Rhetorical Analysis: Take Me To Church

Love is being considered the most incredible thing in one’s life. As human, we have right to make our own decisions on who we fell in love with. Sex, the action of love, which just like love, happen naturally. But we know sometimes that is not how love and sex being treated in the reality. In Hozier’s song, Take Me to Church, Hozier, he used a lot of rhetorical devices to point out and criticize that some organizations, such as churches, interfere with people’s love and sex.

“Hozier is an Irish musician, singer and songwriter from County Wicklow, released the EP Take Me to Church. It reached number one on iTunes on 25 October 2013.”(wiki) The song tells a story about faith by exploring two kinds of faith. While criticize the organizations,

he also praises love and sex. “The song is about asserting yourself and reclaiming your humanity through an act of love”, He said in an interview with the Cut.
Supported by evidences in the song, the primary audience of the song are young adults age about 18 to 25, and the secondary audience are follower of a religion who are older and more traditional.

Since young adults are liberal and progressive, they are more likely to agree with this song which is challenging conservative religious conventions. According to the “Amen, Amen, Amen” parts, we know this song is more likely to be a prey. Of course, the audience could be all the people that listen to the song, but a prey does not persuading anybody in anyway. A prey is an anthem for the people who are saying it, which is not an argument designed to persuade people who do not believe in love, or religions individuals who sees sex as sin. Prayer is associated with sexual love that should be celebrated, that isn’t sick even though the church might tell him or her that it

is.
Musically, this song used a lot of emotional appeals. A song tells a story through music and lyrics. Compare to lyrics, music can deliver emotion more directly to audience. Overall, the whole song is being filled with an unpeaceful feeling which start right from the beginning. The accompaniment of the first and second verse mainly keeps playing two-gravy-minor-chord repeatedly. With the deep melody of which do not have huge ups and downs, this repetition gives the audience an repressive feeling. It appeals emotionally to primary audience because the young adults are more self-centered compares to the secondary audience. In other words, simple things can make they oppressive and depressed. So the music touches their heart because it tells how they feel. Going to the bridge, still with the minor chord in piano, Hozier start singing “Amen” repeatedly. The long note make the atmosphere of the song change from repressive to helpless and invocatory, which could appeal to a young adult listener who is still resisting parental or organizational repression. Then the tone of the two-gravy-minor-chord switch to electric guitar instead of playing in piano, which is so powerful that it foreshadows the burst out of the chorus in a few seconds. Finally, the chorus suddenly rise the melody, which in the same time rise the emotion to a peak. The low piano tone still repeat in the background. As the melody rising, the rhythm of the song get stronger and stronger. Being washed out all the repression, the emotion of the song slowly becomes to a liberatory crying. A perfect words for this part of the song is being released, which is mainly what a young adult want. They can forget their angst and be free in the music. The Secondary audience also pulled in by the catchy melody and then start to hear the words and understand more what song is about, so even if don’t agree with him, they’re thinking about the message.
Besides the music, there are plenty more rhetorical appeals, such as building credibility in the lyrics.

The song writes in the first person. It start with brought out one of the faith, his lover. Then he said “I should've worshipped her sooner”. Instead of using “liked” or “loved”, he use the powerful word “worshipped”, which shows the relationship between the singer and his lover is like a faithful follower and the God. So the two kinds of faith should be clear. One is faith to organized religions, such as Christianity; while the other is faith to his lover. He says “We've a lot of starving faithful”, which could means many people that are religious and have faith, but never get anything in return, or the singer had a lot of sex with his lover. The singer establishes his credibility because he is sharing from what he has witnessed in his own experience. He make the audience believe that he has been through all the story he

tells.
The singer also builds credibility by listing the facts. “ ‘We were born sick’, You heard them say it”. Obviously, it refer to “Original Sin”, a doctrine central to Christian theology. So young adults who are Christian must have been taught that believe that all men and women are born with sin naturally. The “sin” can be understood as sex according to the singer, which include sexual action, sexual orientation, and so on. “them” could refers to other people, social communities, or the church-like-organizations. Echoing this line, there is another line says: “I was born sick, but I love it”. Compare to the secondary audience, the primary audience have more opened mind and better education. They should have been taught by school that having sex is a natural thing, and human not only have sex for reproduction, but also to pleasure themselves. In addition, all sexual orientations are natural, and for some human individual, it is changeable. Knowing those facts, the primary audience would find that since having sex is something pleasures themselves, it could be something they love, and they need to first accept their sexual orientation to love themselves. The singer makes the song more relatable to the audience and establishes his credibility by telling those facts.
Hozier effectively appeals his primary audience by the dark and angry chord of the song, pulls the secondary audience in by the the catchy melody, builds his credibility by writing the song in the first person and telling the facts. Those are the reason why the song went viral. Nowadays, the controversy of how people see sex is bigger than ever. Some of the credit should go to Hozier.