2023 has got to be one of the best years of music. It doesn’t matter what genre you’re into, I’ll bet money one of your favorite artists dropped an album this year – even if they’ve been active and you knew it was coming or they crawled from the shadows to brighten your shitty Tuesday. Countless artists have jumped out from the woodwork to sing their praises of life opening up again. Sunday night, August 27th, had to be an absolute meeting of the minds for two of those said artists.
Hozier, the light of my life, has resurfaced to bring us his delightful third album Unreal Unearth alongside a live tour for the first time since 2019. And let me tell you, he has not disappointed for a second. Despite Hozier (né Andrew John Hozier-Byrne, I liked to call him Andy for shits and giggles) just dropping this album on August 18th, he has not been denying the world of his music for long. Since he stopped touring and life hit the fan with the pandemic, he’s continued to pop in and drop absolutely heartwrenching original songs and covers like Parting Glass (a cover), Blood Upon the Snow released for God of War: Ragnarok, and Swan Upon Leda released in response to the US overturning Roe v Wade and the murder of Mahsa Amini in Iran. He has also never stopped his venture to make the world a better place, performing virtually and Live to empty seats for various charity live streams while the world was shut down.
And in the midst of all that, our man went through something so personal and heartbreaking, the only way he’s known how to talk about it is with an immersive 16-song album, comparing the events he endured to one of the most infamous stories of human suffering and survival: Dante’s Inferno. He uses comparisons to the text (I will admittedly say I’ve struggled to read because it’s written in Psalms), the moral and systemic struggles of life around us in this modern age, the woes of love found and lost, mixed with a dash of the beautiful Irish language to create a breathtaking album that brings you through the circles of Hell with him. And sure that may sound terrifying but with Andy there to hold your hand and play Virgil, it’s a really healing album to listen through. What I am trying to say is this man has not stopped, hell or high water, when it comes to his craft and in that time, he has only gotten better and better.
And in the time Andy was working on that magnificent comeback, another soon-to-be- folk star began climbing the ranks of every fan’s playlist with the absolute banger “Homesick” – that folk star being the lovely Noah Kahan. Kahan has been around the music world for a minute but the power of TikTok brought him front and center when the lyrics of “Homesick” struck a deep nerve with any kid who has struggled with being stuck in their hometown and never living up to their potential (Also See: Me).
Shortly after “Homesick” blew up, Noah released his full third album Stick Season, and let me tell you, every song cemented the foundation of a strong legacy. I love Busyhead, his 2019 album, but there are some songs I don’t vibe with, same to his I Was/I Am, album from 2021; however, there is something so special and personal about every song on Stick Season. Kahan digs deep into his struggles with mental illness and alcohol abuse, a thing many young people can relate to as we open up more as a generation about the real effects mental illness and addiction/substance abuse have on our daily lives and relationships– with some sprinkled in reminders of how you’re growing up and you never really got the time to take in everything about your hometown before it’s slowly faded away and changed. Safe to say that’s something that has been rattling around my brain box quite a bit in recent years so I’m delighted he sat down and put all of those relatable feelings to folksy-rock tunes. Even more so when he dropped the deluxe edition – named Stick Season (We’ll All Be Here Forever) that included other bangers such as “Dial Drunk“, “View Between Villages (Extended Version)“, and my personal favorite “Paul Revere“. Kahan is not just loved for his music but he’s got a heart of gold and loves to interact with his followers as well as dropping snippets of new songs, with some lyric analysis, before they drop.
That is why on Saturday night my ass nearly broke down in tears when I saw Hozier pull Noah Kahan on stage to sing one of Hozier’s (IMO) best songs “Work Song” from his first album, self-titled. Noah only gave us a quick update before he jumped on stage:
Both the Folk Father and Son (nicknames from TikTok) belted out some beautiful verses and I am so jealous that I was not at this concert:
The love continued afterward when Noah took to Twitter once more to thank Hozier for the invite in this heartwarming tweet:
And Hozier did reply to him:
To which Noah responded:
(Me too babe, me too.) The hope of a Noah Kahan and Hozier collaboration will glow brightly in my heart over the next few months as I hope 2023 delivers for us once more. Both are artists who can dig so deep into the darkness they endure and pull something healing out of it, they find ways to make sense of the things we can barely rationalize to ourselves alone. But they find ways to string words together in ways that knock your worldview out of focus, in a great way. They open your eyes more to the beauty and beast inside us all and tell you to take no shame in it.
I could sit here for hours and go through the entirety of their discography with something to say but I won’t bore you in my first blog back. Honestly, Hozier and Kahan’s music has been my go-to through this year-long hiatus I’ve taken from this blog while dealing with some personal shit. Not just by showing there’s someone who understands this struggle and putting it into words far better than I ever could but by reminding me how much I miss this, this right here. I meant to write a quick lil blog about my two favorite artists performing together and now I’m 2,000+ words in asking myself “Why the hell did I ever give this up? Why did I ever feel so shit for loving what I do?” It’s been the deepest I’ve been able to breathe in months.
