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…

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? 🙂