Hoizer is back at Genius to breakdown his new hit “Eat Your Young,” which has been streamed over 98 million times on Spotify to date. The track debuted at #67 on Billboard Hot 100 and is Hoizer’s second solo single to appear on the chart, with Take Me To Church being the first. On today’s episode of Verified, find out the meaning behind the deeply satirical song.
Category
🎵
MusicTranscript
00:00 It's a kind of an idea for a song that was sort of like cooking in me, I guess, pardon
00:04 the pun.
00:05 This idea of sacrificing the future of other people for the sake of short-term gain.
00:11 This idea of where children become the ground for culture war, for adults to sort of use
00:25 as pawns in culture wars, especially when it comes to arms dealing.
00:29 Another school shooting and then another debate about gun rights, etc.
00:33 It's something that's quite alien to me coming from the place in the world that I am.
00:36 And I wanted the voice in the song to be that voice of power that shrugs off any responsibility
00:42 to any sort of future that anybody has.
00:45 "I'm starving, darling.
00:48 Let me put my lips to something.
00:50 Let me wrap my teeth around the world.
00:53 Start carving, darling.
00:54 I want to smell the dinner cooking.
00:57 I want to feel the edges start to burn."
00:59 There's a fun sort of mislead in those first few lines.
01:03 There's something that is potentially lustful in those lines or like literally about hunger.
01:09 I found the lyrics so grotesque in a way that there was nearly, there's a dark humor to
01:14 them as well.
01:15 "Honey, I want to race you to the table.
01:19 If you hesitate, the getting is gone.
01:22 I won't lie.
01:24 If there's something to be gained, there's money to be made, whatever is still to come."
01:29 It feels like we're in a kind of a race to the bottom at times.
01:31 What is the most I can extract out of something for the cheapest?
01:35 The place where that ends up are the challenges that a lot of people are living with now and
01:39 will be living with for the next 20, 30, 40 years.
01:43 "Get some.
01:45 Pull up the ladder when the flood comes.
01:48 Throw enough rope until the legs have swung.
01:51 Seven new ways that you can eat your young."
01:53 You know that sort of Buzzfeed article thing of like 15 new, you know, 15 things?
01:57 It's always an uneven number.
01:59 It's always seven or it's always 15.
02:00 So that's why it was seven.
02:02 I wanted it to sort of nod to that.
02:04 50 ways to leave your lover type thing.
02:06 "Come and get some.
02:07 Skinning the children for a wardrobe.
02:10 Putting food on the table.
02:11 Selling bombs and guns.
02:13 It's quicker and easier to eat your young."
02:16 Adults and people who are not long for this world are playing with the lives of children
02:22 and the futures of children for their own political ends.
02:25 It's oftentimes children are the ground in which that culture war takes place.
02:31 "You can't buy this fineness.
02:35 Let me see the heat get to it.
02:37 Let me watch the dressing start to peel.
02:40 It's a kindness, Highness.
02:42 Crumbs enough for everyone old and young are welcome to the meal."
02:46 CEO versus worker pay, right?
02:49 So one up here, one rising here.
02:54 Whatever is left is what everyone else enjoys.
02:56 So this idea of these crumbs that are left behind.
02:59 And old and young are welcome to the meal.
03:01 "Honey, I'm making sure the table's made.
03:05 We can celebrate the good that we've done.
03:07 I won't lie.
03:09 If there's something still to take, there is ground to break.
03:13 Whatever is still to come."
03:14 Ireland under colonial power, under colonial occupation, were sort of suffering under the
03:20 artificially created conditions of poverty.
03:22 They didn't have the right to own property, didn't have the right to vote, didn't have
03:25 the right to own a horse or speak in the Irish language.
03:28 Jonathan Swift wrote this really kind of grotesque argument that why don't we just start eating
03:32 them?
03:33 And it was, I mean, it was a critique of the attitude that people had towards Irish people.
03:37 It's little works like that that allow you to play with a song like this, play with the
03:41 themes a little bit.
03:44 What was super fun about this song was to write from the perspective of a voice that
03:49 really enjoys this, really relishes in this and celebrates this kind of thing.
03:53 And it's not my alignment, but to lean into it and explore it in a playful way, in a kind
04:00 of critical way, in a grotesque way, that was super fun.