Words Per Mile

Canto 34 describes Dante and Virgil’s ascent out of Hell, and Hozier captures this in the song First Light.

To leave Hell, Dante must go through the darkest circle and over Lucifer’s back—he must keep moving forward, not double back. First Light describes finally finding a healthy relationship after pushing through some dark times in life. The singer does not go backwards and repeat unhealthy behaviors in an attempt to get a better results, but instead tries (and finds) something new.

I find that this song is pretty straightforward, and I don’t have much to add about it! Definitely let me know if you have more below.

I’ll leave with this: A lot of the imagery in First Light talks about looking at the sky and the beauty of it. This seems to evoke the last line of Dante’s Inferno:

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That’s the end of our trip through Inferno and Unreal Unearth! Thanks for joining me! This is something I’ve been thinking about doing for a while, and was a blast to write.

If you enjoyed these songs, Hozier did release some additional EPs of songs that he wrote at the same time/are sonically similar, but that didn’t fit the concept of the album. I’ll link them below, and put an asterisk next to the ones that seem to have some connection to the Divine Comedy:

• Wildflower and Barley*
• Empire Now
• Fare Well*
• Through Me (The Flood)
• Nobody’s Soldier
• July
• That You Are
• Swan Upon Leda
• Hymn to Virgil*