Some might say there was no method to the madness of creating a Christmas-themed episode of Carpool Karaoke centered around three of the biggest names in music right now: Chappell Roan, Dua Lipa and Lady Gaga. But there clearly is a method to James Corden, Ben Winston and Zane Lowe’s madness. After all, positioning the order of the car rides according to which age, therefore phase in their career, each woman is happens to be packed with symbolism. Symbolism that also extends to a festive nod to the “Three Wise Men” a.k.a. “Three Kings” transforming into the “Three Queens” for the purposes of this Christmas special. One that Corden chose to “pass the keys to” Lowe for. After all, he is deemed “pop’s unofficial therapist.” And what space is more ripe for a therapy session than a long car ride?
Coordinating the rides based on the city of each pop star’s convenience, the episode is spread over the landscapes of Springfield, Missouri, Tokyo, Japan and Los Angeles, California (obviously, it’s the first town that bears the “which one of these is not like the other?” quality). What’s more, at ages twenty-six, twenty-nine and thirty-eight, Chappell, Dua and Gaga are each situated in different eras of their career, which is why it makes sense to go in that chronological order in terms of who appears in the episode first. Chappell represents the novice, Dua the mid-career hitmaker continuing to ascend and Gaga the “seasoned professional” with nothing left to prove (except that she can star in a successful musical). It’s almost like a riff on the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future (with Gaga as Past, Dua as Present and Chappell as Future). Because what would a Christmas special be without a slight reference to A Christmas Carol?
Roan, in her “still green” state of pop stardom, is happy to show Lowe around the environment that formed her before she fled to L.A. for greater things. Perhaps more surprising, when considering her recent exhortation for fans to respect her privacy and to be generally “less creepy,” was for her to put her parents and childhood friends on camera. A decision that is, needless to say, a pretty big deal for someone as skittish and wary as she is right now. Especially as Roan taps into some emotional moments with her parents, Dwight and Kara Amstutz, in the backseat of the car. Most notably when “Pink Pony Club” comes on and they all start singing along. When the song finishes, Kara remarks, “Even when we’re grown up, we really care what our parents think about us and…I hope that that’s something that she always knows, that we love her so much and we could never not be proud of her, honestly.” Dwight then chimes in, “I think about this a lot and try not to get emotional about it.” Tearing up, he admits, “Yeah, I already am.” After he collects himself, Dwight adds, “What she stands for is a lot of hope, but what she has taught me as a father is respect for other people and all people… Everything that is about her is about loving everybody.”
To lighten the heaviness of that moment, the next scene finds Roan in the car alone with Lowe, as the two sing Justin Bieber and Busta Rhymes’ version of “Drummer Boy” from his 2011 Christmas album, Under the Mistletoe. Though really, it’s Lowe who does all the singing for Busta’s part. After Roan gets over how impressed she is with Lowe’s ability to rap, he asks her what it was like to grow up in the Midwest. The subtext being, “How did you, a creative person, deal with growing up in a place so boring?” Roan replies, “I didn’t feel, like, particularly inspired…to explore who I was.” It’s an answer that mirrors Sabrina Carpenter telling CBS Sunday Morning’s Tracy Smith of growing up in rural Pennsylvania, “Landscapes like this…silence really curated my imagination from a young age. I think it gave me the ability to be bored, and from boredom came ideas. And also, I played with Barbies a lot as a kid, so I think that was also another early indicator of the fact that I was bored, but I was always using my imagination.” Particularly as Quakertown, too, has its own religious associations.
As for Roan being raised in a very religious environment, she’s also candid about how much that was ultimately suffocating her and her ability to be her true self. Hence, Mother L.A. swooping in to rescue her so that she could exist more freely. Even so, it’s apparent that Roan believes that you can take the girl out of Missouri, but you can’t take Missouri out of the girl. So it is that she also gets Lowe to chauffeur her to a place called Andy’s Frozen Custard (likely soon to be bombarded with business as a result of Roan’s endorsement) to meet a couple of her longtime friends, Paige and Madison. Which, again, seems to show that Roan is in a rare mood with regard to being fearless about what she reveals of her personal life to the potentially creepy public. Paige and Madison then join Roan in the car to karaoke along with “Good Luck, Babe!” before the pop star is alone again with Lowe for their last stop on the Missouri “tour”: the Gillioz Theater. This being the venue where Roan has not only played several times, but also where she had the release party for her now legendary debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.
