Lyric Vent | "Saint Bernard" - Lincoln

Song Reflection: Saint Bernard

Listening to Saint Bernard feels like peeling back layers of my own past. The opening line,

“Hung pictures of patron saints up on my wall / To remind me that I am a fool”,

hits like a punch to the face. I grew up surrounded by religious iconography—saints, crucifixes, prayers drilled into me at Catholic school. It wasn’t comforting. It was suffocating. Those years were the worst of my life, and this lyric captures the shame and confusion that came with being told I was broken and needed fixing by a faith I never chose.

Then Lincoln sings,
“Tell me where I came from, what I will always be: / Just a spoiled little kid who went to Catholic school.”

That line feels like it was written for me. I came from wealth, yes, but that didn’t protect me from the emotional damage of being forced into a system that made me feel small, guilty, and wrong. Catholic school didn’t nurture me—it tried to mold me into something I wasn’t, and punished me when I resisted.

Religion triggers me because it was never a choice—it was a weapon. My father used Christianity like a leash, yanking me back whenever I tried to explore my own identity. He shoved his beliefs down my throat, not out of love, but out of control. Every prayer, every sermon, every forced confession felt like a denial of my autonomy. I wasn’t allowed to be curious, to be queer, to be different. I was told that questioning was sin, and that sin made me unworthy.

So when Lincoln sings,

“When I am d*ad, I won’t join their ranks / ‘Cause they are both holy and free”,

I feel that deep in my bones. Religion was supposed to be about freedom, but it never was for me. It was chains disguised as salvation. I don’t want to be part of a system that made me feel broken for simply existing. I don’t want to be holy if it means erasing who I am.

And then there’s the line,
“I’m not scared of de*th, I’m scared of dying alone” 

It hits differently when you’ve been isolated by the very people who claimed to love you in the name of faith. Religion didn’t bring me closer to others; it pushed me away. It made me feel like I had to hide parts of myself to be accepted, even by my own family.