I know I say this about a lot of the songs I write about, but Cherry Wine by Hozier is one of my all-time favorite songs, and I can’t pinpoint one exact reason for it if it’s Hozier’s vocals or the fact that it’s a live version, or that the soft, sweet guitar juxtaposes the meaning of the song.
The first verse goes “Her eyes and words are so icy, oh, but she burns like rum on the fire. Hot and fast and angry as she can be, I walk my days on a wire”. The way that this woman speaks to him and looks at him is cold and almost merciless in essence, which is in complete contrast with the way her personality is. This is only one of the many juxtapositions that Hozier makes in this song, which I already brought up. He feels that whenever he’s around her he has to walk on a tight-rope so as not to set off this angry side of her.
The pre-chorus and chorus then go “It looks ugly, but it’s clean. Oh mama, don’t fuss over me. The way she tells me I’m hers and she is mine. Open hand or closed fist would be fine. The blood is rare and sweet as cherry wine”. From an outside perspective, this relationship may look toxic, but he reassures us that he’s okay with it, or that he considers it “clean”, even telling his mother not to worry about him. Furthermore, she has a possessive unhealthy grip on him, but he loves this side of her, and even though she is physically abusive to him, “open hand or closed fist”, he is drunk off of her raw emotion towards him, even though it’s an incredibly violent and negative emotion. Any kind of fruity or flavored wine is much easier to drink quickly because it takes away some of the bitterness of what a normal glass of wine would have, so he’s addicted to her and again, drunk off of her emotion like he would be off of cherry wine, again juxtaposing blood (which has an inherently negative connotation) with cherry wine (which most people would associate with romance and happiness).
The second verse then goes “Calls of guilty thrown at me, all while she stains the sheets of some other, thrown at me so powerfully, just like she throws with the arm of her brother”. This verse pretty explicitly states that this woman is cheating on him, but she is accusing him of doing so, and then throwing around this accusation and insults “powerfully” and constantly, which is a strong marker of an abusive relationship.
The pre-chorus and chorus then go, “But I want it, it’s a crime, that she’s not around most of the time. The way she tells me I’m hers and she is mine. Open hand or closed fist would be fine. The blood is rare and sweet as cherry wine”. Despite all the abuse that this woman gives her, he’s so obsessed and intoxicated with her that he considers it a crime for them to be apart, showing just how toxic this relationship is.
The third verse goes “Her fight and fury is fiery but she loves ike sleep to the freezing. Sweet and right and merciful, I’m all but washed in the tide of her breathing”. In essence, the physical love she gives him outweighs the abuse she causes him, and when she calms down, he’s washed away in the tides of her breathing and relaxed by it.