“Take Me to Church” was Irish singer-songwriter Hozier’s breakout hit, and its accompanying video has racked up more than 150,000,000 views on YouTube. It’s easy to see why the video is so popular: With its arty black-and-white aesthetic and a message all reasonable people can agree on (don’t persecute gay people!), “Take Me to Church” is perfectly designed to make its listeners feel good about themselves. It has apparently made listeners feel so good about themselves that they failed to notice that Hozier is not a very good singer, and “Take Me to Church” is not a very good song.
Now, finally, someone is calling Hozier out: The comedy writer and podcaster Demi Adejuyigbe has created a “Take Me to Church” parody that amplifies both the video’s self-seriousness and the song’s musical shortcomings. Over the past two days, Adejuyigbe has posted seven short videos on Twitter in which he adjusts the tempo of the song’s shouted, melodically numbing chorus and splices it into other songs. The comedy brilliance is all in Adejuyigbe’s (almost) unwaveringly somber facial expression. When he turns to gaze into the camera at the precise moment Hozier bellows “Take me to church,” you’ll feel as though he’s seen the soul of everyone who’s made “Take Me to Church” go quadruple platinum.
You can watch the rest of Adejuyigbe’s videos on Twitter (or on Deadspin, the first site to notice Adejuyigbe’s social-media masterpiece).
