#88, “Praying,” Kesha (2017)

150 Favorite Songs: #90, “Praying,” Kesha (2017)

There are so many things worth writing songs about, and Kesha had written about a few of them: About going out dancing, about going out dancing with tears in your eyes, about going out dancing because the world might be ending and you might die young, about going out dancing with the only person you love and want to dance with, etc, etc. These are all sentiments at the core of pop music, and Kesha wrote about those things as well as anyone ever had. But given what she had spent her early years writing about, it wasn’t immediately evident that she had a “Praying” in her.

The reason Kesha’s career swung in the direction of “Praying” isn’t a happy one. She had been locked into a miserable, oppressive contract with her producer, Dr. Luke, and ultimately filed a lawsuit against him that alleged worse than just a lack of creative control in her music: The lawsuit listed sexual assault and battery, sexual harassment, gendered violence, and more, too. The case made its way through the courts, and eventually Kesha—while she didn’t win the case—was given the chance to make her own music, without Dr. Luke. It took almost five years, but in 2017, she released “Praying.”

“Praying” doesn’t make any specific references to the allegations she made against Dr. Luke, but that’s probably because Kesha is too good of a songwriter to take a song as powerful as this and not give it to everyone who needs it. It’s a song for anyone who has a figure who’s loomed over their life, who made them feel small or frightened, who had to find themselves through abuse and pain and trauma, and who needed to tell them that they were done, that it was over, that whatever power they once held was gone now. She frames all of that graciously, like you might learn to do from therapy—lots of “I” statements, and a “I wish you farewell” on the way, because it’s not a revenge song. It’s a “when I’m finished, they won’t even know your name” song, the kind you write when you really are through.

Here are the moments in “Praying” that give me chills:

• When Kesha sings the first line (“well, you almost had me fooled”), the voice that once sang “brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack” just barely above a whisper, because she’s showing us that even Ke$ha can be vulnerable, too. The “you” in this song is an abuser, but it’s not for him, it’s for whoever is trying to reconcile the way an abuser can make even someone brash and self-confident vulnerable. She shows that from the very beginning, over a simple minor-key piano riff from Ben Folds.

• In the first chorus, when the backing vocals come in late, joining her in the words “changing” and “praying,” and then disappearing again for the next verse.

• In the second verse, when she sings the line “well, you were wrong, and now the best is yet to come,” because she starts that line with the same meek vulnerability with which she sang the first line, but then—nah, fuck it, she belts that one out, and more piano comes in, and strings too, and we’re onto the next part of the song, the part of the song that says “fuck you” to the monsters that kept her from being able to breathe.

• In the second chorus, when Kesha’s voice is ringing out, strong and powerful, and she does the “I wish you farewell” line again and then the drums! My god, the drums! It’s just a simple kick drum, stomped in 4/4 time, transforming the song from a ballad to a power ballad, something you can pull out a lighter to wave around and let Kesha know you hear her.

• In the bridge: You maybe know this part. When “Praying” was released, YouTube was full of reaction videos from people listening to it for the first time. She sings directly to the song’s abuser again here, and the drums drop out: “Sometimes, I pray for you at night / some day, maybe you’ll see the light / some say, in life, you’re gonna get what you give / but some things only god can forgive,” she sings, and then—at the three minute and fourteen second mark, this whistle note that she holds for six full seconds, as cathartic a scream as anyone ever put on a record, and pitch perfect musically, too, because Kesha really is that good.

• In the final chorus, when those drums come back after the whistle note, bringing the whole thing together. My goodness.

(Also, let’s take just another moment to appreciate Kesha’s writing in the bridge, which gets overshadowed by that note she hits at the end, but the ‘sometimes/some day/some say/some things” repetition at the start of each line is just a great way to build the momentum there so the whistle note hits in exactly the right way.)

I was two years into what’s now approaching a nine-year journey in my career of reporting on sexual assault survivors when “Praying” came out, and let me tell you, this song means a lot to people in that situation. Because it’s a fuck-you song, but it’s not just about revenge. The revenge in “Praying” is telling the abuser “you don’t matter anymore,” and how good must it feel to be able to say that? You get one last song, you get to be part of the story for four more minutes, and then it’s over. Writing a song like “Praying” is almost certainly cathartic and meaningful and personal, but it’s also a responsibility, and Kesha meets it perfectly. Not every song on Rainbow, the album from which “Praying” came, is an emotionally wrenching ballad—“Boogie Feet” is about going out dancing because you don’t need more out of life than to go out to dance like a motherfucker—but sometimes, you only really need the one. Kesha had something she needed to say, she said it, and then she was back to herself again. I don’t know if life and healing really work that way—most lines aren’t quite that straight—but I know that believing it can be helps save lives all on its own.