sort form Submissions:
submissions
Elbow – An Audience with the Pope Lyrics 15 years ago
Actually, the first commenter is right. Guy has said in numerous interviews that this song is - though not exclusively - about recovering from Catholicism. One example:

"Mostly I write about life and love and death and friendship and desire and frustration, temptation. There’s a song on the record about overcoming Catholicism in order to enjoy sex, which took a while.” To overcome it, or to write about it? “To overcome it… But that was years ago. The song’s called An Audience With The Pope, and it’s deliberately blasphemous. I just remember at 16, as a frustrated Catholic, really enjoying sex and feeling terrible about it afterwards.”

* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.