85: Discussing the Lamp Dream

Direct from the Broski Nation headquarters in Los Angeles, California. This is the Broski Report with your host, Brittany Broski. Okay, episode starts. Now. [Music] Park a set, Molly Park a set, Chase a check, never chase a bitch, mask off, fuck it, mask off, mask off, fuck it, mask off. Welcome back to the Broski Report. I've had well over the daily maximum allotment of caffeine, which we all know collectively, let's say it, 400 milligrams. I've googled that plenty of times on this podcast, and I look a little bit like John Linden today, and it's kind of bothering me. I think it's the no volume in my hair. There's something about a white guy that when they get to a certain age or they're into a certain type of media, they're like, it's okay, I can grow my hair out this long, and they're wrong. Because it's not in a sort of Fabian kind of fantasy romance novel lead way. He's got war braids. Okay, John Linden didn't have war braids. We weren't doing Viking John Linden. We're doing stinky, greasy, stringy long hair on a white dude. Okay, and there's nothing worse, because you can smell that musk from 30 feet away. You see, I'll see that video of that motherfucker who worked in game. He worked in GameStop, who had a full blown just skiddy. He showed up, clocked into that ship, Skidmark on the turlant on the seat of his pants. I mean, do you know how intense a Skidmark has to be to be visible outside the pants? Crazy work. We're doing skiddies outside. Damn. Yeah, I used to talk to this one guy. I used to talk to this one guy. I don't know if I told John this, but he said that I said, I don't know why we were talking about this. I said, do you wash your butt in the shower? And he said, no, I don't touch my butt. That's gay. Sorry for asking. By the way, we're breaking up. By the way, don't ever hit my line. Do you wash your butt in the shower? No, I don't. That's gay. Got it. Who's you vote for? Okay. And I know who you voted for. Damn stinky ass stringy greasy hair, GameStop ass dude. I'm mad. I'm pissed off. I'm mad as fuck. This is the pickings. I'm pissed off. A white guy feels super empowered when they reach a certain age like that. That's just and there's a market for it. Okay, there are there are plenty of young young women and people who go for that. That's the polyhules. Okay, they look. Love is love. I just don't want it. With the stringy greasy hair, Skidmark having young gentlemen, I don't want it. Okay, that's just sort of my two cents on that. Yeah, I don't know what's going on there. There's that whole era of rock stars in the 70s and 80s that just, I don't know, man, they were doing some crazy hairstyles and probably sleeping with some minors. That was sort of, it was hand in hand. You had a crazy Jimmy Page haircut and you were sort of being intimate with 15-year-olds and I don't really know what the correlation is there. I don't really know what that is. Makes me sick, though. So, yeah. Anyway, I've had I started my morning with a cortado. Guess what a cortado is? Three espresso shots. That was at 8 a.m. at 7 p.m. Okay, then I had a red bull, then I had a coffee, then I had another red bull, a blueberry red bull. And then as of recently, I had a red bull zero sugar, a red bull zero. And they've got they've got monkey fruit. They do monkey fruit in there. What is it sugar? Red bull monkey fruit. Oh, pardon me, monk fruit. Monk, monkey, what is monk fruit and red bull? What the fuck is monk fruit? Monk fruit extract, a plant-based sweetener, combines with your rethritol, a sugar alcohol and sucralose. You know what? Makes me feel good about that is that I can't pronounce any of those ingredients and also surely none of it's in the Bible. That's how you know it's good for you. That's how you know it's going to embalm you. Once again, a topic that continues to come up on this podcast and in my life that has no means being a sort of evergreen topic that we should always be discussing or that somehow always comes up in conversation. But here it is. Once again, being immortal is not a blessing. Okay, and everyone knows my opinions on being immortal. It's a curse, right? That the beauty of life is that it's finite. And Caleb, and I talked about this, that your cup, it empties. Okay, the cup doesn't run it over. The cup empties, and that's what makes the monkey fruit so sweet. That's what makes the hydridextrene, erythritol, sugar, alcohol, sucralose so delicious. Okay, is that it's not forever. But I think I've changed my mind on it. I'd like to live forever now. And I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe. That's from Book of Mormon. And that's a funny, it's actually a funny song because in Book of Mormon that whole song is pointing out how kind of silly some of their beliefs are. I believe that a man came down and granted only the Mormons with like eternal life. That's kind of the song. Anyway, I do believe that I've consumed enough Red Bull in my lifetime that I am preserved. You see my beautiful glowing skin. You see my my strong little frame. Okay, you see my pearlescent, my pearlescent shine. And I know you're wondering, how does she have that beauty of youth? How does she have that eternal life glow? Well, monkey fruit Red Bull, make it for asking. They're never gonna sponsor me. They never gonna sponsor me because I'm on this podcast like, I'm tweaking. I'm tweaking. I'm tweaking. I'm tweaking. I'm tweaking. I'm tweaking. I'm geeking. And the monkey fruit is gonna make me live forever. The monkey fruit is in my blood. Red Bull watching this like, he just stops an in her PR. Yeah. That's my new thing. Yeah. Well, you actually want to know my favorite new bit that Druski does. Y'all know, I love Druski. Druski's