Take Me To Church

      18 Comments on Take Me To Church

Do you know that song? Take Me To Church, by Hozier?

If not, then fair warning: The song – and this post pertaining to the song – addresses persecutionist religious behavior, in particular where sex/uality is concerned.

The opening lyrics go:

My lover’s got humor
She’s the giggle at a funeral
Knows everybody’s disapproval
I should’ve worshiped her sooner
If the Heavens ever did speak
She is the last true mouthpiece
Every Sunday’s getting more bleak
A fresh poison each week
“We were born sick”, you heard them say it
My church offers no absolutes
She tells me, “Worship in the bedroom”
The only Heaven I’ll be sent to
Is when I’m alone with you
I was born sick, but I love it
Command me to be well
Amen, Amen, Amen

It’s a song whose lyrics I have long (well, not *that* long — it only came out in 2013) had a mixed response to; on one hand, it’s a left-hook jab-punch at the glass jaw of The Church (capitalization is intentional), yet on the other hand it doesn’t do a great job of lifting up the “born-sick” sexy-ness that can be found in a power-exchange relationship. So it’s like the song swings but… misses(?)… maybe. Or maybe just doesn’t do the full TKO. Because it goes from that promising beginning –

the introduction of a man’s adoration of unconventional woman who tells him not to worry about the judgments being passed during Sunday morning services and instead to “worship in the bedroom”

– to something… I dunno… Not quite right?

Because the chorus – which is repeated several times throughout the song – then goes to this:

Take me to church
I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
I’ll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife
Offer me that deathless death
Good God, let me give you my life

Which… WTF?

Because while I have no idea what “worship like a dog” means, exactly, it certainly doesn’t sound flattering. And why is this non-deity ‘worship’ of a flesh-and-blood woman something that’s being equated to… Well, he’s calling her bits a shrine of lies, yes?

Which just irritates me, right? It makes me think: Like there isn’t enough daugher-of-Eve misogyny propagated through the church you’re supposedly so frustrated with? Now you’re being insulting about this lover-with-humour that you were enamored of in the first verse?

Yeah, nope. Not cool.

And so for me, really – again: for me – it just kinda always ended there. Because, WTF?

But I’m fully capable of changing channels when there’s something on that doesn’t suit, so when it was popular on the radio I always did so and then it stopped getting so much air play and I just kind of forgot about it. It was one of those random pieces of music that sort of got popular for a while – particularly, for some reason, among the young BDSM-ers in the early twenty-teens – and then I didn’t hear the song for a long long time.

But time is a thing, right? It affects us.

And it had been several years since I’d last thought about this song.

So when I listened again – recently, intentionally – I realized (because, time) it was with slightly altered ears. And when I did, I realized…

Image via Pixabay

Perhaps, previously, what I was listening to and what I was hearing were two different things?

Because here’s the thing:

I might be a bit anti-church (The Church) – in my own ways and based on my own experiences (suffice to say I survived a complicated childhood) – but I’m not anti-church in a small-c way and I am definitely not anti-God. I know there are people who kink to transgression and/or to religiously subversive material (and if that’s you, you get no judgment from me — you do You), but I am not that person.

[As an aside: Belief systems – religions, if you will – are corrupt by nature. Even if they aren’t deity-centered. A devout party-line politician is just as dangerous as a football zealot; both are equally as crazed as a pious extremes in nature pilgrims who either hug all the trees or who venture into the great outdoors with camo and ammo; all are about as “safe” as your average reformed-in-prison street-corner preacher. And don’t get me started on institutions with power structures; The Church is one of them, and is rightly criticized for its abuses of said power, but it is not the only one and certainly not the worst one. Hypocrisy abounds in all ‘religions’, whether you ‘believe’ or not.]

So recognizing that perhaps my own combination of anti-/anti-religion-ism was influencing my interpretation of the lyrics when I was first introduced to the song (along with the fact that the ‘movie’ style video Hozier made is just plain awful and does not in any way match the story the lyrics tell or illustrate the possibilities of F/m sexy-ness this song paints in my imagination), I decided recently to read the lyrics along to Andrew John Hozier-Byrne’s (say it again really fast: AndrewJohnHozier-Byrne’s 😛 ) voice during a little listening session…

If I’m a pagan of the good times (me too – ‘fun’ is my kink)
My lover’s the sunlight (awww)
To keep the Goddess on my side (oh… Goddess with a capital ‘G’ even)
She demands a sacrifice
Drain the whole sea (he must really need to cum)
Get something shiny (pretty things! all the gifty gifts!)
Something meaty for the main course (heh — definitely sexual)
That’s a fine looking high horse
What you got in the stable? (she has a stable of lovers?)
We’ve a lot of starving faithful (a stable full of boys with big appetites, apparently)
That looks tasty (sounds promising)
That looks plenty
This is hungry work (FUNNY!)

…and totally fell in love with this song.

Which shouldn’t come as too big a surprise, I guess. I mean, I think I’ve demonstrated pretty clearly through previously posted musical examinations (a different Hozier composition features on one of them) that I like to mix the concepts of deity and sexuality.

I also think it’s abundantly clear to anyone who’s read my blog for any length of time that I have a ‘thing’ about playing with words, which this song does in a way that tickles my ‘get-it’ bone (as per the fuchsia-colored commentary above). Plus, if you can make me laugh, that’s a Good Thing. 😉

No masters or kings when the ritual begins
There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin
In the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene
Only then I am human
Only then I am clean
Amen, Amen, Amen

Take Me To Church, indeed.

