love song about choosing intensity over safety, despite acknowledging the possible consequences of that choice. Hozier not only does not condemn Icarus for flying too close to the sun, but proceeds to even honor the beauty of the flight itself. The storytelling argues that to truly experience love, one must accept the possibility of devastation, and be willing to fall anyway.
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This is my own interpretation and i don’t claim it as the ‘correct’ one!! Feel free to leave any of your interpretations or thoughts in the comments/reblogs! 🤎
