Atheist Hozier V. Irreligious Macklemore

*WARNING* – Both videos below include content that some readers of this blog may find objectionable.

***Also, the title of this post, ‘Atheist Hozier V. Irreligious Macklemore,’ refers to what is expressed in these two songs, not necessarily what these artists actually believe. I do not claim to know anything about their spiritual views or religious commitments.

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis make good music written under intense and complex lyrics.  “Neon Cathedral” is among their best songs.  

Hozier makes good music written under intense and complex lyrics.  “Take Me To Church” might be his worst, regardless of its popularity

The reason that I am comparing these two artists is because the songs have more in common than you might realize at first blush.  Sure they belong to two distinct genres and musically they don’t sound too much alike, but lyrically they are nearly identical in theme.

“Take Me To Church” is a song sung by lover to beloved claiming her as the essence of his faith.  He is willfully replacing what is assumed to be his Catholic upbringing with a religiosity of his own: the doctrine of sex.

“Neon Cathedral” is a song sung by a man lost in the ravages of alcoholism claiming drink as the essence of his faith.  He has woefully replaced what is assumed to be his Catholic upbringing with a religiosity of his own: the doctrine of drunkenness.

Both Macklemore and Hozier, having grown up in predominantly Catholic areas (Catholicism in Seattle is the highest represented religion in an otherwise irreligious area, and yeah, Ireland), witnessed the hatred and scorn that the faithful can conjure against those who live outside of their ideas of righteousness.  In the mind of these two artists, as seen in the lyrics of these and other songs (and in the music video for “Take Me To Church”), gays were specifically, unfairly, and harmfully opposed by the church.  So on the other side of their presumed religious childhoods where they experienced this religion-ordained vitriol for fellow human beings, Macklemore and Hozier took the opportunity to express how those outside of the church replace their cast-off faiths for religions of their own.

Hozier turns to sex.  The beloved’s irreverent behavior is what turns the speaker in the song onto his woman.  “Everybody’s disapproval” is what makes him believe he should have found and “worshipped her sooner.”  His new irreligious church, his love, “offers no absolutes” unlike the church of his childhood.  “She tells [him] worship in the bedroom,” the only place where he now experiences something weighty and vital enough to replace the ubiquity of the faith he once knew.  This sex is what presumably characterizes the worth and direction of his life, and his entire experience is fundamentally personal.

Macklemore’s lyrics on the other hand replace God with alcohol.  This false god is as cliché as sex, but Macklemore, in the lyric-rich nature of his genre, gives flesh and fresh metaphors to the tired vice.  His speaker accepts the neon glow and vinyl booths of the bar as his church, where the bartender takes confessions and services start at 5 daily.  The speaker, and presumably a few more regulars at the bar, have lost their faith in God, probably their faith in themselves, and replaced their faith with a desperation to find something that makes them feel something (or maybe nothing), not unlike the speaker in “Take Me To Church.”

So both songs are about replacing a broken religion with a new, irreligious faith.  But that, I would argue, is where the comparisons end.

See, “Take Me To Church” was written from a point of surety.  The speaker in the song is certain that he has found heaven’s “last true mouthpiece.”  The beloved is heaven, a doorway to bliss, a peace that could not otherwise be experienced on earth.  Hozier’s speaker is willing to admit himself as a “pagan of the good times,” but in the same breath he condemns the high horse of his old religion.  He knows his new religion isn’t good, but he knows it isn’t the kind of bad that his old church is.  He is willing to submit himself blindly, to “worship like a dog at the shrine of [her] lies,” because her lies aren’t the lies that encourage all sorts of mistreatment of others.  His religion may be harmful, but it will only harm him, and in the pain he finds a twisted pleasure.

I think, on the other hand, that “Neon Cathedral” was written from a position of doubt.  Of remorse for the loss of faith.  The speaker holds onto his old faith, constantly referring to and trying to employ the old doctrine, but his efforts are distorted by his addiction.  He admits to fighting a “battle between pride and shame” and to misplacing his “sense of right.”  He wants to do what is good, but he does not know how to do it, or else cannot come to grips with how he could possibly be a good person burdened with an evil habit.  He learned about his inextricable sinful nature from the church that he has left.  And now he turns to what causes less pain, what makes him numb, and what is more convenient.  This convenience is noted in multiple lines, e.g., “The liquor store is open later than the church is” and “I need a refill far more than once every weekend.”  The bar is more comfortable than judgement and more welcoming than the church, but it is still not comfortable or welcoming.

The speaker in “Neon Cathedral” is lost.  He is sure of some sort of faith.  He knows the faith he had is broken, which is why we find him in the bar in the first place.  There he feels closer to something that is real.  But he also knows he’s losing himself, drowning.  He is seeking, just in the wrong place, as those who say he’s “in need of a doctor” would verify.

So although both songs are about ridding oneself of impersonal, imperfect religion (“fresh poison each week”), although both songs are about finding something in the “madness and soil,” in the sickness, in “the sweet taste of blood,” in something grimy and real, they are in fact incredibly different lyrically.

Hozier’s song is one of staunch refusal of orthodoxy and communal faith.  “Take Me To Church” is about a life that is gritty and raw and personal, the only thing that is worth pursuing, a faith that is troublingly selfish, albeit subservient.

On the other hand, Macklemore’s song is one of uncomfortable doubt.  “Neon Cathedral” is about longing for good in the face of imperfection, seeking for something much bigger than the twisted priorities of a single sick man.  It is not necessarily about shedding one’s faith, but finding out what faith is when you no longer fit inside of its old framework.  It is about growth in spite of sad, self-inflicted decay.

“Take Me To Church” is about turning the judgement and hatred of the church against it and finding contentment in a knowingly isolated and broken life.  If you ask me, “Neon Cathedral,” as odd as it may sound, it is about hope.  It’s about a stalwart refusal to let go of universally experienced truths in the face of deep, personal inadequacy.

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, well done.  Keep writing like that.