Take me to church - Hozier

Take Me To Church is a song by Irish recording artist Hozier. Released as a single in 2013 and taken from his EP Take Me To Church. The interpretation of the lyrics could be seen as a metaphor; comparing his lover to religon. Hozier told the Irish Times "I found the experience of falling in love or being in love was a death, a death of everything ... in a wonderful way ... if you see yourself for a moment through their eyes - everything you beleived about yourself gone. In a death-and-rebirth sense" He is comparing love to religion because after you lose your love its like losing part of your religion. Almost like something is missing. Although the lyrics talk about a 'she', the video is about two males.  For this reason, its difficult to apply Andrew Godwin's theory of the relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. But if a He was a mentioned then we easily could.

The video for Take Me To Church is very powerfull and echoes the wave of violence currently seen in today's same sex relationships and the gay community. The entire video is shot in greyscale and it follows the relationship of two men in a relationship. The local community of one of the partners leanrs of the gay relationship which leads to a horribly violent backlash coming from a homophobic gang. The gang break into the boys home and beats up his father whilst trying to track down his homesexual son. Failing to find him they go out and look for him and easily tracks him down in a feild. They drag him by the arms through the field in which a bonfire is lit and the box he was burying (we assume is filled with personal possesions to do with his boyfriend). His boyfriend notices from a hill that his boyfriends home is being trashed by this gang so he runs down to try and save him but with no luck. He then follows the trail to find the gang brutally beating up his boyfriend infront of the fire but is too scared to do anything about it. Instead he watches from a far. Due to the very strong narrative we are able to apply Simon Firth's theory of music videos being categorised into three broad typologies; performance, conceptual and narrative. Most narratives in music vidoes hold a strong connective to some kind of romantic relationship so the liner cause effect sequencing comes into play.

The actual lyrics "take me to church" could be related to the metaphor about religion. Taking someone to church is often to come clean of any sins and get rid of them. As being gay is seen as a sin in many cultures taking them to church may "wipe" away any feelings someone may have for another person of the same sex.

The video's contents is very true to todays society. There are still so many homophobic people in this moden day world even with same sex marriges being legalized in many countries.  Its seen further in people who are religious. Often their collective God's say that same sex relationships is un natural and it is a sin to be in one or to have any feelings towards the same sex as them.

Hozier himself does not appear in the video at all and maybe because if he did, the focus of the narrative may have been taken away. By covering a such a strong topic in his music video it is important to focus on that topic so people understand whats going on in the video and whats actually going in in modern day society.