like another topic that continuously comes up and I have no problem talking about Druski. I love him. He's got this bit where he comes. He'll have people come on. Could have been records or wherever. He'll be interviewing people on the street or you know, he's just anything where he's talking to someone to the camera and someone will come up and you know, he'll interact with them and they'll go away and he'll turn around. He'll go. Yeah, man. He didn't know. Yeah, he's lost. That's my favorite. Yeah, man. He's lost. You know, he doesn't really. He doesn't really have a direction in life. Yeah, man. He didn't know that song. He lied. That's not making sense. I'm not doing the bit justice. But if you guys look, if you know Druski, you know, that one was really good. Stupid. Okay, let's move on from how the monkey fruit is going to make me live forever. Actually, no, I'd like to go back to that. What do we think is the long-term side effects of consuming monkey fruit? Is monk fruit bad for you? The FDA, which is sort of not trustable or any marker or checkmark of health and wellness in this country, I really wouldn't put a pass the FDA to approve, you know, cyanide as long as in a small enough dose. As long as, look, we gave it to some squirrels and they only died after 24 hours, not after 12. So it's fine to put in cheesets. Okay, we put the monkey fruit and the cyanide in the cheesets, but only in the limited edition flavor. Okay, in the pickle pizza flavor, in the ranch, jump in jack pickled feet pizza flavor, only available limited time at Jimmy John's. We only did that so it's not even going to affect the population that bad. So yeah, it's FDA approved. Stamp, check, move on. Monk fruit, good or bad? There is a connection. And since this among experts that monk fruit is safe for consumption, in the amount typically used in food the beverages, see what I'm talking about, I'm not that far off. They're like, yeah, you can chew on plastic and swallow it as long as it's not too much. Okay. It's important to note that some people may experience mild gastrointestinal side effects, such as bloating or diarrhea. You have a straight to your thighs and then you'll blow up. However these side effects are typically rare and resolved on their own, okay. You guys go out and buy some monk fruit, everyone go buy some monkey fruit and eat way too much of it. Okay, can I tell you something I haven't actually kind of worried about? What the fuck is the lamp dream? What is the lamp dream? And why are people, why are women on TikTok having crises? I feel like I know, but I'd like to sort of explore it. Girl, the first fucking thing is a Reddit and creepypasta link, what are y'all talking about? Well, how have we somehow landed back on creepypasta? How? How? Actually, that checks out, okay. The internet is captivated by eerie lamp story. The lamp story, Reddit, creepypasta, guys fuck you, let's read it. All right, FBI agents, I'm entering back into creepypasta. You're gonna have to pull me out by my fucking ankles because I'm diving head deep into this bitch. Head first. Scary monkey. Notice, this is an allegedly true story posted in the comment section of an r-slash-ask-reddit post. Okay. One second. Okay, go ahead and rewind for me. Let's go back to that original Google search because r-slash glitch in the matrix. Let me go ahead and cut to the chase of what we're talking about. I feel like I'm an apparition. I am on, I have so much caffeine in my system right now, I feel like a ghostly form. You know, when you go on a ghost tour in like a city, do y'all do that? When you go to a new city or you're like, get a check out the local haunts. I always go on a ghost tour in the city I'm going to. One of the best ones I've ever been on was in San Antonio, Texas. Y'all need to go on that walk in tour. I wish I remember the name of the company that puts it on, but the guy dressed up like a fucking ghost. And that's how you know it's gonna be good. That's how you know he takes his job seriously. And they took us to this hotel called, I think I've talked about this before a long time ago, they took us to this hotel called the Yellow Rose, like the Yellow Rose of Texas. Or maybe it's called the Elizabeth, I don't remember. It's one of those super high rise hotels in downtown San Antonio. Apparently the top just picked a burger, that's cool. The very top floor used to be the surgery level, okay? And now it is permanently stained in the walls, it smells like formaldehyde. Or like that anesthesia smell to sterilize things. And the service elevator in that hotel was the old body shoot, because at the very basement of this hotel was a mortuaryum. It was a crematorium, you know what I'm trying to say? They would burn the bodies, the sick dead bodies. So have a great sleep tonight, here's the lamp story, creepypasta time. This is an allegedly true story posted in the comment section of an R/Ask Reddit post. The question was, have you ever felt a deep connection to a person you've met in a dream? The original post was made years ago on a throwaway account. A screenshot can be found here, throwaway account, because this is really personal, okay? Okay, okay. This story is also known as a parallel life or a woken by a lamp. Here we go. My last semester at a certain college, oh Jesus Christ, trigger warning guys. My last semester at a certain college, I was assaulted by a football player for walking where he was trying to drive. Note he was 325 pounds, I was 120. While unconscious on the ground, I lived a different life. I met a wonderful young lady. She made my heart skip and my face red. I pursued her for months and dispatched a few jerk boyfriend's before I finally won her over. After two years, we got