Switched on Pop - Hozier’s Waffling of Faith in Take Me To Church

Episode Date: April 2, 2015

Written in the Hozier family basement, Take Me To Church has risen up to be one of the biggest pop hits of the year. But this is not a typical pop song. The unsettling music and provocative lyrics about faith and relationships irk many listeners. But this marriage of form and content also strikes a chord with our own foibles of faith. FEATURING Hozier – Take Me to Church Wintley Phipps – Amen  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're tired of endless scrolling to figure out where to eat, same. I'm Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief of Eater. We've just launched the new-ish and way better Eater app. It has all the restaurants we love, gives you personalized picks wherever you are, and serves up smarter search results just for you. You can find my list of the best places for martinis and fries in New York City. And save your favorite spots, share lists, follow editors, and book right in the app. Download the Eaterer.

app at eater app.com. It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switched-on Pop Singles, where we investigate the mechanics behind one pop smash and show you how it works and why you love it. I'm your host, Charlie Harding. And I'm Nate Sloan, and today we are going to tackle Take Me to Church by the mysterious Irish folk singer, Hozier. Hozier.

Hojury. Hojury. It's Hojury. It must be. My lover's got humor. She's a giggle at a funeral. Those everybody's disapproval. I should have worshipped her sooner.

If the heavens ever did speak, she's the last true mouthpiece. Every Sunday's getting more bleak of fresh poison each week. So I have to admit, when I first heard this song, I waffled back and forth. I heard it on, I think it was a lot of, I think it was. was on SNL. He gets up there, and he goes back and forth with me. He's like minor and major chords. I thought, this is not a normal pop song.

No, and lyrically, there's a lot of waffling between light and dark, truth and lies. Yeah, what is this song all about? What are you hearing? Oh, man. Oh, that's... It's deep, right? It's deep. I mean, it's definitely the kind of thing you think about a lot when you're 22 years old.

What were you thinking about at 22? What is organized religion? What is truth? What do we, the hypocrisy of what we do in the name of the church? I mean, I do, I don't have the answer key for the cryptic lyrics of this song. I think they're intentionally vague, which is cool. And it's fascinating that this is a chart topper, this very rich and phantasmagoras. imagery that this song is up there with Taylor Swift, Shake It Off, is a really, is a testament

to the diversity of our musical taste still in 2015. And I always gauge the popularity of a song by how many people have watched it on YouTube because then I know it's a big deal. Yeah. And over 120 million people have watched the video on YouTube. Dang. So why? So Charlie, we got to get to the bottom of this.

Why take me to church? Obviously, it's resonating with people. at some sort of emotional core. And I think the thing that made me uneasy when I first listened to it is exactly what makes it successful. I think it's worth starting out at the very beginning of the song.

And you open up, and the first thing you hear is this big E minor chord. E minor is your sort of traditional, dark, rock and roll key. That's like when a guitar sits down and it's like, I'm going to write a doc song. And as soon, as he plays this E minor chord right in the beginning,

he quickly goes to G major, which is typically like the happy pop song key that your average guitar player, you know, he or she is going to sit down and write a pop song. G major is like kind of the go-to key. Really easy to play on the guitar. We love our G major. Oh, yeah.

It's one of my top five keys. Are you a sharp man or a flat man? Oh, I'm a flat man. I'm a sharp guy. Ooh, well, that's good. We don't have to fight over them. All right, so we start off E minor, go to G major. What's going on here?

Yeah, this is a very disorienting beginning. My lover's got humor. She's the giggle at a funeral. Everybody's disapprover. All of a sudden, it's not clear what key we're actually in in this song. That's right. He opens up and he outlines this E minor. And then he switches to the G major, and then in his vocal he outlines a G major.

Just as I was waffling about my taste of this song, as you said, he's sort of waffling back and forth harmonically. And I think that very much mirrors what's going on lyrically about his disillusionment with his faith. Yeah, totally. And that confusion is deepened in the pre-chorus. Ah, yes. He interpolates this kind of blazing gospel, amen. And for those classical music fans out there, you're going to notice that what we have here is called a plagal cadence. Now, we don't have to get too technical.

All you need to know is that in church music, whenever at the end of a song, they go it's always done over these two chords the four and then the one and in this case first a C major and then a G major this cadence is so readily identifiable with the church that some people just call it the church cadence for shorthand right so the church chords but play goal is it's is it's Latin name so after this moment it's like okay So I guess we've arrived. Hosier has shown us that we are in the key of G major, and this song is going to turn out to have a happy ending,

and then what happens? We go right back to the E minor. Yes, this is a really stunning moment in this song, because right after we finished this glorious, beautiful series of plagel cadences over a serene, Melismatic Amen. Amen. Amen.

And then all of a sudden, Posier sends his voice up to the highest pitch we've encountered so far in this song and then descends down back to that E minor sonority that we began the song with just as he hits the word church. So now we've been. left the heavens and returned back to the minor dark earth. Wow. So in the intro where we're going back and forth, we're not sure where we're going to land. And then he hints that, oh, maybe we're going to land in church. But it's just a tease. Totally.

