-
- If it feels right, other
people will feel it, too.
-
And I think all I did with this,
-
when I was working on
that demo, it felt good.
-
(jaunty music)
-
I struggled to kind of
comment on why it has lasted
-
or why it's been such a
lasting piece of music.
-
There is a sort of an austerity
-
to the way that song was recorded.
-
I don't mean that in a bad way.
-
There's a rawness to it.
-
I recorded it with very, very
bare-bones rig in my attic.
-
But I think also, the
theme of it is universal.
-
You know, this idea that
powerful organizations
-
use people's sexuality
-
in order to mobilize people against women,
-
against gay people.
-
And the justification behind that
-
is often religious in nature.
-
(graphic whooshing)
-
"My lover's got humor.
-
She's the giggle at a funeral.
-
Knows everybody's disapproval.
-
I should have worshiped her sooner.
-
If the heavens ever did speak,
-
she's the last true mouthpiece.
-
Every Sunday's getting more bleak,
-
fresh poison each week."
-
I thought the lyrics were humorous.
-
Not that it by any means is a comedy song,
-
but it's like a lot of songs of mine
-
that when read with a kind of a dry voice,
-
there's humor in them.
-
A lot of my memories
of like going to church
-
at somber events
-
and having like an uncle
telling a joke in your ear,
-
you know what I mean, at a
time when you really shouldn't.
-
In a way that's not mean or cruel,
-
but in a way that's, like,
makes light of the situation,
-
makes light of a heavy situation.
-
There's some great freedom in
being able to laugh at that.
-
"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."
-
She tells me, 'Worship in the bedroom.'
-
That being, yeah,
something tongue in cheek,
-
something a bit of humor to it.
-
Also revealing that
this is not necessarily
-
a traditional worship song.
-
I think I still see my name
-
put into playlists for Christian music,
-
and I'm not adverse to that.
-
I don't think that two are
necessarily mutually exclusive.
-
That line I would've thought
would've disqualified it
-
from something like that.
-
(graphic whooshing)
-
"Amen. Amen. Amen."
-
Putting in the Amens,
-
it's like a statement of intent
or it's establishing now,
-
"This is a spiritual act."
-
This song has, you know,
-
it has been misinterpreted many times.
-
And it's similar to, I think,
-
of "Born in the U.S.A."
by Bruce Springsteen.
-
You know, it's another classic example
-
of people thinking it,
celebrating one thing,
-
and rather than it actually
critiquing or satirizing
-
or sort of subverting some idea.
-
(graphic whooshing)
-
"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."
-
I have to say, yeah, the
magnificence of cathedrals.
-
But you wonder, "Okay, who paid for that?"
-
And it's everybody, it's
everybody who lived in its shadow.
-
And look, there's
somewhat misunderstanding
-
as well about where I come from.
-
Like, I've come from a Catholic family.
-
But the idea of confession
-
in that there's one person in a community
-
who hears everybody's secrets
-
is such an outrageous power imbalance.
-
"Offer me that deathless death.
-
Good God, let me give you my life."
-
Offer me that deathless death
-
could be the church
offering everlasting life,
-
a death without a death.
-
But then it also nods to the
idea of the French expression
-
or the little death.
-
French call it la petite
mort, which is like...
-
Basically, it's an orgasm.
-
(graphic whooshing)
-
"If I'm a pagan of the good times,
-
my lover is the sunlight.
-
To keep the goddess on my side,
-
she demands a sacrifice.
-
Drain the whole sea, get something shiny,
-
something meaty for the main course.
-
That's a fine looking high horse."
-
Drain the whole sea, get something shiny.
-
If there is a controversial line in song,
-
I think it's that one.
-
The Vatican City refers to itself
-
as the Holy See, -H-O-L-Y-S-E-E.
-
It was kind of playing with
this idea of taking back,
-
taking back that wealth
that was essentially created
-
by people who showed up to
church every week and donated,
-
you know, bronze, silver, and gold.
-
So playing with sea and see,
-
and just going in there and
getting something shiny.
-
I have memories as a teenager
visiting the Vatican City.
-
And I mean, the ceilings
are paved with gold.
-
"What you got in the stable?
-
We have a lot of starving faithful.
-
That looks tasty, that looks plenty.
-
This is hungry work."
-
From what kind of moral authority
-
does this organization
have given its legacy,
-
given its legacy of abuse?
-
On what grounds does it imagine itself
-
to be able to speak on anything
-
from any sort of moral standpoint.
-
And so to take that
supposed moral high horse,
-
and then it yeah, imagines
with this idea of butchering it
-
and using it to feed people.
-
(graphic whooshing)
-
"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."
-
It's tough being a human, you know,
-
and find finding another person
-
and sharing your own humanity,
-
that is when you feel at most yourself.
-
It's when you feel at most
connected to someone else.
-
And so that line, only then I am human.
-
That's when I'm at my most ordered,
-
that's when I'm at my most in step
-
with what it is to be
a being on this earth.
-
(upbeat music)
-
Recently, to see one of
the Iranian protestors,
-
Sarina Esmailzadeh,
-
singing that song and sort of went viral
-
in the aftermath of her
being beaten to death
-
by forces of the Iranian state.
-
With women who wanted the right,
-
who were trying to seek the right
-
to just show their hair in public.
-
In an example like that, with
a teenage girl like Sarina,
-
you have somebody who has far more courage
-
and far more bravery than
I will ever have to contend
-
with somebody who paid an ultimate price.
-
I come up very short
against courage like that.