An Audience with the Pope Lyrics

Lyric discussion by beeninsane 

Cover art for An  Audience with the Pope lyrics by Elbow

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.”

Song Meaning