Why Brandi Carlile Recited a Thomas Jefferson Statement in ‘SNL’ Song

Two rarities during the musical performances on “Saturday Night Live” this weekend: actual rock ‘n’ roll was performed. Even rarer than that, Thomas Jefferson was quoted — prominently and at length — in the spot where a guitar solo might have gone.

During Brandi Carlile‘s performance of the hard-rocking, U2-styled “Church & State,” 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?

Not quite, but close. The words Carlile chose to share with “SNL” viewers are from a riff on the Constitution, if you will — Thomas Jefferson’s famous letter to the Danbury Baptists, from 1802. In words Carlile calmly reads back on her new album, but put across as something closer to a howl on “SNL,” Jefferson write:

“I 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.”

Carlile rarely speaks too overtly in terms of partisan politics, but it’s 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’s own lyrics — “While the empire was failing…” and “I saw the ivory towers before the revolution started” — and it’s clear that “Church & State” is not exactly meant to be an 1802 period piece.

In recent conversations with Variety about the new album “Returning to Myself,” Carlile talked about writing “Church & State” on Election Night 2024 with her co-producer, Andrew Watt, and band members Phil and Tim Hanseroth, as a protest song, or at least reflection anthem, on what they saw going down in America.

And, yes, she readily acknowledged the U2 influence that “SNL” viewers were quick to pick up on.

“On Nov. 5, we were in the studio as a band, and it wasn’t an introspective night. It was a night where I couldn’t 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 ‘Bullet the Blue Sky,’ and I was leaning into my early years and just kind of collecting rage. And we made a burning, searing song that night,” where, she says, she was led to “read a conversation on the First Amendment” into the recording “instead of a guitar solo.”

Explained Carlile, “When the lyrics were coming together for that song, I just couldn’t stop thinking of the wisdom of Thomas Jefferson’s address to the Danbury Baptists. There’s so much wisdom in the Constitution, and even the notations on the Constitution are full of wisdom — 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’t an autocracy. We’re not a theocracy. We can’t rule over people with our interpretation of an extremely opaque scripture and religion, as it pertains particularly to the Christian religion. Now that we’ve seen over time the integration of so many beautiful cultures and faiths in the United States, it’s a connotation that’s 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.”

Carlile, who self-identified herself in her bestselling memoir as a person of faith, says in regard to this text and this song, “In my faith, Jesus was clear about not ruling a people based on an interpretation of religion. Even Jesus said, ‘Give unto Caesar what’s Caesar’s.’ So I can’t get behind rules and laws that I know are secretly based on an interpretation of a religion that I can’t get behind, even if I agree with the religion.”

Talking about the pronounced U2 influence in the song, Carlile said that goes back to her youth. “One of my top five favorite albums of all time growing up was ‘The Joshua Tree.’ I even entered a contest one time as Bono when I was 15 to win a singing competition, singing ‘Running to Stand Still.’ 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’t much of a stretch.”

The musical seed for the song was sewn a while back, before she brought it back up with Watt and the Hanseroth twins on election night. “I 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’s 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.” At first it was a blur until co-producer/co-writer Watt got more involved. When her band jams, “it 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’s where it kind of hit the U2 button for me,” with parts that are redolent of peak Edge and peak Adam Clayton. And not to forget peak Larry Mullen Jr.: “Matt Chamberlain just endured with that crazy drum riff. That was an aerobic workout.”

If you were confused about where the recitation in the song came from, you’re not the only one.

“I love Andrew Watt so much. Every time we talk on the phone, he’s like, ‘I fucking love “Church & State,” — I love when you read the Declaration of Independence.’… I love Andrew Watt, man. It doesn’t 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.”

While “Church & State” 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, “When the frailty overcomes them / And they begin to crawl / Reaching out their bloody hands / Guess who gets to make the call? / Well they don’t see, what we see / But we believe, we believe / That they’re not gonna live forever … They’re here today then they’re gone forever… We’ll find a way / Imagine if we could.”

Carlile’s second performance of “SNL” was of a gentler song from the new album that also had a connection to the 2024 election, “Human,” which was written the night before the results came in and refers more obliquely to the mood many felt at the time.

Carlile’s 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 “Who Believes in Angels?”