married and almost immediately she bore me a daughter. Hey, why'd you type it like that? After two years, she graced me with her seed. I had a great job and my wife didn't have to work outside of the house. When my daughter was two, she bore me a son. What? When my daughter was two, my wife bore me a son. My son was the joy of my life. I would walk into his room every morning before I left for work and doted on him and my daughter. One day while sitting on the couch, I noticed that the perspective of the lamp was odd, like inverted. It was still in 3D, but just wrong. It was a square lamp base, red with gold trim on four legs and a white square shade. I was transfixed. I couldn't look away from it. I stayed up all night staring at it. The next morning, I didn't go to work. Something was just not right about that lamp. I stopped eating. I left the couch only to use the bathroom at first. Soon I stopped that too as I wasn't eating or drinking. I stared at the fucking lamp for three days before my wife got really worried. She had someone come and try to talk to me. By this time, my cognizance was breaking up and my wife was freaking out. She took the kids to her mother's house just before I had my epiphany. The lamp is not real. The house is not real. My wife, my kids, none of that is real. The last 10 years of my life are not fucking real. The lamp started to grow wider and deeper. It was still inverted dimensions, it took up my entire perspective and all I could see was red. I heard voices, screams, all kinds of weird noises and I became aware of pain, a fucking shit ton of pain. The first words I said were "I'm missing teeth" and I opened my eyes. I was laying on my back on the sidewalk, surrounded by people that I didn't know. Lots were freaking out. I was completely confused. At some point, a cop scooped me up, dragged, walked me across the sidewalk and grass and threw me face down in the back of a cop car. I was still confused. I was taken to the hospital by the cop and gave CT scans and shit. I went through about three years of horrid depression. I was grieving the loss of my wife and children and dealing with the knowledge that they never existed. Holy shit! I was scared that I was going insane as I would cry myself to sleep hoping I would see her in my dreams. I never have. But sometimes I see my son, usually just a glimpse out of my peripheral vision. He's perpetually five years old and I can never hear what he says. Holy shit! Okay, this was a little addendum, a little post script that the author added. I've had many private messages describing similar experiences and three posters stating such experiences are impossible. I'd say more research needs to be done on brain functions. Pre-med students don't assume you know everything. Holy shit! Okay, so I know that this is a creepypasta, but let's talk about it because I have not had a dream to this extent of like that is brutal, you know, to age years, to find the love of your life and to have children and a build a life and then have it ripped away. That hasn't happened to me, but I know and I know I've also seen accounts of other people experiencing this of being in love or being married and you wake up and it wasn't real. I know that a lot of women have dreams of having children and looking and holding their child in their dream or being pregnant in a dream and waking up and none of it was real and being in mourning the next day. And you can't explain what's wrong. You can't explain what's heavy on your soul or on your heart. It's just that there is an inconceivable loss that you are mourning and there's a grief of something that is not real. The human brain is fucking wild. I've had dreams where, you know, I've lived an alternate life or I've met someone that was very important to me, I've had dreams where this actually happens a lot and I think I have a condition. I'll have dreams if someone I love has died and I'll call them the next morning in tears or I'll text them like, hey, I love you and I don't tell you enough and I'm sorry that I. That happens to me a lot. I also have dreams of my teeth falling out. All of these I've read, you know, what people think that this might be and they've, there are theories that suggest it's just anxiety, which I know that I do have and it is severely untreated. I know that the teeth falling out dream is about maybe feeling like you spoke too much, like you shared too much or that you're lying, it could go either way. And then the death dreams, I don't fucking know, I think I just have a complex. But I have had dreams where I've met the love of my life and we have lived together beautifully and happily and I, in the dream, you know, you know, what it feels like to touch their face and the nuances of how they speak and the color flex in their eyes. eyes and it's that weird thing of this is another repeat thing that happens in some of my dreams and it's happened with this one in particular where they're saying something and I can't hear them and I keep saying what was that what was that and I can't understand what they're saying or they keep repeating it and they're getting frustrated at me because I can't understand them and I can't and then I wake up and then I'm like okay they're mad at me they're not real and I need to get my hearing checked oh it's like you wake up in this weird I honestly that is the source material for a fucking book that half dream like state it's almost a purgatory but purgatory not with a negative connotation unless it is usually it's a positive connotation of like trying to situate myself after a dream of waking up and where am I oh yeah I know where I am and oh yeah I was dreaming that halfway state what is that called because I sometimes I have a