When the God of Love Returns There'll Be Hell to Pay

Album: Pure Comedy (2017)
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Songfacts®:

  • Father John Misty was raised in an evangelical Christian household, and while he no longer believes in God he still often invokes Biblical imagery in his music. Here he uses Jesus' second coming to explore human nature.
  • Misty explained to NME that the song "imagines this scenario when God comes back and we're all like, 'F--- you! You have no right to judge us, you made us this way!'"

    "In Genesis, God made the world because he was bored and lonely, and that's why we make things, too," he continued. "We make things to be understood, which is why it's so tragic to make something and only become more misunderstood. If the music I make just pushes people further away, that's real failure."
  • The song was produced to sound like a church hymn, featuring only a piano and a choir.

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