No one may ever read these words but frankly, I don’t mind anymore because I always said I’d do this as long as I love it. And I did love it, still do, but I let so much else get in the way of that love. I stopped loving it last July and when I came back in late August, life decided it needed to rip away something else I loved. I couldn’t bare to talk here every day like I used to and act like things don’t suck because they did, both for this blog before the hiatus and for my life during. I let the site fall apart before, I tried to maintain the streak I had with shit blogs I wasn’t proud of. I wouldn’t even tweet (oh I’m sorry “X”. Kick rocks, Elon) them out. Then I was filled with so much shame about stopping, even when I knew I didn’t have time, energy, or anything remotely not sad to say. But I guess life is like that sometimes. It can suck for a really long time and if you just keep dragging yourself through Dante’s Circles of Hell when you make a mistake or experienced something life-changing, you’ll be miserable forever.
And for what, I ask you?
You can find your way back to what you love, that’s the blessing of still having time and being human. We all change in ways maybe no one else will ever see or know, for better or worse, maturing or unmaturing, intentionally or accidentally, it happens all the time. In my humble opinion, the beauty of life is if you’ve still got air in your lungs, you’ve got time to wake up and become who you were meant to be. Chances are, there’s always going to be something in life (internal or external) that is going to be weighing you down but at the end of the day, don’t let it rob you of your happiness. Don’t let it steal away your time until you look up one day and realize you don’t have much left and there is no Virgil coming to save you. Let it build you into a stronger person that can say “Did it suck? Yeah, so much, but I mother fuckin survived it and I can take on the other bad shit that comes my way because of that”. Give yourself grievance when you fuck up, actually learn where you went wrong and fix it or move on from it, there’s no use stewing on these things until they completely coat everything in your lives with a shitty attitude and no hope. Give yourself that hope to be a better person tomorrow because I’ve got news for you homie, you can’t become that person unless you give yourself that hope and put in the work. If you say “I can’t change, I’m stuck in my ways, it’s too much”, well then you won’t change and that sucks for you because when you hit that threshold of newly found mental freedom and clarity, the world opens up in a much more beautiful light than anything I’ve ever seen in my life. You can blame the way you are every day on your mental health, your bad diet, your job, your family, your friends, your life you were born into — but if you just do that, nothing will change. Because just saying it sucks or it’s the reason things suck won’t change how it sucks, but breaking down the idea that you can’t do anything about it will change so much.
If you need a little help on that mental journey, I prescribe you a healthy dose of Noah Kahan and Hozier’s music to cloak you in the bad times and reach out to your loved ones if you need help. I know it’s said a lot but there sincerely is bravery in asking and getting help, I know it because I never did it. And trust me, I feel terrible that I never did and I took it all out on the people closest to me. I still regret it. The people who cared about me had to watch as I tore myself apart even when they asked me not to, I ignored it and did it anyway because I thought I deserved it. And then I asked myself “For what? Why am I depriving myself of something I loved so much and worked so hard at? Why am I actively avoiding the joy that writing and the people in my life give me?”
And I think I’m still working out all the answers but there’s no use torturing myself over things I think not even a god can change. Take it from Hozier and Noah (and me), there is no use hiding from the world just because you’re so afraid of what they might think of you, your artwork, and your outward expression of life. If you’re not hurting anyone, and I mean legit hurting and interfering with, not, for example, “your lifestyle is different from mine so you need to stop doing that where I can see”, who cares what most people have to say. If someone is wearing an outfit you would never, maybe they feel hot today so don’t rain on their parade. You can keep your negative comments to yourself and try channeling that energy towards things that actually fuck over peoples’ lives or turn that microscope inward and ask “Why do I derive joy from making people feel bad? Is it because I don’t feel great about myself so if I attack them first and worst, maybe their pain will ease mine?” If the answer is yes, then check out Psychology Today and book an appointment. Congrats, you, like the rest of us, are on your way to living our happiest lives. We’re all doing our best to get through the day and any little nugget of happiness is a cherishable one, even if it’s a hockey game in the middle of December or an ice-cold Strawberry milk.
So I think it’s safe to say I’ll be back to blogging and if you read this far, holy shit thanks bud, sorry for getting so motivational speaker/preachy at the end but I wish someone slapped me in the face and told me that in January. (My best friend is going to read this and be like bitch I wanted to. You can next time, Hannah). It won’t just be sports here (I only slightly regret putting ‘sports’ in our name at 18 but hey, that’s all I thought I’d talk about), I’ll be popping in to give you my thoughts on whatever and hopefully give you a chuckle. Because honestly, that’s all I have ever hoped to do here. I am not someone who’s looking to be a hardcore journo, I’ve never made a dime off this website and I don’t really intend to, I don’t know everything about anything (besides One Direction), and at the end of the day, I just hope I make yours a little better.
So anyway, welcome back to Ham Sports, a (not just) sports blog. Let’s cheers to Sweet Music, No Complaints, and a Hozier & Kahan collab song.
Featured Image: Screenshot from this TikTok
Ham Sports 