Song: Take Me To Church by Hozier

How do songs explore aspects of language, identity, and/or culture? Does the song respond to a global issue in any way? Pick a song that does this in an insightful or problematic way and write a response on ELP. Provide a link to your song.

The song by Hozier, “Take Me To Church” is a very famous song, even got 1st place in the Billboard chart in 2014. Contrary to the song title, it actually opposes church. The song explores a lot about identity, focusing on religion. Hozier expresses his doubtfulness towards the religions by comparing love and religion.

In the first verse, his doubtfulness towards religions is shown clearly. He questions the existence of God (“If the Heavens ever did speak”). “Fresh poison each week” – I think this line implies that every week people go to the church, they get fresh poison which means it drives them to believe that they are sick people (“we were born sick”). This also leads them to feel that they need the remedy of God. However, in Hozier’s perspective, the real remedy is “Love” (“I should’ve worshipped her sooner” – instead of God).

In the chorus, he argues to the hypocrisy of religion. In religion, confession is the key to forgiveness. But he sings, “I’ll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife”. He is being sarcastic to the hypocrisy of the religion and argues that confession should give us forgiveness but it gives us punishment.