On 19th January, Troye Sivan released the much awaited music video for his newly released single “Heaven”. The video is special in many ways.
The release date of the video clashed with one of the important events in the US history. From Sivan’s posts, it became quite evident that the decision was not incidental but deliberate.
In his interview with Dazed, Troye Sivan talked about his decision to release the video on Inauguration Day. He said,
I think at first I was a little heartbroken for the world over the results of this election. I feel like I’ve moved on toward accepting the result. I’ve also moved on toward accepting that my community is going to have to bind together stronger than ever before and fight harder than ever before to continue our journey towards complete acceptance. This video is the first step in that (direction) for me.
The video for “Heaven” shows archived footage of the Gay Civil Rights Movement. The footage is both literal and metaphorical. It shows the struggle people have already gone through and the long struggle people still need to go through to attain the freedom they have been striving for.
When asked if it is important that more and more LGBTQ+ artists come out and speak about their struggle, Troye said,
It’s a personal choice when one does or does not speak out on, but I would recommend that we all speak louder than ever and not become complacent.
While visually, Heaven talks about the struggle the LGBTQ+ community has been going through, lyrically, the song talks about something very personal.
Heterosexuality is a norm. The major driving force behind establishing normalcy in heterosexuality is religion. Troye Sivan shares his personal moment when he got “drifted away” from religion. His realization of being gay was corresponded by the fact that he will be considered a “sinner”.
Lyrically, the song not only contemplates but opens a discourse on this conflict. This is evident from lines like “If there is a God, does he hate me?”, “Without changing a part of me, how can I get in Heaven?” and “If there is a heaven and I can’t be up there myself, then, maybe I don’t want heaven”.
In his interview, Troye addressed the theme of religion evident in his song and said,