I already said it's good art-- I'll raise the bar and argue that it's aesthetically true. The melody and other sound elements embody the visceral ache of devotion much better than most songs about devotion that I've heard recently. It's difficult to lift up the notes of the song without entering into the emotional space its lyrics put forth. And that might be exactly why some are wary of it-- what headspace are we entering? Are we bowing down before the altar of sex when we sing this song?
Sort of. You can't read the lyrics of the song without being struck by the transference of worship language to sexual themes. I'd hate to cause a sensation (especially among those who know me as a Christian on the Asexual Spectrum), but this sexy spirituality itself doesn't bother me in the least. Nature-- even and especially sex-- is overflowing with spirituality, even divinity. John Muir is attributed as saying, “I'd rather be in the mountains thinking about God, than in church thinking about the mountains.” Maybe this narrator is just … admiring a different peak.
So if Hozier('s narrator character) was really disconnecting from religion because sex provided an alternative spiritual experience, that would be simple. But look at the lyrics again: Sex, personified as the narrator's goddess-priestess-lover, doesn't seem to providing spiritual fulfillment either. The 'Church' (sex) to which he's begging to go is pleasing and feels somehow 'ultimate', sure, but it's also dishonest and demanding, masochistic at best and cannibalistic at worst. The journey plays out a “sad earthly scene” that seems to humble everyone, especially “masters and kings”-- this goddess seems to eat the colloquial 'high horse' and leave its own rider to starve. He adopts the general feeling that this is a sickness, but of course, he loves it: sex may or may not be true, but it's the truest thing he has-- or the truest thing that has him. The attitude, in this interpretation, is more of a resigned hedonism in the face of inevitability than a freely-committed worship.
So Hozier's song places sex in the role of this huge, powerful force that makes humanity weak at the knees and bends our identity toward itself with its offer of self-serving pleasure. But the intermingling of religious imagery speaks, to me, about the reality that religious devotion so often plays this twisted role too. (If you're skeptical, just see if you can distinguish C-Pop lyrics from lines from 50 Shades.) As Christians, we have to confess that we've too often offered this same creepy, self-immolating adoration to God and the Church, propagating the toxic attitude that willfully strangling the spirit could ever be a good or redemptive thing to do. This posturing speaks to a deep suicidal impulse in humanity that leads us to throw our own souls onto any fire we can find-- sex, religion, drugs, mob mentalities, persistent delusions-- anything to feel the sweet release of draining ourselves of the responsibility of identity. Maybe this is the original sin, or our subconscious guilt response to it.
The God I know does not want, is not jealous for, this kind of worship that subsumes the worshipper into the object of adoration. God is absolutely rooting for us to live into our full identities and not throw ourselves away-- especially to 'him'. How painful for the parent to hear the 'faithful' son say, "I slaved for you"-- as if we didn't know that everything God has is ours. This son was more 'prodigal' than the other. So far as this song is about the overpowering impulse to adoration in sex and religion, it is absolutely true-- except that it is hopeless. And I'm not suggesting that Hozier croon 'If only I had Jesus!" as a tacked-on refrain, or change the 'amen' to a 'Hosanna'-- though in the Christian Music Industry that dishonest and anti-artistic rubbish is standard practice. The narrator is painting a beautiful picture of the complexities of self-entrapment while still trapped. We have to let the song be that. When we enter into the song, we have to enter into a space of hopelessness, because that is the honest human experience of subsuming adoration. None of us is better than that or wiser than that wild blindness; it just manifests itself differently in different lives, and we have to remember that with humility and appreciation and connect to this artist in that space.
But we don't have to stay there forever. The beautiful thing about art of any kind is that it allows for both experience and reflection. And upon reflection, we can honestly say that we are not destined for this joyful suicide-- that the pulse of life beats defiant against the draw of death. God does will for us to have Life Abundant-- faith and sex and imagination and community that are healthy, life-affirming, supremely humanizing, and offered in free will. It's a whole life that we can admire like John Muir admired the mountains-- with genuine reverence for all its diverse, organic chaos, and with freedom from compulsion and self-loathing. Amen. Amen. Amen.
~ ~ ~
Afterword: The Music Video. Ok, the music video was a huge part of this song's global success, so even though it's under no obligation to be thematically linked to the lyrics, it's worth considering here. The heart-and-tear-wrenching video depicts two lovers being torn apart by a violent homophobic 'community' group in Russia. This is based on an actual current trend, and it might be happening to a real couple even as you read this. The groups are not religious, but may be backed by certain religious sentiments. Hozier actually did an interview explaining the video's link to his personal views that no religious or other human system should constrict or demonize what is most beautiful about life. This overpowering hateful groupthink, rather than sex, has become the enslaving 'church' in the video: the actual sexual relationship is depicted as innocent and beautiful; while the murderers that adopt the dark overtones of senseless identity-erasing commitment described in the song. A confusing role reversal, but one that confirms the deeper issue.
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