Further, the communion table cross is matched against a burning cross, to the lyric, “hate that’s caused wars from religion.” On the other hand, support for same-sex marriage is associated with civil rights-“Gender to skin color, the complexion of your pigment / The same fight that led people to walk outs and sit ins / It’s human rights for everybody, there is no difference!” and pictures of MLK. Similarly, “playing God” pairs with the young gay protagonist of the video sitting in a pew with his mother, the same mother who harasses him until he shuts the door in her face at “paraphrase a book written thirty-five-hundred years ago,” and who aggressively makes the sign of the cross (to the lyric “preach hate”) before storming out (“holy water … poisoned”) when her son brings his soon-to-be spouse home for dinner. The line, “right wing conservatives think it’s a decision,” flashes a non-Catholic cross and communion table before cutting to a grainy 60s-era film of a priest with a gaggle of first communicants. Like so much of contemporary discourse, image is used to good effect, more powerful in creating associations and prompting sentiment than any argument or syllogism. Christianity, particularly Catholicism, receives the brunt of Macklemore’s disdain: “When I was at church they taught me something else / If you preach hate at the service those words aren’t anointed / That holy water that you soak in has been poisoned.” Yet rather than reject the heritage outright, he transposes it, claiming both that “we paraphrase a book written thirty-five-hundred years ago / I don’t know,” while repeating “Love is patient / Love is kind / Love is patient / Love is kind / (I’m not crying on Sundays).” “Same Love” critiques “right wing conservatives,” hip hop’s portrayal of homosexuals, “a preconceived idea of what it all meant,” “a world so hateful some would rather die than be who they are,” and traditional religion.

While not remotely approaching the 345 million views of their waggish “Thrift Shop” video, “Same Love” reached number 51 on the Billboard Hot 100 earlier this month and tops the charts Down Under. As I write, YouTube reports almost 50 million views of the music video for “Same Love” by the hip hop duo Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, a single recorded to support same-sex marriage in Washington state.

Macklemore songs about love