Heathens
twenty one pilots · Suicide Squad: The Album
A warning that doubles as an invitation to belong
What do these signals mean?
- Edifying: Points the heart toward God, truth, hope, or love.
- Worth Weighing: Real good and real concern together. Test it before you take it in.
- Take Caution: Leans toward what could dull or mislead. Approach carefully.
- Consider Avoiding: Celebrates what Scripture warns against. Little here builds up.
Weighed against Scripture
“Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God.”
The song's final turn, welcoming a stranger into the community of the broken, echoes the call to accept one another as Christ accepted us. Acceptance here isn't earned by being whole.
“The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.”
The 'room of people' in the song is full of the brokenhearted. The psalm's promise that God is near to them sits quietly behind the song's empathy, even if it isn't named.
“And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners, they said unto his disciples, How is it that he eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners? When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Jesus sat with the people others kept at arm's length. The song's warning to outsiders about who they're sitting next to mirrors the unease others felt when Jesus welcomed exactly these kinds of people to the table.
On the surface this song reads like a caution sign, warning an outsider about the damaged, complicated people inside. But the real move is in the last line: the outsider has become one of them. The 'heathens' aren't celebrated for their brokenness; they're a community of people who have been hurt, who keep their weapons checked at the door, and who recognize each other across the wreckage. It's a song about the strange mercy of being known by people who are also broken, and finding you belong there too.
No profanity. Imagery of guns, hand grenades, psychopaths, and murderers is figurative and tied to the Suicide Squad soundtrack context, describing the broken inner lives of people, not literal violence.
The song lives in the tension between brokenness and belonging. It doesn't point explicitly toward God, but it honestly names the damage people carry and quietly suggests that being known and accepted despite that damage matters. That reaching is real even if it doesn't fully arrive.
Tyler Joseph wrote this for people who feel like outsiders or who carry hidden wounds. The intent is empathy and solidarity, not glorification of darkness. The closing turn, 'it looks like you might be one of us,' reframes belonging for the broken rather than celebrating brokenness itself.
When you listen to the last line, does the idea of being welcomed into a community of broken people feel like grace, or does something about that community make you want to stay outside?