Sitting on the stage of the empty venue with Lowe, Roan gets into an increasingly “real talk” mode (though not real enough to mention that the theater is probably haunted, and is a frequent go-to for those investigating paranormal activity). Staring out at the vacant seats, Roan comments, “This is why it’s important to come to small, Midwestern towns. Like, there are people that need a space to be themselves… I looked out and I saw myself every time I’ve played here.”
Serving as the bridge between Roan and Lady Gaga (the latter being an influence on the former) is Dua Lipa. Her location in Tokyo stems from being on tour in support of Radical Optimism, the most unfairly snubbed album of 2024. While the performance itself was in nearby Saitama, it’s clear Lipa took enough time out to enjoy all the delights that Tokyo had to offer—allowing Lowe to join her in those delights (mostly shopping oriented). Their karaoke session kicks off with her first number one single, “New Rules.” Lowe then mentions that “it wasn’t that long before [‘New Rules’] that you were just that kid in your bedroom kind of dreaming it up and manifesting it yourself.” It’s here that he takes the opportunity to remind her of that time she got up onstage with Katy Perry during the California Dreams Tour at the Hammersmith Apollo in 2011.
The moment came during a segment where Perry covers Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” (not the best choice for her vocal range, but anyway…) and summons select audience members to join her onstage. Lipa managed to stand out enough to make the cut, and it solidified her determination to perform at that level. All of this backstory, of course, leads into Lowe and Lipa singing that song next in the car—a song that Lipa says she now plays at the end of all her shows (presumably that means she plays the actual song over the speakers as the audience walks out once the lights have come on again).
Lowe then offers up John Lennon & Yoko/The Plastic Ono Band’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” for Lipa to sing along with him. Subsequently, he throws her a final chance to sing one of her own singles, this time “Houdini.” The Dua duo then has enough time for a shopping excursion where Lipa keeps the Christmas theme on-brand by talking about how much this month of the year means spending time with family to her. After that, it’s a brief karaoke rendition of The Ronettes’ “Sleigh Ride” before Lowe segues into another Pacific territory: Los Angeles. This being, of all antithetical places, where an annoyingly proud New Yorker named Lady Gaga chooses to have her portion of the special filmed. And it’s obvious from the outset that Lowe is more generous with Gaga’s segment in terms of letting her sing her own songs, starting with her most recent single, “Disease,” followed by a throwback from 2008, “Christmas Tree” (again, “on topic” for the special).
After that, Lowe pulls out the big guns by inviting AC/DC’s Brian Johnson into the car. This because Gaga had just shown him a video of her deceased grandma, Veronica “Ronnie” Bissett, singing “Highway to Hell” at the top of her lungs. To honor that memory and the memory of her grandma in general, Johnson, Gaga and Lowe proceed to belt out the 1979 hit. Once Johnson gets out of the car, it’s back to Lowe showing preferential treatment toward Gaga by playing “Die With A Smile” next—for which she does a costume change to match her 70s-inspired look in the video. Lowe keeps the Gaga “hits” coming by opting to play, of all things, 2018’s “Shallow.”
Perhaps remembering that he didn’t make Gaga sing any Christmas songs the way he did Roan and Lipa (but especially Lipa)—though this could very well be because of Gaga’s “seniority”—Lowe seizes the opportunity to enter Gaga’s studio and join in on a “jam session” of “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town.”
As though to drive home (pun intended) the point that Gaga is his preferred “queen” on this special, Lowe presents her with a tray of the pizzelle cookies she earlier mentioned loving most about Christmas as a child (pronouncing it “peetz-elle” instead of the correct “peetz-eh-leh”). And then, almost as if Lowe gave them to her just so she could say the following, Gaga tries to offer him more than one cookie while announcing, “I’m Italian, I’m like, ‘Take it home.’” That last phrase said in her horrible interpretation of an Italian accent (immortalized by her Patrizia Reggiani stint in House of Gucci).
And with that, Gaga’s “rock-ified” cover of “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” plays us out of the special. One that showed viewers the wide array of experiences and backgrounds it can take to become one of pop music’s it girls/reigning queens. And also that, just because one becomes an international superstar, it doesn’t mean they don’t still (vaguely) remember what it’s like to be “normal,” ergo stay “humble.” Particularly during the most wonderful time of the year, when gratitude is among the many keywords that keeps coming up in the collective lexicon. Even if it’s mostly preached instead of practiced…
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