Kesha Cries Out to God in New Single, ‘Praying’

Kesha begs for God’s intervention in her new single, “Praying.”

“Am I dead? Or is this one of those dreams? Those horrible dreams that seem like they last forever? If I am alive, why? If there is a God or whatever, something, somewhere, why have I been abandoned by everyone and everything I’ve ever known? I’ve ever loved? Stranded. What is the lesson? What is the point? God, give me a sign, or I have to give up. I can’t do this anymore. Please just let me die. Being alive hurts too much,” she says at the beginning of the song.

“Praying” is off the star’s first album in five years.

The star has fought a deeply emotional legal battle through her time between albums against producer Dr. Luke, whom she claims sexually abused her. The latest court battle geared up in January.

To encourage herself through the fight, Kesha covered “Amazing Grace.” 

Through “Praying,” Kesha says she’s searching for healing.

“I have channeled my feelings of severe hopelessness and depression, I’ve overcome obstacles and I have found strength in myself even when it felt out of reach. I’ve found what I had thought was an unobtainable place of peace. This song is about coming to feel empathy for someone else even if they hurt you or scare you. It’s a song about learning to be proud of the person you are even during low moments when you feel alone. It’s also about hoping everyone, even someone who hurt you, can heal,” Kesha says in a Lenny Letter.

But the god of her song doesn’t exactly line up with the God of the Bible.

“For me, God is not a bearded man sitting in the clouds or a judgmental, homophobic tyrant waiting to send everyone to eternal damnation. God is nature and space and energy and the universe. My own interpretation of spirituality isn’t important, because we all have our own. What matters is that I have something greater than me as an individual that helps bring me peace. This is one of the reasons why I love swimming way, way out into the middle of the ocean and just letting the sea carry my body. It is my greatest form of surrender to the universe, a full-body prayer—or meditation,” Kesha says.

The song goes:

“Oh, sometimes, I pray for you at night/Oh, someday, maybe you’ll see the light/Oh, some say, in life you gonna get what you give/But some things, only God can forgive/I hope you’re somewhere praying, praying/I hope your soul is changing, changing/I hope you find your peace/Falling on your knees, praying.” {eoa}