Like Real People Do

This song plays with ancient imagery to talk about something we all know: new love. Hozier takes the bog bodies —Irish corpses preserved for centuries in peat bogs— and uses them as a metaphor for a relationship that grows and strengthens unseen. It’s not a textbook romance: it’s something that emerges in silence, like those remains that appear intact after so much time. The song progresses with a guitar riff that repeats with a cadence that doesn’t rush, as if time itself had stopped to let the idea settle. Hozier’s voice moves between whispers and restrained shouts, playing with dynamics that make each repetition of the chorus sound different, as if the song were breathing.

They recorded it in Los Angeles with equipment that wasn’t ideal, but that didn’t stop them from capturing a raw sound that would later define the album. Rob Kirwan, the producer, worked side by side with Hozier to ensure the mix sounded as if it were played in a small, intimate space. Andrew Scheps, who handled the final mix, gave it that live-recording feel where the instruments feel close, as if the listener were standing right next to them. The track lasts just over three minutes, but in that time it conveys a sense of contained eternity, like those bog bodies that hold centuries-old secrets within.