In “Damage Gets Done” Hozier recruits Brandi Carlile to reflect on the negative space between being young and silly and being reckless, and the actual harm that is done in the long term to life on the planet or in society. The track is inspired by Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy and tackles the 4th circle of hell, which is known as the Circle of Avarice and Prodigality or Greed.

In an interview for Belfast Telegraph, Hozier stated:

[The] song is in [the] circle of greed, and so it is reflecting on the negative space between being young and silly and being reckless – and the actual harm that is done in the long term of life on the planet or in society. You know, it’s just the space between those two: like when you’re youngest and you’re at your least powerful and you’ve nothing to your name, sleeping on somebody’s floor.
Every generation looks back at teenagers as, like, how they cause harm and that they’ll be the end of us. But they’re not. It’s playing with that idea.

The track was first teased on June 28, 2023, when Hozier sent some of his fans who had pre-ordered the album a postcard previewing the lyrics and revealing that the track was the seventh on the album and received another teaser two days to the release of Unreal Unearth on his YouTube channel.