Nick Jonas’s “Bacon” sounds like a novelty premise until its central metaphor comes into focus. The song is not primarily about breakfast, despite a video full of diner food, and it is not a leaked oddity from the sessions for Last Year Was Complicated. It is an officially released pop-R&B track featuring Ty Dolla $ign, written by both performers with Nolan Lambroza and Priscilla Renea.
Its subject is the uncomplicated pleasure that can follow a complicated breakup: staying out, making one’s own decisions and recognizing that the old relationship no longer controls the emotional weather. Bacon is the extra indulgence added to a life that already feels good.
Resolving the release-date trail
The song’s rollout unfolded across several dates, which is why databases and contemporary articles can appear to disagree. TIME published its first-listen story on June 3, 2016, describing “Bacon” as a new track from Jonas’s forthcoming album. That report provides the earliest clear evidence of the recording’s authorized public availability and is the best defining date for the song itself.
On June 6, Universal Music’s German division announced “Bacon” as the fourth advance track from the album. Its official label report placed it after “Champagne Problems,” “Close” and “Chainsaw.” The video also premiered through Tidal around June 6, initially leaving non-subscribers with only a teaser.
Then, on June 10, Last Year Was Complicated arrived, and Nick Jonas’s rights-holder YouTube channel published the complete video. Apple Music consequently displays “Bacon” with the album’s June 10 date. These are not incompatible claims: June 3 marks the track’s first documented release window, June 6 the single and video promotion, and June 10 the album and broad official-video release.
The people behind the record
The documented songwriting credits name Nick Jonas, Nolan Lambroza, Priscilla Renea and Tyrone Griffin Jr., better known as Ty Dolla $ign. The MusicBrainz release record identifies all four writers, confirms the Ty Dolla $ign feature and places the song sixth on the standard album sequence.
Lambroza, professionally known as Sir Nolan, also produced the track. He was central to Jonas’s solo transformation, having worked on the 2014 hit “Jealous” as well as multiple songs from Last Year Was Complicated. Renea—later widely known by her artist name Muni Long—brought an extensive pop and R&B songwriting vocabulary. Ty Dolla $ign’s presence is therefore not a decorative verse pasted onto a finished pop record; his legal name appears in the writing credit.
The arrangement is economical. A rubbery bass figure, dry drums and clipped vocal interjections leave space around Jonas’s lead. Funk guitar and synthetic accents color the groove without crowding it. Ty Dolla $ign enters as a contrasting texture: rougher, more elastic and less theatrically polished than Jonas. The feature helps position the song in contemporary R&B rather than letting its title tip the production into outright comedy.
That balance was part of Jonas’s broader solo strategy. Last Year Was Complicated continued the R&B and funk vocabulary of his 2014 self-titled record while presenting a more openly adult narrator. Metacritic’s critical summary characterizes “Bacon” as a celebration of single life and places it among an album’s worth of breakup aftermath.
What “throw some bacon on it” meant
Jonas explained the title during the campaign. According to the Universal Music account, he told Capital FM that the song concerned ending a relationship, realizing the chapter was closed and feeling good again. His life was already great; figuratively adding bacon made it better.
That explanation is more useful than searching the lyric for a literal menu. TIME’s June 3 report heard the record as a bachelor’s inventory of new freedoms: late nights, spontaneous plans and the ability to wake when he chooses. The food image turns emotional recovery into something immediate and sensory.
Musically, Jonas performs that recovery with deliberate swagger. He does not sound devastated or contemplative; he sounds eager to prove that contemplation is over. The repeated hook works like a private joke that becomes a slogan through insistence. That is interpretation rather than a factual claim about his personal relationship history. Although the album drew on a difficult year and a breakup, Jonas remained guarded about assigning individual songs to named former partners.
In a later TIME interview about the album, he said he preferred to be tight-lipped in interviews while speaking more freely—and having fun—through music. That is a warning against reducing “Bacon” to gossip. The record dramatizes post-breakup confidence; it does not provide independently verifiable evidence about a specific ex.
A diner video built around the joke
The official video makes the metaphor literal for three minutes. Filmed in New Orleans at Ted’s Frostop, it follows Jonas and friends into a vintage diner, where food, dancing and late-night disorder overtake the room. A contemporary GQ review noted that the full clip was initially restricted to Tidal and compared its mood to the unruly hunger of a post-party diner stop.
The visual is intentionally broader and sillier than the song’s emotional premise. Jonas moves between booths, the kitchen and a growing crowd while Ty Dolla $ign supplies the guest section. Food migrates across the room; a modest celebration becomes a communal one. The setting converts private relief into spectacle.
Jonas later told Glamour that eating repeatedly during the shoot made him ill. That anecdote undercuts the effortless indulgence portrayed on screen and offers a practical reminder of how music-video abundance is manufactured across multiple takes.
The official YouTube upload, published by Nick Jonas’s verified artist channel on June 10, is the appropriate version to embed. Reposts from television or fan accounts are unnecessary when the rights holder maintains the complete video.
From album cut to VMA showcase
“Bacon” did not become a major Hot 100 hit on the scale of “Jealous” or “Close.” Discography records place it on the Bubbling Under chart rather than the main Billboard Hot 100. Its cultural visibility came instead from performance and video.
MTV nominated it in the Song of Summer category, and Jonas performed it with Ty Dolla $ign during the 2016 Video Music Awards. TIME’s VMA announcement documented the pairing, while the performance extended the diner concept outside the main arena. The staging suited a song whose appeal depended on atmosphere and personality more than chart supremacy.
The record also arrived at a transitional moment for Jonas. He was firmly separating his adult solo identity from the Jonas Brothers’ Disney-era image while balancing acting roles and a summer tour with Demi Lovato. “Bacon” accomplished that reinvention with humor instead of a solemn declaration of maturity. Its groove, guest artist and suggestive confidence did the signaling.
The title remains the hook people remember, but the craftsmanship underneath is why the joke survives. Sir Nolan’s restrained production leaves room for Jonas and Ty Dolla $ign to establish distinct characters; the four credited writers turn emotional closure into a compact slogan; and the video supplies the literal bacon the song only needs metaphorically.
It is best understood not as a novelty song that accidentally landed on a serious breakup album, but as the album’s release valve. After the doubt, jealousy and damage described elsewhere on Last Year Was Complicated, “Bacon” captures the moment recovery becomes pleasurable—and just self-satisfied enough to celebrate in a crowded diner.