“This Is Heaven” by Nick Jonas, Monday, February 14, 2022

In 2018 Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra Jonas married in two ceremonies. The ceremonies took place in India and represented the religious backgrounds of both the Bollywood-turned-Hollywood actress and the singer/actor. The first ceremony was Christian, taking place on December 1, and the second was Hindu on December 2. In 2019, Nick and the two other Jonas Brothers released their first album in ten years. Nick's solo career had heated up after the Jonas hiatus, but a reunited Jonas Brothers was even more commercially exciting. In 2021, Nick Jonas was back with a solo record, this time dealing with the themes of isolation due to the pandemic, but mostly about his love for his bride.

I'M ON MY KNEES AND I CAN'T STOP NOW. From the moment I heard Nick Jonas's second single from Spaceman, "This Is Heaven," on his Saturday Night Live performance, I started making connections to what I knew about the Jonas Brothers' religious upbringing, particularly the story told by the 2019 documentary film Chasing Happiness. The film discusses the hard years in between the Jonas fame and Kevin Jonas, Sr. losing his job as the pastor of a church in Wyckoff, New Jersey. Reflecting on that moment, Nick, Joe, and Kevin's own faith was shaped by that disappointment in the church. Still, as teenagers, the Jonas Brothers were squeaky-clean Disney Channel role models to evangelical teens. They were even played on Christian radio stations and once shared the stage with Michael W. Smith singing "Place in This World." But little by little, the evangelical Jonas Brother image unravelled. I certainly can't speak to what the Brothers believe now, but it's interesting how the brand has changed. Nick embraced his role as a gay icon to the point that some in the LGBTQ+ community accused him of "queer bating." There are many other aspects that the morality police of my past (the Christian music industry, etc.) could say about the Jonas Brothers/Nick Jonas career arch, but they would just rather forget that they were a part of it, albeit a very small part.

YOUR BODY, MY MOTIVATION. I was thinking about something Dan Reynolds said in the episode of Song Exploder about "Follow You." He said, "I worship [my wife]. This is my religion because religion hasn't worked for me." Similarly to "Follow You," "This Is Heaven" speaks of Nick Jonas essentially worshiping his wife. One thing I remember when I went to church was the talk about why men stopped going to church. The solution was usually about "butching up the church"; however, it seems that the actuality of the need for this solution may not be the truth of the matter, at least from the two singers mentioned before. I think about my own Sabbath school Bible studies that persistently warned us not to be "unequally yoked." This meant for Seventh-day Adventists to marry other Seventh-day Adventists. Then I think about when I threw all of that out the window in frustration when I realized I couldn't fit into who the church said I was supposed to be. At one point, though, I did try to do the "gay version" of my upbringing, trying to find a Christian way to be gay, trying to date only gay Christians. But having been in a longterm relationship with someone who wasn't raised Christian, I'm always interested to see how differently he sees the world. "This Is Heaven" doesn't send him back to Bible studies past, and I think that's a good thing.

Happy Valentine's Day! Check out my Valentine's Day playlists on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music if you need a soundtrack for this special day. Also be sure to check out my NoiseTrade 25 Love Songs playlist.

Also, check out the original post from last year.

Read “This Is Heaven” by Nick Jonas on Genius.

Official Music Video: