Ballet, Google, and Lyrics

I was watching the video of Sergei Polunin dancing to Hozier’s Take me to Church song (again). The staging is beautiful and pairing ballet with non-traditional music makes it feel much more powerful and exciting. I tried searching to see if this is a genre and there’re other similar videos to watch, but it’s a near-impossible thing to ask google.

Me: Hey, are there other videos like this video?

Google: Here are 20 links to the video you like.

Me: Thanks, but I want to see ones like this, not this one.

Google: I am taking a page from Siri, and refuse to be helpful in this matter. There are no search terms you will ever think up that make me give you the answer you want. You’re welcome.

Me: Ok, I’ll just watch this one video again.

 While I’m watching, I wonder about the lyrics. From the bits I’ve recognized, this song clearly has nothing to do with church in the traditional sense. I really want to look up the lyrics and see what it’s all about. But doing that means I will then hear the correct words every time I listen to the song. There is a certain magic in listening to music where you don’t know the words, and once you destroy that, the song never feels quite the same. That’s what happened with the Vikings theme song – I just had to look up the lyrics and now I can sing along, but don’t get that thrill of the music and voices swirling around me. So as curious as I am, I keep telling myself that life is better when you don’t know all the words to a song.

Unless you’re performing the National Anthem. Then it might be a good thing.