Chappell Roan gets the job done with the release of her brand new single The Giver. Fans have been excitedly awaiting the queer icon’s country debut since she performed the song on Saturday Night Live, months before its official arrival.
Now that it’s streaming, Roan appeared on Apple Music’s Today’s Country Radio for a conversation with Kelleigh Bannen to discuss the unapologetically sapphic track and her connection to country.
In the interview, Roan talks about her decision to switch it up and put out a country song, “I just thought it would be funny. It’s campy and it’s fun. I’m from southwest Missouri, grew up on Christian and country and then found ‘Alejandro’ by Lady Gaga. And I was like, ‘I think I like this too.’ So I have kept country in my heart.” She shares that she loves the song ‘Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy),’ saying, “I want to feel that way on stage. I want to feel that because that’s how I write. […] I want to write that song, but, like, Chappell’s version.”
She shares what it means to her to be able to include drag queens in her work, “I think I have a special relationship to where I’m from because of country music. And so to kind of honor that part of myself by making a country song where it’s like, ‘You know what? Yes, I am gay and yes, I am ultra pop. Yes, I am a drag queen. You can also perform a country song.’ […] And there’s a lot of drag queens who do country music all over the world. Name a girl who hasn’t done ‘Before He Cheats.’ Name a girl that hasn’t done ‘Man, I Feel Like a Woman.'”
Roan also shares a bit about her experience growing up queer in the Midwest, “I don’t hate myself for not knowing everything about the queer culture at the time. I don’t hate myself for coming from Missouri and not knowing any lesbians. I don’t hate myself for being closeted and hating myself. [Which] of course, you do. Every person in the Midwest and south, especially these tiny towns, are taught to not only keep it down, but hate it away or pray it away. And I’m not mad at myself for doing that. It’s all I knew what to do.”
It’s not lost on Roan that The Giver is very different than what most country fans are used to. “I wonder if people are going to revolt against me making a very clearly lesbian song, where I poke fun at country boys.” In the song she exclaims that she “Ain’t no country boy quitter!” and that she “Don’t need no pickup truck, revving loud to pick [girls] up.”
She then shares that it all comes from a place of love, “I’ve dated a few… I love a country boy. I love them. I love a man who can shovel horse manure. I love that. I love a man who will sit in grass. I’ve dated a farm boy. I’ve dated someone who worked on a dairy farm. But I’ve also dated someone who will literally not sit on grass, and not touch a bug. I appreciate the country way. But also, you will find me making fun of them all… Why do we keep having songs about women not being satisfied?”
