Continuing the pop music tradition of incorporating religious metaphor (hear: Madonna’s “Like A Prayer,” Beyoncé’s “Heaven,” Lana Del Rey’s “Gods and Monsters,” MARINA’s “Handmade Heaven” or even Kesha’s own “Raising Hell,” to name a few), Kesha adds “Only Love Can Save Us Now” into the canon. While her previous two singles from Gag Order, “Eat the Acid” and “Fine Line,” didn’t so directly refer to her ongoing legal struggles with one, Lukasz Gottwald, this particular track minces no words.
Co-produced with Rick Rubin, Jussifer and Stint, the moody, erratic beat is reminiscent of Kesha’s first two musical offerings, Animal and Cannibal. Despite Kesha warning fans that she didn’t feel like this record was “danceable,” instead billing it as a more “personal” album, the singer can’t help but surrender to visceral rhythms sooner or later when it comes to making music. “Only Love Can Save Us Now” proves that point as the more sinister, “irascible” part of the backing track would be right at home on any record before Rainbow. Even certain word choices harken back to Kesha’s “Ke$ha” period. For example, when she warns, “I’m ‘bout to blow your fuckin’ head through the ceiling,” who can help but think back to her also warning, “This place about to blow” on, what else, “Blow” (from the Cannibal EP)? Maybe that’s deliberate on Kesha’s part—perhaps she wants to make subtle digs at her “Dr. Luke era” to remind him that she’s forgotten nothing. Meanwhile, he actively works to court amnesia (no legal pun intended).
As for the religious overtones, Kesha is quick to spit metaphors like, “The resurrection’s here/Can you believe it?” (one imagines Dr. Luke wouldn’t like to). She also mentions, “Been baptized in Hollywood in the Cathedral/The power of Christ compels me, I’m a demon/Keep singing hallelujah, nothing can save us.” For those convinced that the Hollywood machine is a satanic cabal rooted in conspiracy, this song will surely bring a smile of vindication to their face. Her use of religious “ecstasy” gone wrong makes sense when considering most pop stars can’t help but eventually come to view themselves as godlike (what with celebrities being the new deities that people worship). Like Taylor Swift before her on “Look What You Made Me Do,” Kesha announces, “The bitch I was, she dead/Her grave desecrated.” Except, of course, Taylor’s words were, “I’m sorry, but the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Oh, ‘cause she’s dead.” This idea that, after a certain amount of publicly-splashed trauma, a famous person “dies” and becomes more their impenetrable celebrity self than their former “human” self is also present in Kesha’s declaration. And maybe that’s for the best in some ways since, as Kesha puts it, “I would kill for secrets/All of mine been leaking/I don’t got no shame left/Baby that’s my freedom.”
Having “nothing left to be ashamed of” is also something fellow Dr. Luke collaborator Britney Spears knows all about as she “dares” to keep posting videos of herself dancing with captions that are cryptic but not too cryptic to pick up on the underlying message of: “fuck everyone.” Especially people like Dr. Luke who were among the many to use her as what Dr. L himself called an “amazing vehicle.” As though she wasn’t even a person, just a money-making machine. Kesha echoed a similar feeling on “Fine Line” as she concluded, “There’s a fine line between what’s entertaining/And what’s just exploiting the pain/But hey, look at all the money we made off me.”
That “fine line” was crossed many times by Kesha’s abuser, which is why it’s easy to interpret one of her lyrics as doubling for the perfection she was forced to strive for physically while under his manipulative control. That lyric being, “Goddamn perfection in his image he made us.” Not to liken Dr. Luke to “God” or anything, but he has had his fair share of authority over the music industry via his status as one of few the producers who can cite innumerable hits on the Billboard charts. Though he has yet to surpass his mentor, of sorts, Max Martin. Indeed, it was through Martin that Gottwald secured his “Britney gig.” Which prompted him to say such telling things as, “I’m excited to be co-executive producing with Max Martin, the person who kind of invented Britney, and to make good music.” Clearly, he thinks he’s the Regina George to Kesha’s supposed Cady Heron and, like, invented her as well. But no, neither man needed to “invent” Britney or Kesha. Their talent and hard work was what got them where they are (and, in Kesha’s case, there’s a touch of the nepo baby flair thanks to her mother, Pebe Sebert, already being in the business).
But Kesha (and Britney) is done with the “goddamn perfection” that was expected of her. From Dr. Luke, or anyone else. So it is that she urges, “Yeah Jesus take the wheel/I’m going through phases.” This particular one doesn’t discount her past, but rather, incorporates it in a new way into the sonic and lyrical compositions. Even traces of the religious motif on 2020’s “Raising Hell” are easy to be reminded of on “Only Love Can Save Us Now.” For example, Kesha singing on the former, “Hallelujah I’m still here, still bringing it to ya/Ohm like Buddha” and “I’m all fucked up in my Sunday best/No walk of shame ’cause I love this dress/Hungover, heart of gold, holy mess/Doin’ my best/Bitch, I’m blessed.” The recurring topic of shame and ridding herself of it has obviously been something she’s grappled with in the wake of being mocked and having her integrity questioned ever since 2014, when she launched the civil suit against Dr. Luke in the first place. This prompting, among many countersuits, a libel one aimed at Kesha’s mother for speaking in support of her daughter on Twitter. Ergo, Kesha defying her “gag order” by singing, “I’m getting sued because my mom has been tweeting/Don’t fucking tell me that I’m dealing with reason.”
In fact, don’t ever tell any woman (in the entertainment industry or otherwise) that that’s what she’s been dealing with in a patriarchal society. To boot, Kesha takes a risk on her song being too literally interpreted as some kind of sacrilege (because everyone is too literal these days). But if Kesha is “denouncing” religion, she at least champions the one fundamental principle that most of them are founded on: love. Alas, when “organized networks” get involved, that message quickly becomes tainted. Thus, she riffs on a simple moral that The Beatles gave us long ago: “All you need is love.” Except when some asshole fucks you over and incites you to write an album about the slight.
