Sophia Michaels
Maybe if Jesus Christ was a super slayer “divin’ off the stage,” Kim Petras would want to be like him. On Thursday, the German pop star released her follow-up single to “Unholy” with Sam Smith, “If Jesus Was a Rockstar.”
“If Jesus was a rock star/Throwin’ daddy’s money all around/While he was gettin’ down/So they kicked him out of the bar/Then I’d, I’d wanna be just like him,” she sings in the chorus.
The track, produced by ILYA, Max Martin, and Omer Fedi, is a slightly tamer single compared to her Slut Pop EP and recent song — and that’s on purpose, she says.
“I think the point of this song is taking away the bells and whistles and the extreme, over-exaggerated characters that I’ve created in the past, especially on Slut Pop and Turn Off the Light,” she told The Daily Beast. “It’s the first time that it’s not an escapist song, and it’s about how I feel as a human in the world right now. It’s the first time that I just felt like the song was meaningful enough to stand by itself.”
Is she religious though? Definitely not. Petras — who recently became the first trans star to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 — has thought about her lack of a connection with religion, and said the song was really about having to make her own version of Jesus.
“It’s just been a thing that I never even had a chance to fit into, because religion never accepted trans people, and I’ve been trans my whole life,” she told the outlet. “When I was a kid and all my friends would go to [receive] Communion and things like that, I was never a part of it. It was just never an option for me.”
She added, “But I still was curious and wanted to know. I think religion was really the first thing where it was like, OK, I am not wanted or accepted here, and I’m on my own.”
“If Jesus Was a Rockstar” is the lead single from Petras’ upcoming album, after dropping a cover of “Running Up That Hill” earlier this year and both “Future Starts Now” and “Coconuts” last year.