Kneel and pray, boy.

Have a little listen:

 

Oh, and the whole “worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies” thing?

Well, I’m just going to go with “he’s into puppy play and he’s being facetious about the lies thing – or using the ‘insult’ ironically – because of what he’s been told at church.”

And of course the “deathless death” is just a lil petit mort. Of course he wants that.

And voila!

We’re good.

Well. I’m good anyway. 😉

How about you? 

Have you ever experienced a musical re-introduction that had you going, “…OH”?

If so, please tell me about it below. 🙂

A BRIEF EXPLANATION:

This post came about because this week is the 400th prompt week at Wicked Wednesday (click the badge above to check it out), and while contemplating the number 400, I realized: It was 400 years ago (in 1620) that the Mayflower carried English Puritans – known historically as “Pilgrims” – to the Americas.

Schoolchildren in the U.S. are taught that the reason for this trans-Atlantic voyage was that the voyagers were fleeing religious persecution.

And religious persecution – both in the manner of {1} people who hold certain religious beliefs being on the receiving end of persecution, as well as in the practice of {2} religious people persecuting others for their non-conforming beliefs/practices – continues to this day. Which is demonstrated in a creatively sexy way in Take Me To Church.

Since being creatively sexy is kind of what Wicked Wednesday is all about…

Makes sense, right? 🙂

18 thoughts on “Take Me To Church

  1. Mysticlez

    I love this song. You have a reaction to it that most people had. But it’s not about the things you think. This below is all information from when he was questioned about the song’s meaning because it caused such an uproar.

    “ Lyrically the song is one large metaphor comparing a lover to religion.

    “Take me to church
    I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
    I’ll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife
    Offer me that deathless death
    Good God, let me give you my life.”

    Speaking with The Irish Times, Hozier said about matters of the heart: “I found the experience of falling in love or being in love was a death, a death of everything. You kind of watch yourself die in a wonderful way, and you experience for the briefest moment – if you see yourself for a moment through their eyes – everything you believed about yourself gone. In a death-and-rebirth sense.”

    “Written in the wake of a breakup with his first girlfriend, this is both a love song and a contemplation of sin, drawing influence from the late atheist writer Christopher Hitchens. Hozier described it to The Guardian as, “a bit of a losing your religion song.”

    “ The line “I was born sick, but I love it. Command me to be well” was inspired by Elizabethan dramatist Fulke Greville’s 1554 poem Chorus Sacerdotum, that speaks of mankind being “created sick, commanded to be sound.”

    There is more below in the link and it’s worth reading.

    https://www.songfacts.com/facts/hozier/take-me-to-church

    Reply
    1. Mysticlez218

      Btw I didn’t mean this replay in a “this is the only way/my way”. I was only providing the artists’ feedback.
      For the record, I thought it was a great post and it made me laugh.

      Reply
  2. olivia

    I love this post so much. The thoughtful analysis of the song and then the flipped perspective and re-analysis were super interesting. And then the song itself is pretty great. As a non-religious person, maybe a bit anti-religion even, I really appreciate you pointing out the danger of all forms of extremism. Good point, and it’s taken me a while to recognize it in those I love.

    Anyhow. Thanks!

    Reply
    1. Mrs Fever Post author

      Yes, it comes in all forms.

      Anyone who thinks that there is only One Way, or that their way is The Right Way – be it politics, exercise, altruism, religion, etc. – is someone to avoid as far as I’m concerned. Even if I like/agree with the perspective or the ideal on principle, I don’t appreciate “This way is the best/only way” attitudes.

      Thanks for reading. 🙂

      Reply
  3. May More

    Well i am converted – I love it!
    Worship like a dog – Well dogs are loyal, faithful and would lay down their life for you – that’s what I think that line means. He will behave like a dog for her. Because dogs worship their person,
    May More recently posted…Three Times a WomanMy Profile

    Reply
  4. Marie Rebelle

    I will never be able to listen to this song without thinking of this post! You had me giggling by the time I read your interpretation of the lyrics. To be really honest, I know the chorus part, but have never really paid attention to the rest of the lyrics. For sure I will the next time I listen to it!
    Thank you for linking this week, Feve!

    Rebel xox

    Reply
  5. elliott henry

    Oh great, Feve, guess what song you made me think of when I saw ‘Take Me to the Church’? Get Me to the Church On Time’ from My Fair Lady, and now I can’t get it out of my head. Thanks a lot! Nice post.

    Reply
  6. chris

    Feve:
    Hahahaha — because you wrote it, I read it, and it’s a great write- I love it, despite not being a fan of the piece in question. 🙂

    Reply
  7. Pingback: F/m Radio: Encore Hour ~ Temperature's Rising

  8. Posy Churchgate

    Great post like you I felt it was hinting at the kinky sexy F/m dynamic (the meaner she is the more I love it). Then I looked at the words & thought I was mistaken cos I took them too literally. You’ve helped me out & given it back to me as a sexy song.

    My wake up was listening to Mariah’s all I want for Christmas this year. I’ve always rather shunned it as I thought it was from a mistress POV wanting to drag her man from his family. Then I heard the video was made before the song was recorded- that seemed to reset my perception. I was at last able to see it as an unrequited love vibe and enjoy it (just as well as it’s part of the festive furniture now).

    I love your thoughts on music Mrs F – more please.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CommentLuv badge