Attention, Spotify. Has arrived on the new Good Girl Jasmine Absolute of Caroline Herrera, a fragrance intense with carathe gourmet and addicive. Imagine a jasmine emvolventy, tofu caramelized, and tonka-tosted. A combination that seduce from the first instant and it's a wayla. Google Jasmine Absolute, hypnotica irresistible. Discoveringla

and let you involve your passion in a new business with Shopify and batte records of the business with the form of the pay

with a better conversion of the world. You've heard it. The Meregion of the

world. The incredible system of the Shopify facilita the purchase on your

website on the social and in the whatever that. That is

music for your ears. No you make you des more waltz. Your

negotiation will be a super exited with Shopify. Empiece your period

of a year per a year on shopify. Okay, so we've gone back

and forth we've gone to the church where are we now in the chorus? The main

hook of the song. Yeah, and now we've arrived at the chorus take me

to church E minor and now we're probably going to stay here for a while,

right, Charlie? Yeah, I mean typically the chorus stays in one key. It's the soaring melody over simple chords that we all know.

It's something that wrong, I tell you. Nay, nay, says hosier. Nay says that we Irish folk singer. I won't give you what you expect. Nay, nay, you're getting a J. That was like a mix of Welsh and Scottish. But yeah, so we go, take me to church, E minor. I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lives, B major.

Whoa. And all the sudden it's not clear where we're headed. I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife. G major. We're back in G major. This guy cannot make up his mind. Right. Because B major always wants to go to E minor.

Then from there, offer me that deathless death, A minor. And then good God, let me give you my life. Back to E minor. So, okay. Okay. So you've just gone through a bunch of core. What does that mean for those of us who are not as adept musicologists? What it means is that the same waffling between minor and major that we heard in the verse,

That seemed to get human, she's the giggle at a funeral, knows everybody's disapproval, I should have worshipped her soon. That seemed to get resolved in the pre-course of Amen. returns in full force in the chorus where we move from E minor to G major back to E minor. And he's introducing more chords that should give us greater context of where we're supposed to go. But even by adding more material, he only further confuses it. Yes. I think maybe actually just to demonstrate that point, you know, typically here you are an E minor.

and you play that B and it wants to always just resolve back to that E minor Right, that's where you expect it to go. Right. But he instead totally screws with our expectations. He goes E minor, B, and then G. What's that G doing there? It's not supposed to go there.

Your ear doesn't expect it to. The G is very surprising. And that probably speaks to the narrator's mental state and the kind of difficult, the crisis of faith that he's grappling with. Wow. So these chords aren't unintentional. He's not just throwing out random chords on his guitar.

No, no. These seem very carefully telegraphed. And it's coupled with a melody that is so well constructed. I think it has a lot to do with the success of this song. Right. And it's really a beautiful economy of means because, Really this chorus is only three notes, basically. But he gives those three notes the dramatic arc of something approaching an aria.

We start, take me to church. And this is our first note, okay, this E. And then basically the first line is all on that E with a little dressing. A little dressing on the side. And then when we get to lies, we go up. Right. We're sending upwards, maybe up to the heavens. And then basically the next line is all on that F-sharp.

And then we ascend again to G up another step. Going up and up and up. So now we go to the note G as we also go to the core G major. So we're ascending. So we can hear that the chorus is just three notes slowly ascending. There's something that's incredibly easy to follow and easy to embrace about this melody. Oh, so basically while these chords are confusing us, he gives us melodic material, which is really grounding, something which is simple and easy to follow. Yes.

Thank you, Charlie. That's what I was trying to say. The rising melody is also has a really nice counterpoint in the descending guitar part that introduces the chorus. It's like this big sort of minor country sound. It's like, boom, boom. Totally. So there's, again, this whole chorus. and this whole song really feels like an endlessly fascinating mix of the satanic and the angelic.

And the songwriter himself can't seem to make up his mind which one he subscribes to. The song rises up into the heavens and falls back down into sin throughout its structure right from the first moment all the way through the chorus. Exactly. And that and I wonder if it's not that. people are able to tap into those same feelings. Wow. Even the most devoted churchgoer sometimes has a crisis of faith.

He says, my church offers no absolutes. The music of this church certainly doesn't. And Hozier is able to express that in music. I heard them say it. My church offers no absolutes. She tells me worship in the bedroom. The only heaven I be sent to is when I'm alone with you. So what a ride for young hosier, 24 years old, who recorded this song in his parents' basement at 2 in the morning one night.

Wow. And then a year later, 120 million views on YouTube, Grammy nominations, MTV Music Video Awards. It strikes a chord with people. It does what pop music does at its best. It really resonates with some sort of. emotional core. And it does that with really masterful songwriting. Right.

Nate, do you have any closing words? The song doesn't end with a sense of closure. It ends with a sense of hosier. And we will leave you with that. Stay tuned for more Switched on Pop, full episodes and short singles coming at you all through 2015. Available at www.

switchdownpop.com, iTunes, the Apple Podcast app, Stitch Radio, and all the other places you love to find your podcasts. I'm Nate Sloan, and I'm Charlie Harding. Thanks for listening. Take me to church. I worship like a dog at the shrine of your lights.