fascination with that being potentially a different realm of consciousness which isn't that outlandish to think about being real you know it's not like conspiracy theorist shit it's like we know that the human brain is capable of creating alternate realities to cope or like I was talking about last week with streetcar name desire like it's this and also with 1984 double think you know all these the human brain is so complex and it is so hyper intelligent that we are able to construct things to protect ourselves and to protect our feeble and fragile sanity and if that involves you know going somewhere else who's to say where that is in a world that we've created a world of pure imagination then so be it you know the human brain whether or not we tell it to we'll create that and it's very interesting to think so many millennium or hundreds of years of doctors and scientists not having the means to accurately study all the neuropath ways and synapses and all these connections that the brain can make and trauma responses and you know created worlds and realities to to protect something that was hurt you know when you are hurt what a beautiful concept that your mind tries to fix it for you you know tries to make the pain go away and I don't know if it can not fully not 100% but it will do its best and and even tied to practices like you know Buddhism or things that denying yourself earthly pleasures or meditating to get to that higher version of yourself higher version of self where you're no longer in the physical you're no longer in the physical realm you are somewhere up here in the in between you're you're in a higher conscious and that feels so fucking yogi bullshit you know white people were stringy here in dreads but that's not per se that's a weird offset of of people who have co-opted that practice and that culture and made it an aesthetic choice you know or or a bragging right or a personality trait not I'm talking more so like the ancient practice of Buddhism or anything like that you know yoga is it is proven that yoga and stretching the body and and holding the body in certain positions pushes you to that it transcends you so oh also I saw this TikTok this girl was talking about that book the body keeps the score and my friend Katie read this book too I think we need to talk about it of women's store trauma in their hips because of course they do that's that's where life comes from everyone came from a woman's hips everyone alive came from a woman's hips imagine how powerful that statement is like how much trauma and pain and beauty and love is stored in a woman's hips and how mean we are to our hips you know when they are quite quite honestly one of the miracles of humanity so I don't know you know we know that the body stores trauma and we know that the body and the mind protect us from the horribly infinite effects of trauma and it's very interesting to think that it's only been recent history that doctors and scientists have had the means and the technology to study it in a way that we can actually learn from it and put two and two together you know that we don't know what we don't know and the more questions we ask and find answers to it's just this exponential curve of questions that you know it's the same with the deep sea where the more we find out the fucking less we know everything that we thought was true we find something that disproves it and it's like well fuck I think that's the point right we're not supposed to know marvel at the beauty marvel at the unknown and realize how small and feeble you are but but that's I wore in my own mind of this of like that's sometimes not enough for me and I like to talk to myself we know hey we know I like to talk myself through that sometimes where I start to get those existential dreads the scaries where it's like oh I'm so oh none of this is important and we're all gonna die and there's no point as there's no fucking point there's no point in any of it and the monkey for it and I'm just going to my blood and the plastic so my blood I'm gonna die when I start to freak out like that I pull myself back to that that simpler process of thinking of like it doesn't matter we're here to just enjoy it you know try to make it try to minimize the suffering as much as you can and have a good time with the people you love right that's what it's about but at the same time oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck it's that but also I think truly if in my lifetime I ever had the privilege to see the aurora borealis in person I mean this very honestly I've talked about the cysteine chapel ceiling I've talked about neoclassical art I've talked about prose literature some of the most impressive forms of just mind bending soul shattering art that is I think the point of life all of that just pales in comparison to something as magnificent and I mean that in the most academic way magnificent as the aurora borealis who the fuck made that and hear me when I say this because I don't say this often if there was a god look at it you know what I mean if I find it hard to believe there is not a god when you look at something like the aurora borealis what the fuck are we talking about it's it is divine with a capital D it is magnificent it is awesome not in the sense of like that's awesome I mean the dictionary definition inspiring awe it is awesome where I marvel I would drop to my knees and probably start drooling and crying like boo who crying if I saw the aurora borealis I'm about to be emotional thinking about it I don't know why I don't know why I just can't imagine something like the beauty for the sake of beauty like this is it's why I'm so like what the fuck am I a Christian what the fuck if there's no god then