Hozier Album Deep Dive: Lyrical Craftsmanship and Literary Influences in His Sophomore Masterpiece

Hozier is one of the few modern musicians who often reads and deeply thinks about literature as intelligently as he does. The Irish singer-songwriter's 2019 album Wasteland, Baby! blends biblical stories, Irish poetry, and classical literature into songs, connecting the past and the present.

Through this fusion, he crafts a haunting vision of love, despair, and resilience in a broken world. For Hozier, these literary and mythic references aren't just aesthetic, they're tools to explore vulnerability, resistance, and desire using centuries of emotional language. This article looks at how he turns classic poetry into modern music that inspires people to experience feelings.

The title Wasteland, Baby! unmistakably echoes T.S. Eliot's “The Waste Land” (1922), a poem Hozier has acknowledged as a direct influence, even taking it with him on tour. Hozier, like Eliot, lives in a world that is falling apart and is looking for meaning in the face of spiritual decline, political instability, and environmental danger.

But while Eliot's post-war modernism captured desolation through fragmentation and despair, Hozier reframes it for the 21st century. His lyrics talk about how love and tenderness can last, and even grow, in a time when things are falling apart.

The motif of fire connects them, with Eliot's “burning burning burning burning” becoming, in Hozier's hands, a metaphor for desire that scorches and sanctifies.

As critics have observed, the album unfolds during a kind of moral wasteland, yet Hozier leans into paradoxical hope, not resignation.

To understand Wasteland, Baby!, it helps to place Hozier within Ireland's rich poetic tradition. His lyrics are a mix of W.B. Yeats' romantic mysticism and Seamus Heaney's grounded naturalism.

Heaney's bog imagery reverberates throughout the verses of "Run," where the land transforms into a grave and a memory. In “NFWMB,” apocalyptic dread mirrors the prophetic tone of Yeats' “The Second Coming.”

Hozier has spoken of carrying Heaney's collections with him on tour and listening to recordings of the poet's voice, proving how deeply this lineage lives in him. Mythological references such as Cúchulainn show his connection to Celtic storytelling through profound thought and emotional closeness.

Hozier uses biblical and mythological references in Wasteland, Baby! not to demonstrate respect, but to question culture and himself. He reinterprets stories of gods, floods, sinners, and fire through the lens of modern uncertainty and longing.

In “Be,” he creates a bleak future through a fusion of apocalyptic news and sacred language. He reimagines the myth of Icarus in "Sunlight," portraying it as a picture of passionate surrender rather than a cautionary tale about hubris. He identifies with the falling boy, being consumed not by folly but by love.

“Talk” retells the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice as a desperate plea for forgiveness. Plato's Allegory of the Cave comes up in "Sedated" and "Nina Cried Power," which reveals how art and activism can make us think and feel uneasy.

You can clearly see the life these references illustrate. They give the lyrics so much essence as they display his ambition, failure, and desire. 

In "Shrike," Hozier uses one of his best metaphors: a small predatory bird that stands for loss, longing, and quiet devotion. The shrike, which is known for impaling its victims on thorns, is a representation of the silent violence of love. In the lyrics "Driving alone, following your form / Hung like the pearl of some prey you had worn," he blends cruelty and tenderness in a romantic tradition of pain-tinged beauty.

The metaphor is also spiritual. In various cultures, the shrike symbolizes fierce protection, survival, and the cost of silence. Here, the lover is the thorn and the speaker is impaled. Hozier doesn't just describe heartbreak — he ritualizes it. With natural imagery, he paints personal grief with the timeless texture of myth and memory.

In addition to its main themes, Wasteland, Baby! is full of references to books and culture. "Nina Cried Power" is not only based on protest songs by Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Mavis Staples, and Nina Simone. It also honors them by bringing their spirits back to life. These references aren't mere name-drops; they revive music's radical roots and deepen each track's emotional impact.

“Almost (Sweet Music)” is a lyrical mosaic. It is laced with over a dozen nods to jazz greats, such as Chet Baker and Duke Ellington. There were songs from his first album that also followed this trend. “From Eden” channels Paradise Lost and Oscar Wilde, reframing temptation through a devil's-eye view. “Angel of Small Death and the Codeine Scene” echoes the spiritual awakening of Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Listening closely to each track pays off: Hozier's references are like conversations with past artists that cross genres, times, and forms.

Hozier's songs show that he has a very literary mind. He studied music at Trinity College Dublin, but his approach is more about emotional urgency than strict rules. He's described his process as chaotic and obsessive, often writing six, seven, eight songs at once. He will spend long stretches in the Irish countryside and let the silence and solitude steep into his work.

His lyrics center on metaphors rather than hooks, structured with such detail that critics have called them poetry in their own right. Hozier doesn't like to call himself a poet, but his process of writing multiple songs at the same time and making a lot of changes is similar to how poets think about and shape their work.

His voice has a unique depth, combining literary intelligence with raw emotion. It is lyrical, literate, and powerful.

Critics agree that Wasteland, Baby! shows Hozier as more than just a musician; he's a literary craftsman. Even though the album scored a modest 63 on Metacritic, many critics raved about it. Neil McCormick of The Telegraph called him “a talent to rival Jeff Buckley,” and others praised his “signature use of allusion and symbolism.”

Many recognized the album's lyrical richness, being full of myth, metaphor, and moral tension, as proof that poetic ambition can thrive in mainstream music.

With Wasteland, Baby!, Hozier proves that popular music can be a vessel for literary depth without losing emotional immediacy. His music transcends genres and generations by weaving myth, poetry, and classic texts into narratives that are personal and political.

The album's commercial success (debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200) suggests that listeners are not only open to this complexity but hungry for it. For those willing to trace his references by reading lyrics closely, decoding symbols, and revisiting the texts that shaped them, Wasteland, Baby! becomes more than an album.