At this point, Veronica has been publicly humiliated and J.D. has been beaten up by Kurt and Ram. Our lovers are at their absolute low point. They comfort each other by imagining the destruction of this cruel and insane world and starting over. We took the title for the song from one of the many iconic lines in the movie. When J.D. says “Our love is God. Let’s go get a slushie,” Christian Slater delivers it in a rakish, off-the-cuff manner. But that first sentence really resonated with us. “Our love is God.” Wow. It’s an incredibly narcissistic thing to say, but that’s how we remember feeling about relationships in high school. On the other hand, it’s also the kind of thing a serial killer would say to justify his actions. Throughout the first half of the song, this seems like a romantic notion, a “you and me against the world” empowerment fantasy. We were kind of imagining a sort of alternate-universe-version of West Side Story's “Somewhere” where Tony and Maria fantasize about an asteroid obliterating the cruel world that keeps them apart. The twist comes when J.D. reveals that he's not being metaphorical.

After killing Kurt and Ram, J.D. reprises this refrain: I WORSHIP YOU. I’D TRADE MY LIFE FOR YOURS. WE'LL MAKE THEM DISAPPEAR; WE’LL PLANT OUR GARDEN HERE... OUR LOVE IS GOD.It’s nearly the exact same words and music he sings earlier in the song, but having just committed two murders, he no longer sounds like a dreamy rebel. Veronica and the audience now realize he is a dangerous psychopath.

Compositionally, this was a fun musical puzzle. We needed a melodic and harmonic vocabulary that could serve in the early, gentle verses as a sensitive emo ballad, but then turn terrifying once J.D. has shot Ram and Kurt, as the unseen scary choir swells behind the murder scene. We shared a J.D. grin when we hit on a bass line that rises slowly for the first four bars, then climbs down ominously for the next four: sort of a climb towards heaven followed by a slide into hell.

Oh nothing, just the way that Heathers doesn’t fit into cultural “norms.”

The most popular girl in school is a junior, and has nothing really going for her except she’s rich and pretty. But how did she get to be so popular? Did she just start buying people things? Did she start sleeping around to get up her reputation? I don’t think so, because it doesn’t seem like many people know anything about her body. Or did she start finding secrets and blackmailing people until everyone was scared of her? So to be “safe” you have to be accepted by her.

The cheerleader isn’t a big, over-the-top personality. She’s not portrayed as dumb, just lost and emotional. She’s hurt and doesn’t know how to fix it. And she really isn’t the most popular of the heathers, or even semi-popular. She’s pretty, and she gathers the attention of Ram and Kurt, but that is only shown after Chandler dies. (Think “I’d love to be in a heather/veronica sandwich” in the caf scene). Really, the only reason she’s popular is because she’s a heather.

And the last one? She’s a nerd! She carries around Moby Dick, doesn’t talk to anyone until after a role is opened up, and doesn’t consider herself pretty enough to have a voice. Now, how much of this is because of Chandler, who’s to say? But she can’t have just “believed” that once she was found.

And then there’s Veronica, who is the “alt-leaning” one of the group, also a nerd (I mean, you have to be to know how to do other’s handwriting), and we have no idea how she was adopted into the heathers. We have the musical version, sure, but there’s no evidence of that in the movie, and she doesn’t hang out with the heathers all the time, and seems irritated when she’s summoned to the caf. Why is she a heather? Was she picked because she was pretty and could be the “and her” of the group? Was she supposed to make them seem more kind? Was it because she had money, and dressed kinda okay? Or were people talking about her, and Chandler had to pick her up?

These four girls wouldn’t be friends in any other movie, but somehow they do get along, at least a little bit, but the nerds are popular, the girl who doesn’t have anything going is the leader, and the cheerleader is shy, kind, and sympathetic. This is completely off track to most other 80s movies.

I was alone

I was a frozen lake

But then you melted me awake

See, now I’m crying, too

I joined the goddamn A.V. Club for you!

...I worship you

I'd trade my life for yours

We'll make them disappear

We'll plant our garden here

Our love is God

You were meant to be mine

I am all that you need

You carved open my heart

You can’t just leave me to bleed

on nostalgia