It's not the waking, it's the rising.

And they remind us: change never begins with comfort.

It begins with grief. It begins with fire. It begins with the holding of breath and the getting up, standing up, and speaking up no matter what.

And knowing the truth, or simply waking: it ain’t nothing. When you wake, you’re still lying down. When you rise, you’ve chosen to move. It’s easy to wake up and yet never get out of bed. It’s easy to realize the truth and yet never sit up, get up, rise up, or take up the task of the truth that we have just woken up to.

But Nina...

Nina cried power.

At its core, "Nina Cried Power" is about the intersection of anger and healing, realization and action, waking and rising.

It’s a place that's deeply familiar to anyone working or living in the world of community mental health, recovery, or development.

And anger—when integrated and understood—can be a major source of agency and self-respect (Siegel, 2012). Unresolved, anger turns inward into depression or outward into violence. But when it’s honored and harnessed—in both protest movements or in difficult, honest conversations—it can become catalytic. Anger at what overshadows bright possibilities can become the spark of the fire that lights the change we have all of us longed for at one time or another. "Nina Cried Power" offers exactly that: it remembers suffering, rages at it, and then sings it forward into resilience and hopeful change.

It is the groundin' of a foot uncompromisin'

In many ways, the song mirrors what we know about post-traumatic growth in psychology: that real strength doesn’t come from never being broken. It comes from being broken, and rebuilding anyway (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004). It comes from—to borrow Hozier’s words—not just waking up, but rising. And as in all kinds of healing, knowing we are in the company and on the shoulders of others who have made their voices heard is affirming and energizing.

There’s rich historical weight behind these lyrics too. The title pays tribute to Nina Simone’s career, a blazing example of music-as-resistance. Nina wasn’t safe; she wasn’t sanitized for mainstream consumption. Songs like “Mississippi Goddam” weren't polite—they were furious, righteous, and raw.

Mavis Staples, featured here alongside Hozier, has her own storied history as a civil rights icon: singing with The Staples Singers at the marches, walking alongside Dr. King, choosing faith and action over fear again and again. And now she’s doing it with someone who wasn’t yet born her first time around in this song.

Living inheritance and call to action in one duet.

And everythin' that we're denied by keepin' the divide

It's not the wakin', it's the risin'

Hozier, a white Irishman, describes that in inviting Mavis onto this track even during the writing, he was stepping into a tradition much older and harder than his own, and passing the mic back to the people through musical time—people like Mavis Staples. In interviews, Hozier said he wrote the song with deep admiration for the artists who kept 'speaking truth to power' long after it cost them, and that this was his "Thank You Note to that spirit of protest" (Hughes, 2018).

Power has been cried by those stronger than me

Straight into the face that tells you to grab on your chains

If you love bein' free

There’s a neuroscience fact tucked inside this song too, whether they knew it or not: When you sing aloud, especially in community, your brain releases oxytocin — the bonding chemical that fosters trust and courage (Tarr, Launay, & Dunbar, 2014). The act of lifting your voice, even in a dark room, even when afraid, changes the body’s chemistry toward connection instead of collapse. This means the protest songs of the past weren’t just political; they were physiological acts of survival. They wired hope back into nervous systems that had been under siege. In the end, "Nina Cried Power" isn’t a history lesson.

It’s a hand off.

A match passed, still lit, still burning.