Angel of Small Death and the Codeine Scene

The female character on this track is portaged by Hozier as a lover with a mean tongue. He told The Cut: "There's probably a lot of Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man in that song. I suppose it's about feeling liberation... and a woman whose references might be questionable at best."

James Joyce's 1916 semiautobiographical novel Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man was a very strong influence on Hozier when writing the songs for his debut album. He explained to The Cut: "It's very much about a man's struggle to find his own identity in an oppressive culture of church, in an age influenced heavily by the Catholic church and a nationalism that he just wants to be free of."