Hozier stopped by Genius to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of his hit song “Take Me to Church,” which has been streamed over two billion times on Spotify to date! The song is produced by Rob Kirwan and the Irish rockstar himself from his self titled debut album Hozier. On today’s episode of Verified, find out how the hit song was made.
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00:00 If it feels right, other people will feel it too.
00:04 And I think all I did with this when I was working on that demo, it felt good.
00:09 I struggle to kind of comment on why it has lasted or why it's been such a lasting piece of music.
00:22 There is a sort of an austerity to the way that song was recorded.
00:26 I don't mean that in a bad way.
00:28 There's a rawness to it.
00:29 I recorded it with a very, very bare bones rig in my attic.
00:33 But I think also the theme of it is universal.
00:35 You know, this idea that powerful organizations use people's sexuality
00:40 in order to mobilize people against women, against gay people.
00:45 And the justification behind that is often religious in nature.
00:50 My lover's got humor.
00:53 She's the giggle at a funeral.
00:55 Knows everybody's disapproval.
00:58 I should have worshipped her sooner.
01:00 If the heavens ever did speak, she's the last true mouthpiece.
01:04 Every Sunday is getting more bleak.
01:06 Fresh poison each week.
01:08 I thought the lyrics were humorous.
01:10 Not that it by any means is a comedy song,
01:12 but it's like a lot of songs of mine that when read with a kind of a dry voice,
01:17 there's humor in them.
01:18 A lot of my memories of like going to church at somber events
01:23 and having like an uncle telling a joke in your ear,
01:27 you know what I mean?
01:27 At a time when you really shouldn't.
01:28 In a way that's not mean or cruel, but in a way that's like makes light
01:32 of the situation, makes light of a heavy situation.
01:35 There's some great freedom in being able to laugh at that.
01:37 We were born sick.
01:38 You heard them say it.
01:40 My church offers no absolutes.
01:42 She tells me worship in the bedroom.
01:45 The only heaven I'll be sent to is when I'm alone with you.
01:50 I was born sick, but I love it.
01:53 Command me to be well.
01:54 She tells me worship in the bedroom.
01:56 That being, yeah, something tongue in cheek, something a bit of humor to it.
01:59 Also revealing that this is not necessarily a traditional worship song.
02:02 I think I still see my name put into playlists for Christian music.
02:06 And I'm not adverse to that.
02:07 You know, I don't think the two are necessarily mutually exclusive.
02:11 That line, I would have thought, would have disqualified it from
02:15 something like that.
02:16 Amen.
02:19 Amen.
02:20 Amen.
02:20 Putting in the amens, it's like a statement of intent or it's establishing,
02:24 no, this is a spiritual act.
02:26 This song has, you know, it has been misinterpreted many times.
02:29 And it's similar to, I think, of Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen.
02:33 You know, it's another classic example of people thinking, celebrating one thing
02:37 and rather than actually critiquing or satirizing or sort of subverting some idea.
02:44 Take me to church.
02:45 I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies.
02:48 I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife.
02:51 I have to say, yeah, the magnificence of cathedrals.
02:54 But you wonder, OK, who paid for that?
02:56 And it's everybody.
02:57 It's everybody who lived in its shadow.
02:59 And look, there's some misunderstanding as well.
03:02 But where I come from, like I've come from a Catholic family.
03:05 But the idea of confession and that there's one person in the community
03:08 who hears everybody's secrets is such an outrageous power imbalance.
03:14 Offer me that deathless death.
03:16 Good God, let me give you my life.
03:18 Offer me that deathless death.
03:20 Could be the church offering everlasting life, a death without a death.
03:24 But then it also nods to the idea of
03:26 the French expression or the little death.
03:29 French call it petit mort, which is like basically is an orgasm.
03:36 If I'm a pagan of the good times, my lover is the sunlight
03:39 to keep the goddess on my side, she demands a sacrifice.
03:44 Drain the whole sea, get something shiny, something meaty for the main course.
03:49 That's a fine looking high horse.
03:51 Drain the whole sea, get something shiny.
03:54 If there is a controversial line in the song, I think it's that one.
03:57 The Vatican City refers to itself as the Holy See.
04:02 H.O.L.Y.S.E.E.
04:05 It was kind of playing with this idea of
04:07 taking back, taking back that wealth that was essentially created by people
04:13 who showed up to church every week and donated,
04:15 you know, bronze, silver and gold.
04:18 So playing with C and C
04:20 and just going in there and getting something shiny.
04:22 I have memories of as a teenager visiting the Vatican City.
04:25 And I mean, the ceilings are paved with gold.
04:27 What you got in the stable.
04:29 We have a lot of starving faithful.
04:31 That looks tasty. That looks plenty.
04:34 This is hungry work.
04:35 From what kind of moral authority does this organization have
04:39 given its legacy, given its legacy of abuse?
04:42 On what grounds does it does it imagine itself to to be able to speak
04:46 on anything from any sort of moral standpoint?
04:49 And so to take that supposed moral high horse and then it imagines
04:53 with this idea of butchering it and using it to feed people.
04:55 No masters or kings when the ritual begins.
05:01 There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin
05:04 in the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene.
05:09 Only then I am human.
05:11 Only then I am clean.
05:13 Amen. Amen. Amen.
05:16 It's tough being a human, you know, and finding another person
05:19 and sharing your own humanity.
05:21 That is when you feel it most yourself.
05:23 It's when you feel at most connected to someone else.
05:26 And so that line, only then I am human.
05:28 That's when I'm at my most order.
05:29 That's when I'm at my most in step with what it is to be a being on this earth.
05:34 Recently to see one of the Iranian protesters, Serena
05:41 as mails that are singing that song and sort of went viral
05:46 in the aftermath of her being beaten to death by forces of the Iranian state
05:50 with women who wanted the right, who were trying to seek the right
05:53 to show their hair in public.
05:54 In an example like that with a teenage girl like like Serena,
05:59 you have somebody who is far, has far more courage and far more bravery
06:04 than I will ever have to contend with.
06:07 You know, somebody who paid an ultimate price.
06:09 I come up very short against courage like that.