There was no encore and we were at the very back of the venue, so when the lights came up seconds after the final strum of “Butterfly,” we were almost to the door and I was halfway through telling my friend of the high praise I once bestowed on the song that didn’t need my help.

In my first and second years of college, at a Jesuit school, I played with a gathering of religious folks, a collective, really, called the Liturgical Arts Group. I kid you not, I signed up to meet girls. I tossed what guitar skills I had into the holy ring at a mass during Freshman Orientation just about a month before school started. I fell out of favor with the group during my sophomore year, after I’d changed majors, facial hairstyle, and relationship status, given up the Holy Ghost and embraced the heathenism and much of the hedonism I’d theretofore been denied, or denied myself. It was once the weekly ritual, a thing to do, a chance to perform, but by my second year my appearances were few and far between. No matter how infrequent they became, one particular night stood out and merited a rehash the night of the Pinkerton show.

There were usually about seven of us, three guitars, a bass, a piano, maybe a flute and/or a violin. We’d play on and off throughout the mass, during the short communal prayers mostly, with a full song of celebration at the very end.

On this particular night, the pianist was not there. We otherwise made do without her, but at one point in the mass her absence would be especially conspicuous. She normally played alone during the few minutes when the priest, in Catholic tradition, turned those wafers and wine into the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ. The two other guitarists, a year older and de facto student leaders, knew we had to do something and thought one of us should play.

I said, “I know a song.”

And so I played it, as devoid of ego as I could be, but with all the reverence that the moment deserved. Because even if I wasn’t long for the group, or the religion as it properly demands, I was in a special place surrounded by a hell of a lot of people who would continue to believe. It was not my place to choose any lesser song.

And I didn’t put together until my friend and I were leaving Roseland, after I’d told him of my selection, that even beyond being a simple, beautiful song, the title and the lyrics attached to it are, opera aside, in two or three or four ways about transformation. I meant the far opposite of disrespect to all parties involved by co-opting the song for a religious purpose. But looking back, the fact that there might not have been a song in creation more perfectly suited for that time in my life, and for that night, gives me almost as many chills as I got hearing Rivers Cuomo play it live for me, and for all of us.