Bad Religion: Pete Wentz and the Club Called Heaven
Both in his work with Fall Out Boy and on other projects, the bassist and lyricist frequently compares heaven to a nightclub with playful yet powerful references to the pearly gates.
Written by Audrey Vieira
Illustrated by Isabel Alvarez
Anyone who has seen Fall Out Boy close out a show with its 2003 hit “Saturday” knows bassist and lyricist Pete Wentz has “read about the afterlife.” But Wentz has also written a great deal about the afterlife, specifically heaven, which he often compares to a nightclub in terms of both its lavishness and its exclusivity.
Wentz’s short-lived electronic band Black Cards contains the most overt references to the “Club Called Heaven,” which is also the name of the project’s debut single. The track features Bebe Rexha singing lyrics written by Wentz, which allude to prayer and partying alike. The couplet, “See myself in a long black car / Two red Marys and I’m full of grace,” applies to both a limousine and a funeral hearse, and the “red Marys” reference both pregaming and partaking in communion. The conflation of clubbing and heaven may seem kitschy at first, but the song serves a higher purpose by drawing attention to the gatekeeping of both institutions and alluding to Wentz’s own fears of being excluded from the pearly gates, with one line stating, “Is there a velvet rope up in the clouds?”
Unfortunately, “Club Called Heaven” has vanished from much of the Internet — originally released on the Black Cards MySpace page in 2010, the original file is no longer streamable due to a data migration error resulting in the accidental deletion of all music uploaded to the platform prior to 2015 — but it is far from the only song written by Wentz to depict heaven as a nightclub. “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Fame,” the oldest Black Cards song still listed on streaming services, also incorporates the comparison with the line, “I deal and drink in spades, but Heaven’s got a gate full of metal detectors.” Like “Club Called Heaven,” Wentz once again alludes to an unknown gatekeeper threatening to exclude him from the party, whether it be other people or his own self judging him.
Black Cards has been on indefinite hiatus since 2012, but Wentz has continued to expand on the motifs of “Club Called Heaven” and “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Fame” in Fall Out Boy’s post-hiatus work. Wentz began weaving this into the band’s collection in 2013 with the release of its comeback album, Save Rock And Roll. On the album’s penultimate track “Rat A Tat,” Wentz writes lyrics which mention one of heaven’s gatekeeper’s directly, expressing the desire “to get on St. Peter’s list,” before declaring, “You need to lower your standards / Because it’s never getting any better than this.” The mention of St. Peter, who in Christianity is often portrayed as the gatekeeper of heaven, implies St. Peter may be the doorman of the “Club Called Heaven” Wentz wrote about for Black Cards. The fact that Wentz shares his first name would explain a line in the second verse of “Club Called Heaven” about “know[ing] the doorman personally.”
Photo courtesy of Elliott Ingham
Wentz continues to carry the “Club Called Heaven” motif into his more recent work with Fall Out Boy. The band’s latest release, MANIA, features a ballad called “Heaven’s Gate,” in which he writes, “And in the end, if I don’t make it on the list / Will you sneak me a wristband?” and asks for “a boost over heaven’s gate.” The mention of the list and the wristbands references nightclub guest lists and St. Peter’s list alike. Both draw parallels to Wentz’s earlier lyrics comparing heaven to a nightclub, but the “Heaven’s Gate” comparison is as much about loving someone else as it is about Wentz’s own anxieties. There are multiple ways to interpret the song — Wentz could be hoping his lover will reciprocate his affection by taking the risk of sneaking him into the “Club Called Heaven,” or maybe Wentz’s love for this person is so powerful that he feels redeemed by their love to the point where he feels absolved of any past guilt — but all are powerful extensions of the motif introduced in the lyrics for “Club Called Heaven.”
Despite the original track being unavailable to stream on the likes of Spotify and Apple music, the ”Club Called Heaven” motif can be found throughout much of Wentz’s lyricism. Though he has conflated heaven’s lavishness and exclusivity with that of a nightclub’s multiple times over the course of his career, sometimes comparing St. Peter to the club’s doorman, the metaphor never feels tired or overwrought. Whether Wentz is working with Fall Out Boy, Black Cards, or other artists, his witty lyricism tends to shine through, and the recurring motif of “Club Called Heaven” is no exception.