why does the aurora borealis be all I don't know why am I crying oh it's so hard when things like that just exist naturally for no rhyme or reason and it comes and goes and if you see it use and and all of humanity knows like you saw the aurora borealis it's like a universal thing and that's what makes things like climate change so much work it makes it even more acidic and sour that this is what the stars in the universe have gifted us and this is what we do to the fucking planet it's sick it's sick the great pacific garbage bag is sick when this is what we do below and look above oh it's just giving me so emotional we'll be right bat cut to commercial oh my god okay we're back sorry about that sorry for crying at the the awe inspiring eccentricities and phenomena of the world sorry for marveling at what god half made what's that to eat that was like when when god calls his angel's home will turtles not be a part of that choir what the fuck is that to eat will turtles when god sings with his creations will the turtle not be part of the choir here is there anyone even named sheald and iorl my class turtle from sixth grade. That's a turtle. So fucking true. I don't know why that came to my mind. Okay, here's what I want it. Here's what I want to Google. Why does the Aurora Borealis occur? The Aurora Borealis or the Northern Lights occur when charged particles from the sun carried by the solar wind collide with gas. We're doing fucking science with pretty risky again. We're doing how does it work? Universe edition again on the broskier part, which by the way, I'm not going to understand any of this. So whoever you bitches in the comments who are like, um, astrology, astronomy major here, we're going to tap in, tap in because I need you because I'm about to read this and just centrifugal force and the solar winds. What are we talking about, bro? Half of the shit I know about space comes from interstellar and it comes from red rising. Okay, I'm not working with much. I'm not working with much in the observable universe that I understand. Okay, very, very limited to sort of the dynamics of doom. Dune, Star Wars, Star Trek, red rising. That's what I'm rocking with. So by the way, God, I miss red rising. Have you guys read it yet? My favorite character fucking died and I'm not going to say who it was, but it happens in the last book and I still, it's been months and I'm still devastated. I am. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Don't care. Primarily near the poles due to the interaction with the Earth's magnetic fields, probably, maybe it released energy. Okay. These natural light shows are caused by magnetic storms that have been triggered by solar activity, such as solar flares or coronal mass ejections. What? Ejected gas bubbles. Energetic charged particles from these events are carried from the sun by the solar wind. That's why they move. Okay, that's why they move. What does the aurora borealis mean? Aurora borealis is the scientific name for the Northern Lights, which literally means light of dawn. The term comes from the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora, and the Greek god of the north wind, Borealis. The aurora borealis is seen in the Earth's northern hemisphere around the polar regions. It's difficult to predict when it will occur, but it's best to look for it on a clear night. The counterpart to the aurora borealis and the southern hemisphere is the aurora Australis, named after the Greek god of the south wind, Ostera. Oster. Is that by Australia? Is named Australia? What the fuck? Is there a southern aurora borealis? No, there is not a southern aurora borealis. What the fuck? In the southern hemisphere it's called the aurora. Oh, that's just, I can't. I'm like speechless. Look at that. Imagine being a fucking caveman and seeing that in the sky. Imagine being a caveman and seeing that in the sky. I would be terrified. I'd be terrified. They're coming. They're coming. Holy shit. I want to watch a video. I need to get high as balls. I need to get high as balls, watch Dune prophecy, and then watch Aurora borealis live stream for three hours. You know what I've been into recently? Well, I read. Well, y'all know I like to watch those ambient videos, okay? And can I say something? I was on that before any of you bitches were on that. I, and I hate to be that person that I did it before it was cool, but I found that shit years ago. I've been watching that stuff for years, okay? There are a few that I like to tailor to the book I'm reading. When I reach her lock homes, I do the London one. London Victorian study desk with light rainfall. I don't like the ones with campfire noises. I don't like the ones with fire noises because the crackling and popping it pissed me off. I'm, because I'm focusing on that now. And now I'm watching the screen when I really should be reading Sherlock Holmes, okay? So the rain, it's, it's a good enough like variation, you know what I mean? Where it's not just brown noise, because then I'll go to sleep. It's enough. It's enough variation, okay? For a while, I was watching the Paris one. And then there's an Amalfi coast one, but those don't really have rain. And sometimes when I clean the house or whatever, they have some with Boston Nova because we all know I love I do love Boston Nova. So yeah, that's sort of, you know, get on that. If you haven't tried reading with that in the background, I'd really have to recommend it because it's really a spectacular experience. By the way, I'm a bit further in one dark window. Really, really cute. And apparently there's a smart scene coming up. Hurry, hurry, I want them to diddle each other up. Can you guys just diddle each other already? I'm tired of waiting. Oh, boy, I'm