Sacrilege

My InterpretationI feel this is a song about the hypocrisy of peoples ideas about our social lives in contrast to religious ideals or belief. When we think about our interactions in a secular fashion we are capable of doing actions or vices because of our naturally flawed characters as human beings. That's one of the main tenets of Christianity and Jesus Christ's role in saving us by dying for our sins. We will sin and it is for the sacred religion to save us. So when (if you watch the video you see the girl sleeps with a priest) a symbol of religion sins as well, our acceptance of promiscuity in our social lives hits a no tolerance point. The sacrilegious act of when a married girl sleeping with a priest the followers must punish them by putting them to death. It's intolerable, it's sacrilege. So to summarize my interpretation, it is the religious followers who sin regularly, but when the institution falters there is no tolerance. Ideals can not be messed with, no matter how much you plead and pray.

In other words conservatives are hypocrites because ideals can not exist in the real world.

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My InterpretationThe morality of sacrilege is relative to those who judge what is moral on their own terms. It's a paradox.

OK, let's start with the video. The video's narrative is revealed through a non-linear reverse timeline starting with the consequences and panning back to the beginning. The storyline involves is a Thorn Birds/Scarlet Letter situation about a young married woman who has an affair with the very priest who performed her marriage ceremony.

The young woman, played by Lily Cole, (let's call her character "Hester") is discovered in bed with the town priest by the leader in the community, who enlists other members of the community to get justice. His motivations become clearer in flashback: he's jealous.

Hester manages to hide in the bathroom and run away but her priest lover is overcome by the lynch mob, forcibly enmasked with a long-nosed (long nose = liar), red (red = adultery) Carnival mask (= indulgent sinner). The mask resembles a grotesque red "bauta" mask.

They wrestle him outside. He almost manages to break away and run but is shot in the chest amongst cheers and glee. Then they hunt down Hester. They tie her to a stake like a witch and burn her alive with the body of her still-masked priest-lover. Fire is always symbolic of hell.

The mask is symbolic, clearly, but it also represents a psychological inability to kill a religious figure. There's a long historical tradition of masking people before they execute them. Meanwhile, they have no problem frying her alive and half-naked.

Through a series of flashbacks and a vague flicker of guilt on the townspeople's faces (one fellow moves from being mob-mentality gleeful to disconcerted at a recollection of him with Hester), it is revealed that each and every major participant in this mob has been sexually involved with Hester after her marriage. She's been debauched. Is anyone in this mob without sin, here?

Frankly, I’m not sure whether the affairs actually happened or whether they just happened in the people's minds. If they really DID take place, they happened after she was married. The timeline is clear because there's a scene with Hester in her wedding dress having an encounter with the Sheriff in a bathroom after the ceremony. Interestingly, the husband does not appear in any subsequent scenes.

The last scene in the storyline but the first in the video is the townspeople walking away from the fire with one giving a reassuring, congratulatory pat to another as if to say, "We got 'em, no more evil sinners." So the video opens with hypocrisy and ends with righteousness (church doors parting the cross) and innocence (backlit bride), though the reverse appears to be true at the outset.

Sacrilege is committed when someone steals or violates a sacred object. There are two sacred objects here: the priest and his role/vows, and her, the marital bed, and the marital vows. Sacrilege was once upon a time punishable by death.

The main metaphor in the video seems to be "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," because all the townspeople either desired her they had some kind of sexual encounter with her *after* she was married. If that's the case, the sacrilege is really the slut shaming.

Now the lyric interpretation in context of the video:

The first phrase in the lyrics is "Fallen for a guy". Fairly straightforward: she fell in love.

"Fallen from the sky" alludes to God casting Satan out from heaven. Satan was once considered the brightest and most attractive angel, after all. This is followed by "Halo round his head" and "Feathers in a bed", which brings wings to mind and builds on the "fallen angel" imagery. She fell for someone sacred and tempted him.

The repetition of "In our bed, in our bed" means that the affair likely took place in the martial bed which, given vows, is indeed sacrilege. Not only her marital vows but his priestly ones.

"Asked if I would try/To leave this all behind" seems like the priest had asked her to run away together. The song is in the first person: "(He) Asked if *I* would try", and the proximity of the request to the "Halo round his head" refrain associates the request to leave it all behind with the priest. One wonders what he specifically asked her to leave behind: her marriage, her promiscuity, or her life among a close-knit town of hypocrites?

Lastly, there's an endless litany of pleading and praying alternating with accusations of sacrilege. There are more accusations of sacrilege than pleading and praying.

So given the context with the video, the accusations and pointing fingers are overpowering and ultimately destructive even though the video makes it clear that no one pointing is without sin. The relativity of the sin is determined by forces outside the sinners who are also sinners themselves. God forgives, but an angry mob does not.

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General CommentInterpret from MV

I think this song is trying to tell us how any judgement in this world is based on the profit-oriented attitude. "The girl CAN have sex with anyone of the villagers but she CANNOT have sex with the priest because the religion said so." but in fact the result is the same, the girl cheated on her husband.

And the truth is, every religion opposes any kind of cheating, no matter who you sleep with, as long as you're married and the man is not your husband, it is wrong. But the villagers redefine the action of cheating just because they don't want to be burned or in the other word, they get the benefit from that definition, that's why in the end, the girl and the priest are the only two people to be punished instead of the whole village. Because they are "Sacrilege" in the villagers' definition

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My InterpretationI think in the video what is happening is that the girl with the red hair actually represents the devil (cheap symbolism, i know) and everyone in the town feels guilty that they are secretly having some sort of affair with her - i.e. they live with typical "Christian guilt" that they are all innately sinners and somehow unworthy for their acceptance of the devil's temptations...
the priest is a symbol of god (cheap symbolism again, but hey, it's like 3 minutes... you can only convey so much)
and when the townspeople realize that god and the devil are actually in cahoots together, they reject them both and burn them together in one heaping pile

and that certainly makes the mob look less crazy
and it makes more sense of how calm the girl is while being burned

at least it makes sense to me that way.
but what the hell do i know, i lurk reddit waaayyy too much.

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Song MeaningIt's about an angel that falls from heaven into her bed,
and then they have sex and think about if it's a good or bad thing to be doing while doing it.

She pleads that there will no be consequence from this and it is quite near the definition of sacrilege.

Agree or Disagree, hmm hmm ?

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My InterpretationI believe the video is about desire and morality. Everyone in the town wanted to have sex with the girl but also keeping themselves undetected. Essentially, they want to fulfill their immoral desires without any repercussions. While those who tried to seduce her may be single (and less guilty), the priest is a clear indication that the town is immoral. As more and more people from the town frequent the girl, they become anxious that their ungodly deeds may be found out (especially the priest who spies on her). Unable to bear the guilt, the town decides to permanently cover up their sins by killing the girl as a scapegoat. I find this song really sad because it is the townsfolk who seduce the girl but also, when convenient, they turn against her and accuse her of sacrilege. This is similar to the witch hunting period where priests would rape women and subsequently condemning them to the drowning trial (where the woman is killed regardless) to cover up the tracks.

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