In the almost full year since “Good Luck, Babe!” was released (on April 5, 2024), Chappell Roan has been on a roller coaster of a journey through what it means to “blow up,” fame-wise. And it seemed (and seems), at times, she wanted to blow up altogether to avoid some of the unexpected pratfalls that came with it. Or maybe just to blow up all the stalker-y and troll types that made her fearful enough to go on a tirade about privacy and celebrity. More to the point, how she doesn’t owe anyone shit, regardless of whether they’re a “fan” or not. Thus, for the first time maybe ever (or maybe just since Greta Garbo), the media encountered a truly rare bird: someone who didn’t want to play the game in order to be famous. In fact, Roan has made it clear through her actions that, if the fame goes at the cost of her not totally selling her soul, that’s fine by her.
Alas, as is the way, the more that a celebrity asserts, “I vant to be alone,” the more they’re pursued/obsessed over. And perhaps part of Roan’s intent behind releasing “The Giver” is, at least subconsciously, an attempt to push some portion of her audience away. Alas, if that was part of the reason, it’s already failed miserably, with unanimous praise for the single being instantaneous. Indeed, it sounds much more palatable now than when audiences were first exposed to it during her live debut of the song on the November 2, 2024 episode of Saturday Night Live. And perhaps part of the reason it does is because it was more “shocking” to see Roan cosplay as a shitkicking cowgirl than it is to hear her do it. And yet, as Roan reiterated in what will likely be her only promo interview for the single, she is just a shitkicking cowgirl at heart (hence, the cowboy hats and boots she’s already worn frequently as part of her “drag,” notably for the purposes of “Pink Pony Club”). Reminding us, once again, that she hails from the depths of the heartland. That she grew up, for all intents and purposes, as “the enemy” of the very community she now represents.
However, because of her formative years spent in those indoctrinating conditions, she has an insider perspective on how to communicate with a usually rigid and unforgiving population when it comes to opening their minds about anything that isn’t heteronormative. Which is part of what makes “The Giver” so delightfully subversive. For it’s been quite some time since a musician “dared” to say something so politically charged with a country song. In fact, in her Apple Music interview with country singer Kelleigh Bannen, it is the latter who brings up Loretta Lynn’s “The Pill” as being in line with “The Giver” in terms of Chappell delivering a “playful” yet serious song that can spark a dialogue about some of the topics she’s addressing. Mainly, the hetero male inability to sexually satisfy a woman. Often spurring (no cowboy boot pun intended) the idea that women are liable to “turn” lesbian when the going gets tough.
Thanks to Roan and this song, there might, indeed, be a lot more “converts” (cue Roan saying, “You’re attracted to me, you think I’m beautiful or whatever, you’re not gonna turn gay”). For she doesn’t exactly make the average toxic male a.k.a. “country boy” sound all that appealing. Granted, it’s not difficult to do that, for long gone are the days of romanticizing the Masculine Ideal, once embodied by country boys like John Wayne and Gary Cooper. But, rather than those “heroic” types persisting in modern culture, it’s devolved into incel-driven types that yield so-called hyper-masculine ilk such as Andrew Tate. Who, yes, would probably do well in the place where Roan grew up as Kayleigh Amstutz. Indeed, when asked by Bannen where Roan gets her strength to be so self-assured and unafraid to push back on the things she doesn’t feel are right (especially the way musicians are treated by the industry that they make millions for), Roan thought carefully before she admitted that it was “country boys”—more to the point, the cruelty of country boys—who taught her how fight for her proverbial rights.
As she tells it, “That’s what I grew up around. Those are the boys I grew up around. And that’s how I learned to stand up for myself. Because you’re not gonna look at me and be like, ‘Shh-shh-shh!’ That’s how I learned that I’m never gonna have this done to me ever again [makes the shushing gesture as she says this]. Like, I’m never gonna have someone put their hand up and say, ‘Stop talking.’ I learned from a lot of the boys that I grew up around, who were influenced by their fathers…” In other words, misogyny can never be stamped out because it keeps being passed on through the generations.