not bored actually. I'm not bored because I've read some fantasy books where I'm like, get to the fucking point. Like, I don't even need smut. Just give me a plot. Fuck. One dark window, the plot's compelling. Okay, I love an original storyline. It's not like, and then there was a war. And then they have to fight the war. And you'll never guess who dies. Like fuck you. Be original. And I will say there is a there is a skeleton to what makes a commercially successful romanticy. Okay. And I applaud authors who try to break the mold in any case. And I think that's, you know, the first person to do that, you start the new genre, you start the new offshoot of a famous genre. So shout out, especially when magic is involved, it's super hard to create a new magic system that is easily understandable, that is new and inventive and isn't, you know, easily drawn back to, okay, it's clear this author was inspired by this book or inspired by this series or by this character or whatever. And I want to do a quick shout out to all the fan fiction writers who started writing a story inspired by either their favorite celebrity, a book character, a movie character, whatever. And then slightly adapted it and turned it into its own full story shout out because that's what the fuck I'm talking about. Okay, anyway, Roar Borealis. Yeah, that shit is wow. Oh, do we stop, finish, do we finish talking about the lamp story? Oh, yeah, I went on a whole spiral, didn't I? Sorry for getting existential. Oh, we haven't done this in a while. I want to do my song of the week and I also want to do a lyric breakdown of one of my most favorite songs of all time because eventually I'm going to do, okay, well, here's what it is, a hosier song. Eventually, I'm going to do a what I did with Motomami by Rosalia. I want to do that with Wasteland Baby by Hosier because of Wasteland Baby and Hosier, self-titled, everyone are all like albums that have impacted me thus in a way that is just, I mean fundamental and it's art that like it feels like a privilege to be able to discuss it and annotate it and you know, think about all the references, the literary and musical that he has packed into these albums. So here are two of my favorite songs of all time. We're going to start with Foreigners God by Hosier and we're going to do a lyric breakdown. I'm going to do a dramatic reading "Ala Jonah Hill" in 2021 Jump Street, 22, 21 Jump Street. Okay, here we go. This is from self-titled his first album from 2014. She moved with Shameless Wonder, the perfect creature rarely seen, since some liar brought the thunder when the land was godless and free. Her eyes look sharp and steady into the empty parts of me. Still, my heart is heavy with the hate of some other man's beliefs. Always a well-dressed fraud who wouldn't spare the rod never for me. I love genius. Let's read this shit. From the Victorian phrase "spare the rod and spoil the child," meaning without corporal punishment, a child will become spoiled. In the context of the song, it points towards the parent referred to in the line with the hate of some other man's beliefs. This is also the parent that has instilled these patriarchal values in him. Here's a course. Scream in the name of a foreigner's god. Scream in the name of a foreigner's god, the purest expression of grief. Oh, my fucking god. screaming the name of a foreigner's God, the purest expression of grief, because how else do we know how to express our outrage, our any explicative, then through this Judeo-Christian lens, it's infiltrated our language. Throw back to me crying about the divinity of the Aurora Borealis 20 minutes ago. Verse 2. Wondering who I copy, mustering some tender charm, she feels no control of her body, she feels no safety in my arms. I've no language left to say it, but all I do is quake to her, breaking if I try conveying the broken love I make to her. You bitches don't get hozier the way that I get hozier, y'all aren't listening, you're not listening. Why is this not the most stream song of all time, you bitches don't get it. Everyone say sorry hozier in the comments right now. If the song truly is supposed to represent Ireland, then the top line, she feels no control of her body, could refer to the fact that it wasn't until the early 20th century that Ireland began its own nation again, but is still split. Going with the top, the bottom line could refer to hozier trying to do justice by bringing something back to her, but the damage has already been done. I've no language left to say it. The song in general is about the pain of losing your own people's language, as most Irish people have lost fluency in Irish Gaelic. The most intimate things we do, like screaming out in sexual ecstasy, are bound by our conception, and our conceptions are bounded, bound by our language. If you're monolingual, your most private thoughts and most wild fantasies are still bordered by the possibilities structured in your language, in ways you're probably not even aware of. This song is a lament to that fact. Whoever the fuck wrote this on genius, holy shit. It's true. All that I've been taught in every word I've got is foreign to me, screaming the name of a foreigner's god, the purest expression of grief. There are so many layers to this of both, you know, when you're thinking about it through the Catholic church lens, where 100% of the time, when children are raised in a Catholic upbringing, a Catholic church, a Catholic school, they didn't pick that. This is something being forced on them. And forever, from now until the end of time, your worldview will be impacted by your time spent in the Catholic church. And that's not just the Catholic church, any church, any religious institution that you were