{"id":267455,"date":"2025-11-02T19:39:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T19:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/267455\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T19:39:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T19:39:08","slug":"why-brandi-carlile-recited-a-thomas-jefferson-statement-in-snl-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/267455\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Brandi Carlile Recited a Thomas Jefferson Statement in ‘SNL’ Song"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tTwo rarities during the musical performances on \u201cSaturday Night Live<\/a>\u201d this weekend: actual rock \u2018n\u2019 roll was performed. Even rarer than that, Thomas Jefferson was quoted \u2014 prominently and at length \u2014 in the spot where a guitar solo might have gone. <\/p>\n

\n\tDuring Brandi Carlile<\/a>\u2018s performance of the hard-rocking, U2-styled \u201cChurch & State,\u201d Carlile offered a spoken recitation between choruses about the title subject. Viewers might have thought the words sounded familiar, but hard to exactly place. From the Constitution, maybe? <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tNot quite, but close. The words Carlile chose to share with \u201cSNL\u201d viewers are from a riff on the Constitution, if you will \u2014 Thomas Jefferson\u2019s famous letter to the Danbury Baptists, from 1802.<\/a> In words Carlile calmly reads back on her new album, but put across as something closer to a howl on \u201cSNL,\u201d Jefferson write:<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCarlile rarely speaks too overtly in terms of partisan politics, but it\u2019s clear where she stands, and never more so than in a track that manages to come off as a topical protest song just by virtue of quoting Thomas Jefferson. Add to that Carlile\u2019s own lyrics \u2014 \u201cWhile the empire was failing\u2026\u201d and \u201cI saw the ivory towers before the revolution started\u201d \u2014 and it\u2019s clear that \u201cChurch & State\u201d is not exactly meant to be an 1802 period piece. <\/p>\n

\n\tIn recent conversations with Variety<\/a> about the new album \u201cReturning to Myself,\u201d Carlile talked about writing \u201cChurch & State\u201d on Election Night 2024 with her co-producer, Andrew Watt<\/a>, and band members Phil and Tim Hanseroth, as a protest song, or at least reflection anthem, on what they saw going down in America.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd, yes, she readily acknowledged the U2 influence that \u201cSNL\u201d viewers were quick to pick up on.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOn Nov. 5, we were in the studio as a band, and it wasn\u2019t an introspective night. It was a night where I couldn\u2019t stay off my phone because I was watching myself wake up to a realization about the country that I lived in. And I was listening to \u2018Bullet the Blue Sky,\u2019 and I was leaning into my early years and just kind of collecting rage. And we made a burning, searing song that night,\u201d where, she says, she was led to \u201cread a conversation on the First Amendment\u201d into the recording \u201cinstead of a guitar solo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tExplained Carlile, \u201cWhen the lyrics were coming together for that song, I just couldn\u2019t stop thinking of the wisdom of Thomas Jefferson\u2019s address to the Danbury Baptists. There\u2019s so much wisdom in the Constitution, and even the notations on the Constitution are full of wisdom \u2014 the footnotes, if you will. What he said to the Baptists was intended to reassure them that they would be allowed to practice their faith, spirituality, religion, however you want to refer to it, freely under the Constitution. But he also makes a really important distinction that we aren\u2019t an autocracy. We\u2019re not a theocracy. We can\u2019t rule over people with our interpretation of an extremely opaque scripture and religion, as it pertains particularly to the Christian religion. Now that we\u2019ve seen over time the integration of so many beautiful cultures and faiths in the United States, it\u2019s a connotation that\u2019s safekeeping for all people, because it allows for the law to be secular as it should be. So I find that to be essential and a life-giving part of that text.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCarlile, who self-identified herself in her bestselling memoir as a person of faith, says in regard to this text and this song, \u201cIn my faith, Jesus was clear about not ruling a people based on an interpretation of religion. Even Jesus said, \u2018Give unto Caesar what\u2019s Caesar\u2019s.\u2019 So I can\u2019t get behind rules and laws that I know are secretly based on an interpretation of a religion that I can\u2019t get behind, even if I agree with the religion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTalking about the pronounced U2 influence in the song, Carlile said that goes back to her youth. \u201cOne of my top five favorite albums of all time growing up was \u2018The Joshua Tree.\u2019 I even entered a contest one time as Bono when I was 15 to win a singing competition, singing \u2018Running to Stand Still.\u2019 I wore sunglasses and shit and I fell on my knees at the end of it. I already had the lesbian haircut that he has, so it wasn\u2019t much of a stretch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe musical seed for the song was sewn a while back, before she brought it back up with Watt and the Hanseroth twins<\/a> on election night. \u201cI got a song from Tim a couple of years ago, this beautiful concept and riff and this drop-D and all of this cognitive dissonance in the song, and I sunk my teeth into it then. And I said, whatever that is, that\u2019s a direction for where I feel like we could go musically. And then I tucked it away in the back of my mind and forgot about it until Nov. 5.\u201d At first it was a blur until co-producer\/co-writer Watt got more involved. When her band jams, \u201cit kind of sometimes winds up being a little bit of a sonic tornado, but Andrew had this idea for this separate guitar line, this separate bass line, and I think that\u2019s where it kind of hit the U2 button for me,\u201d with parts that are redolent of peak Edge and peak Adam Clayton. And not to forget peak Larry Mullen Jr.: \u201cMatt Chamberlain just endured with that crazy drum riff. That was an aerobic workout.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tMusical guest Brandi Carlile performs \u201cChurch & State\u201d on November 1, 2025 <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWill Heath\/NBC via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tIf you were confused about where the recitation in the song came from, you\u2019re not the only one.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI love Andrew Watt so much. Every time we talk on the phone, he\u2019s like, \u2018I fucking love \u201cChurch & State,\u201d \u2014 I love when you read the Declaration of Independence.\u2019\u2026 I love Andrew Watt, man. It doesn\u2019t matter where he thought it came from. He agreed with it, he believed in it and it really excited him. He loved that part of the song and he was so encouraging, and he was in the exact same place that we were.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile \u201cChurch & State\u201d is rooted in anger, it offers a hopeful denouement. In an album steeped in an awareness of mortality, Carlile takes that as a positive thing when she looks at failing leadership and declares, \u201cWhen the frailty overcomes them \/ And they begin to crawl \/ Reaching out their bloody hands \/ Guess who gets to make the call? \/ Well they don\u2019t see, what we see \/ But we believe, we believe \/ That they\u2019re not gonna live forever \u2026 They\u2019re here today then they\u2019re gone forever\u2026 We\u2019ll find a way \/ Imagine if we could.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCarlile\u2019s second performance of \u201cSNL\u201d was of a gentler song from the new album that also had a connection to the 2024 election, \u201cHuman,\u201d which was written the night before the results came in and refers more obliquely to the mood many felt at the time.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tCarlile\u2019s appearance on the Miles Teller-hosted episode was her second as a musical guest in 2025. Earlier in the year she sang alongside Elton John to promote their dual album \u201cWho Believes in Angels?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two rarities during the musical performances on \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d this weekend: actual rock \u2018n\u2019 roll was performed.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[109182,10480,88,135907,216,12015],"class_list":{"0":"post-267455","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-andrew-watt","9":"tag-brandi-carlile","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-hanseroth-twins","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-saturday-night-live"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}