Though Halloween is over, that doesn’t mean spooky season has to be. Here’s a 3:31 second break from the “real world”.
Barn on the Farm is a musical festival held on a farm near Gloucester in the UK. Though the festival is small, it has been operating for over a decade, and some pretty famous artists have performed there over the years. In 2019 the festival lineup included Dermot Kennedy, Maggie Rogers, and Lewis Capaldi. The 2021 festival is set to occur the first week of July. Barn on the Farm has a youtube channel with 13.4 K subscribers, and their mission statement is: “bringing new music closer”. This channel features videos of artists who have performed at the festival, notably including Foy Vance, Amber Run, James Bay, and Bastille. However, there is one video which far surpasses the others on the channel in terms of views. Posted in the 2014 round of Barn on the Farm sessions, a video featuring the Irish singer-songwriter Hozier singing his 2014 song “Like Real People Do” has since gained over 4 million views.
Written and released by Hozier in 2014 on his debut album, “Like Real People Do” was quickly overshadowed by the album’s lead single “Take Me to Church” which was a huge success worldwide. “Like Real People Do” deserves its own recognition though, and not solely because of the interesting origins of the song. Hozier has credited the poetry of Irish poet Seamus Heaney with inspiring him to write the song. Heaney was well known for writing about the Northern Irish bog and bog bodies (human cadavers that have been naturally mummified in a peat bog). Heaney’s poetry creates a theme of the land itself coming to life, a theme evident in Hozier’s work as well. Since its release, Hozier has revealed the essential story behind “Like Real People Do”: “I kind of like the imagery of somebody digging up a person from the earth and falling in love with them, and at the same time, I suppose that person being dug from the earth is relieved, reborn, and somewhat suspicious of the motives of a grave digger. A fine love story.”
Hozier’s Barn on the Farm session only adds to the cryptic layers of this song. The video shows Hozier sitting in grass with a guitar and a microphone set up before him. In the distance we see hills and trees and endless sky as the sun goes down. Hozier, his guitar, and the camera are the only moving things for miles. A pure voice and an accompanying guitar comprise the audio. The sunset streaks across the sky as darkness falls, and an artificial light illuminates the subject of the video. Nature spreads out like a mystical backdrop, and in the foreground the camera sweeps over a human and his guitar. The mixing of the natural and the artificial lends an ethereal atmosphere to this song. At heart, the visuals and the sounds of this video, and the lyrical meaning behind the song coalesce to create an entirely unique experience of Hozier’s “Like Real People Do”.
Give it a watch and/or a listen and catch some soothing vibes. Take it easy and stay spooky.
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