brought up in as a child. However you want to feel about that, but acknowledge that that happened, acknowledge that your worldview is for better or worse, clouded by a religious aroma, right? Everything you do say here and no is being through that, it's being pushed through a filter, a cheesecloth of religion. And that does something to the brain. So that's one layer to this. Another layer is of course the oppressive history of the British Empire on Ireland, the bloody history of Ireland. With respect to Great Britain, the attempted and demisuccessful killing off of the Irish people, the loss of the Irish language, the abuses in the Irish church, all of these things where it ties back into the language that we use to describe such atrocities. And this is prevalent in a lot of poetry around colonialism or slavery when it comes to, I'm speaking the colonizer's language. And I think this is, in a sense, this is what this song is about, you know, the way that I'm even singing this song and expressing these heavy thoughts I have is through, it's in English. I'm not English. So that's another, I'm really intrigued by she feels no control of her body. She feels no safety in my arms. I want to say that there's also a level of ever present in Hozier's works is this plea for women's rights. And swan upon later, which fuck, let's read that one next swan upon later is another one that is that he released this during, or this is 2023, I thought he released this during the pandemic, he released this right around when Rovey Wade was overturned. And I think he had had it, it had been in the arsenal for a while and he decided to share it and it was. What am I going to cry? It was such a beautiful display of solidarity with anyone who mourned in that moment that this is really the reality we live in. That I know I don't have control over my own body, I don't have autonomy, laws regulate my body. And I am a walking womb to these fucking people, you know, and it's just like this, this sweeping sense of just numbness of like I cannot believe. And so to have him release this was such a beautiful display of like I can't do much, but here's what I can offer, you know. Okay, let me stop crying on this podcast. Here are the lyrics and I'm going to cry again. Let me just cry through it. Okay. A husband waits outside, a crying child pushes a child into the night. She was told he would come this time without leaving so much as a feather behind to enact at last the perfect plan, one more sweet boy to be butchered by man. But the gateway to the world was still outside the reach of him would never belong to angels had never belonged to men, the swan upon Leda, empire upon Jerusalem. A grandmother smuggling meds passed where the god child soldier said satanta stood dead, our graceful turner of heads weaves through the checkpoints like a needle and thread someone's frightened boy waves her on she offers a mother smile. As soon as she's gone, the gateway to the world, the gun in a trembling hand where nature unmakes the boundary, the pillar of myth still stands. The swan upon Leda, occupier upon ancient land, the gateway to the world was still outside the reach of him would never belong to angels had never belonged to men. So let's go ahead and dissect this. So a lot of themes here, I don't know what genius is about to sort of, you know, detail here, but again, we're dealing with themes of war and abortion and forced pregnancy. First pregnancies and separated families and occupied lands and colonialism and I mean the list just goes on and on because they're all intertwined. They're all coexisting and one is a cause of the other, you know, so first of all, let's, let's look up swan upon Leda. And if I'm not mistaken, I think that this is, it's an old myth and it has to do with a god assaulting a goddess or an imp and some form of that, some form of a male god exerting dominance and sexual ownership over a goddess. I'm fairly certain. Let me go ahead and double check. In Greek mythology, the myth of Leda and the swan tells of Zeus seducing Leda, the queen of Sparta and the form of the swan. Zeus, the king of the gods, transformed into a swan to seduce Leda. Leda slept with the swan and then with her husband, King Tenderius on the same night. Leda laid two eggs that hatched four children, Helene, Clementine, 22, okay. Okay, so knowing that it's a myth, let's go back to the lyrics and let's go, I guess, line for line, buckle up, buckle in. So, yes, this does reference Zeus as this one assaulting later. And her bearing his children, as is custom of the olden times, husband would wait outside while the wife gives birth. The second line, a crying child pushes a child into the night. I think we can sort of understand what he's saying there. She was told he would come this time without leaving so much as a feather behind to enact at last the perfect plan, one more sweet boy to be butchered by men. So, that's the swan leaving. Genius says this seems to be about the way patriarchal society destroys boys as well as girls, raising them with toxic ideas about women, punishing them for expressing emotion or affection, and turning them into agents of the structures that hurt them, a game where not even the winners get to truly win. Empire upon Jerusalem seems to allude to the annexation of Jerusalem by various empires as akin to Zeus's sexual assault of Leda in Greek mythology. Ireland recognizes the statehood of Palestine and it is a significant topic of modern discourse in Ireland. Hosier's reference to border crossing could suggest that mankind's empires in various seizures of the Holy Land and the lore of Christianity have laid waste to one of the holiest places on earth. In Christianity this would be considered