“Be” is about “loving somebody as an increasingly radical act, or looking at love as a transgressive act.” Hozier describes a myriad of terrible happenings, being cast out of paradise and climate change, and then asks his lover to continue to love, in spite of all hatred and destruction and division around us.

It contains various references: original sin, which is framed as an act of love; and Trump, who is used as a symbol for the greater movement of isolationism and nationalism throughout the world today. Love, in this song, is portrayed as an act of defiance against an evil greater power.

Hozier told ITunes,

This was me sort of leaning into Leonard Cohen imagery.