"Take Me to Church" | |||||||||||
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Single by Hozier | |||||||||||
from the album Take Me to Church EP and Hozier | |||||||||||
Released | 13 September 2013 | ||||||||||
Format | Digital download | ||||||||||
Recorded | 2013 | ||||||||||
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Length | 4:02 | ||||||||||
Label | |||||||||||
Writer(s) | Andrew Hozier-Byrne | ||||||||||
Producer(s) | Rob Kirwan | ||||||||||
Hozier singles chronology | |||||||||||
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"Take Me to Church" is a song by Irish musician Hozier for his debut extended play (EP) Take Me to Church (2013), as well as his self-titled debut album (2014). The song was released as his debut single on 13 September 2013. Hozier, a struggling musician at the time of its writing, wrote and recorded the song in the attic of his parents' home in Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland. A mid-tempo soul song, its lyrics detail Hozier's frustration with the Catholic Church and its stance on homosexuality. It first caught the attention of independent label Rubyworks, where producer Rob Kirwan overdubbed the original demo with live instruments. Only two musicians feature on the track, Andrew Hozier-Byrne (Hozier) and drummer Fiachra Kinder.
The song's music video has contributed to its widespread popularity. The clip, directed by Brendan Canty and Conal Thomson of the small production company Feel Good Lost, follows the relationship between two men and the subsequent violent homophobic backlash. Upon its YouTube release in September 2013, it quickly began to go viral, leading to Hozier's license with Columbia Records.
In 2014, the song achieved widespread global popularity, topping the charts in 12 countries, and also reached the top 10 in 21 other territories. In the United States, it was aided by music platform Shazam and Spotify to become a rock radio hit (where it spent 23 consecutive weeks at the top of the Hot Rock Songs chart, tied with Imagine Dragons' "Radioactive" as the longest-running number-one in its history at the time), later crossing over to the all-genre Billboard Hot 100, where it peaked at number two in December 2014. The song was nominated for the Grammy Award for Song of the Year at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards. The song has been certified five times platinum in the US.