And yet, with someone like Roan (and Sabrina Carpenter and, yes, Taylor Swift, etc.) to tell it how it is in that goading sort of “ha-ha-ha-you-can’t-perform” manner that men hate, they’re bound to be woken up sooner or later about their inadequacies (which extend far beyond the boudoir). That’s why repetition is key. In short, why so many female musicians are known for writing songs about how much men blow (and not in the good way). At one point in the interview, Roan also asks in a mocking rhetorical way, “Why do we keep having songs about women not being satisfied? Whose fault is that?” So it is that Roan, er, dives right in with the opening verse, “Ain’t got antlers on my walls/But I sure know mating calls/From the stalls in the bars on a Friday night/And other boys may need a map/But I can close my eyes/And have you wrapped around my fingers like that.” As for the “mating calls” Roan hears in the stalls, it alludes to the idea that sexually dissatisfied women are in so much heat that its emanating from their pores in women’s bathrooms. Maybe for a reason—maybe because they want another woman (like Roan) in that bathroom to help them out with their dissatisfaction.
Roan is more than up for the “job.” Because, as Samantha Jones once said of oral pleasuring (even if it was directed at a man), “Honey, they don’t call it a job for nothin’.” Nor does Roan call it that for nothing either, for she takes it quite seriously, bragging of her orgasm-giving prowess, “‘Cause you ain’t got to tell me/It’s just in my nature/So take it like a taker/‘Cause, baby, I’m a giver/Ain’t no need to hurry/‘Cause, baby, I deliver/Ain’t no country boy quitter/I get the job done/I get the job done.”
As for those country boy quitters too lazy and already satisfied enough with their own orgasm to keep trying to bother with being a giver rather than only a taker, Roan further trolls them with the verse, “Girl, I don’t need no lifted truck/Revvin’ loud to pick you up/‘Cause how I look is how I touch/And in this strip mall town of dreams/Good luck finding a man who has the means/To rhinestone cowgirl all night long.” In short, it’s all in keeping with what Roan declared during her SNL performance of the song: “Only a woman knows how to treat a woman right!” That means emotionally and physically. After all, only a woman knows the intricacies of her own “equipment.” Which is part of why “The Giver” is thematically linked to “Good Luck, Babe!” In a similar fashion, it warns a woman who deigns to seek satisfaction of any kind from a man, “When you wake up next to him in the middle of the night/With your head in your hands, you’re nothing more than his wife/And when you think about me, all of those years ago/You’re standing face to face with ‘I told you so.’”
Roan is now telling women so with “The Giver.” Repeatedly adding that she simply thought it would be funny to record a lesbian country song. Itself a political act, with Roan remarking, “Country music is so incredibly camp, and I don’t know if people want to admit that.” This is a sentiment that Beyoncé couldn’t quite tackle on Cowboy Carter, instead being much more Precious and Serious in her approach to the genre. Though, like Roan, Beyoncé grew up in an environment that was heavily country, which meant, as Roan phrases it, “I have kept country in my heart. It’s so incredibly nostalgic…”
And Roan wants her listeners to get that sense of nostalgia too. Not just to put people in the same shoes she was in as a Midwestern youth, but to pay homage to those “cuntry queens” who came before her. As she also told Bannen of Loretta Lynn vis-à-vis “The Pill,” “I am able to put out ‘The Giver’ because of her… She is one of the women that walked so I could run.” Let us just forget, one supposes, that she was an ardent supporter of Donald Trump during his first go-around in 2016.
Speaking of that particular monstrosity, Roan’s decision to release a country song that is so unabashedly queer and kitschy at a time when MAGA America has exemplified the worst cliché of a country bumpkin is part of what makes it so “disruptive” and “incendiary” (as it definitely will be to many people). It’s a joyful celebration of what it means to be from the heartland at a time when that definition has been cast with a dark(er) pall thanks to what the voting bloc did to the nation in the 2024 election. And, of course, it’s also a cheeky “fuck you” to the country boys who made her feel lesser than when she was an adolescent.
So though Lana Del Rey might have predicted in early 2024 (soon before “Mrs. Carter” announced the release of Cowboy Carter), “The music business is going country,” Roan has already been “that cunt” for a while. Deep down inside. But for those wondering if it’s a permanent “reconnection with her roots,” Roan’s quippy answer was, “I’m just making songs that make me feel happy and fun and ‘The Giver’ is my take on cuntry xoxo. May the classic country divas lead their genre, I am just here to twirl and do a little gay yodel for y’all.” So saddle up for the ride while it lasts.
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