the birthplace of Jesus and a sacred place to be venerated, but the parallel drawn may be that it is the birthplace of conflict via the imagery of a child born of assault. And the second verse about the grandmother smuggling medicine and past the guard soldier who is a child himself and looks at him knowingly with this gaze of, you know, you're a young boy and I am a mother and I know that the situation where in is just it's just that acknowledgement, you know, this it's still a young boy he's afraid. And now he's been armed and that line about you know the trembling hand with the gun and I mean it's just so beautifully written the gateway to the world the gun in a trembling hand where nature unmakes the boundary the pillar of myth still stands the swan upon Leda occupier upon ancient land. Shit when I say I love hosier this is I mean it's it's it's one thing to say it and it's another thing to just spend time with the art you know and I would be doing y'all a disservice if I continue to just talk about oh his lyrics is lyrics is lyrics and not actually are you hearing this here's another one. This song is called to be alone this is one of my favorite that these lyrics are a bit more straightforward right we don't have to do so much annotating and cliffs notes on it. This one is also the melody is so fucking good he sings his face off and this is this is to me the pinnacle of what a good fucking song is to me my opinion. It's a great melody a great vocalist talented instrumentalist and lyrics that just a stand alone as a poem I would be but he also managed to add a fantastic melody that's catchy it's got a hook. You know to it and live don't even get me sorry how it's not live never feel too good in crowds with folks around when they're playing the anthems of rape culture loud crude and proud creatures being all I've ever done is hide from our times when you're near me honey when you kill the lights and kiss my eyes I feel like a person for a moment of my life. But you don't know what hell you put me through to have someone kiss the skin that crawls from you to feel your weight in arms I never use it's the god that heroin praise to. It feels good girl it feels good to be alone with you. There are questions I can't ask now at last the worst is over see the way you hold yourself real against your body's borders I know that you hate this place not a trace of me would argue honey we should run away someday our baby and her mama and the damage love she made. But I don't know what else that I would do than try to kiss the skin that crawls from you to feel your weight in arms I'd never use it's the god that heroin praise to. Can you fucking believe can you believe my favorite line you don't know what hell you put me through to have someone kiss the skin that crawls from you this also seems to be someone talking to their abuser after an assault many people feel their skin crawl when they experience a sensation that reminds them of it even if they love and trust the person they're with now. Trying to have consensual sex after surviving sexual violence can be incredibly frustrating because it can feel like your body is betraying you it won't let you forget what you've gone through and can even drag your mind back to the incident and I would add on to that unfairly blame the person your with or take it out on the person your with who. You know ideally in an ideal scenario you trust completely and they understand what's happened and have the utmost respect and caution with the situation but it's one of those things that's just unfair it's unfair. Even have starting the song with you know I never feel too good in crowds with folks around when when they're playing the anthems of rape culture loud and you know what that makes me think of is that fucking robin thick song. You know the one I'm talking about that one that it was everywhere and it just every song every chart topper it just we live in such a hyper sexualized culture and it's sick. And it's weird and it's too normalized and it is I don't think it's it's good or safe or healthy and it empowers the wrong people. You know to feel emboldened in their acts so anyway I didn't mean to bring the tone down I didn't mean to bring the vibes down but when I say I love how is your he is capable of that type of song writing tackling such. Heavy topics and putting them to songs that make it bearable it makes it bearable and it's that but he also has you know silly sexual song is about being so in love with your partner and. Lustful and and how that is as much a part of reciprocated romantic love as all the emotional things you know and it's not sex doesn't overpower the emotional side and the emotional side doesn't overpower sex it's it's. Perfect scenario it's this beautiful harmony where you know it's a current that flows and ebbs and never stops and and it's beautiful he's got a song called moment silence about fucking plenty of songs are about fucking which i'm down with but then there's also songs about the church and religious trauma and I oh my god just love him love him to god damn death. One of my favorite songs by him of all time I've talked about it's empire now empire now so good blood upon the snow from the god of war soundtrack what. Arguably top three host your songs ever and it was on a fucking video game soundtrack. He's so good okay that'll do it for me this week guys love you. Thanks for rocking with me and my heavy topics and me crying and the lamp dreaming they were a borealis shout out. And yeah if you want some merch go grab it i'm not stopping you know and stopping you. Bro ski dot shop and go check out royal court my medieval interview show all right i'll see you all next week. Love you be good bye. (upbeat music)