Chappell Roan's new country song about lesbian sex doesn't play by typical genre rules

Chappell Roan is the latest pop star to venture into country music, after debuting a provocative new song on Saturday Night Live last weekend.

The Giver, with lyrics that unambiguously discuss sexual relationships with women, has resurrected conversations about queer representation in country music, a genre where the charts are dominated by straight, white men, and hit songs often reinforce conservative values and traditional gender roles.

"All you country boys saying you know how to treat a woman right," Roan said while looking directly into the camera in a spoken-word aside during her SNL performance of the fiddle-heavy song. "Well, only a woman knows how to treat a woman right. She gets the job done."

Nadine Hubbs, a musicologist and culture historian and author of the book Rednecks, Queers, and Country Music, says Roan is part of a "sapphic pop" movement happening at the moment, where women are writing specifically about sex between women, rather than love more broadly or through innuendo and metaphor, citing the Billie Eilish song Lunch as another example.

While Roan's online fans immediately caught the references, Hubbs says the lyrics could still float over the heads of some listeners who aren't as familiar with the singer's "sapphic oeuvre." Still, while sexual lyrics are more commonplace in other genres like rap and R&B, Roan is venturing down a less travelled path in country. 

"The fact that she's challenging country boys — like, 'Now who needs you? I can do women so much better,' that would definitely be new," Hubbs said.

Hubbs is unsure whether Roan will try to make a legitimate push in the country scene, given the SNL performance's "campy" presentation, with lyrics about cowboys and hunting, and her bandmates' retro country and western outfits.

She says Roan's "stagey treatment of retro country themes" is reminiscent of Canadian country icon k.d. lang, who came out publicly as a lesbian in 1992. While lang was not singing explicitly about sex, Hubbs says she was initially regarded with suspicion in the country scene in the 1980s because of her similarly campy style.

She says that if The Giver does cross over, "I will be very intrigued. Not only about the blatant sex, but also, when artists have seemed to 'camp up' country, it hasn't typically played well in Nashville."

Roan's lyrics could see pushback: music prof

Roan has been no stranger to controversy since her meteoric rise to fame this year, following the 2023 release of her debut album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. 

In June, she said she turned down an invitation to perform at a White House pride event, and in August she hit back at her fans for "creepy" behaviour.

She has also spoken out in support of Palestinians amid the Israel-Hamas war, and was recently criticized online for refusing to endorse a presidential candidate in the U.S. election.

Shana Goldin-Perschbacher, an associate professor of music studies at Temple University in Philadelphia, and the author of the book Queer Country, says Roan's foray into the genre could receive mixed reactions from country fans.

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Whether it was an original song or a spin on a classic, k.d. lang always brought originality to her music and her life — something that wasn’t always accepted in country music. Ahead of her induction into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame, she spoke with The National's Ian Hanomansing about her unique career and getting acceptance from her peers.

"Since she's gone out of her way to insult bro country, there may be some pushback from some of the more defensive people," she said.

Goldin-Perschbacher says queer themes have existed in country music since at least the 1930s, and notes 1960s country star Wilma Burgess was a lesbian, though she did not directly address her sexuality in her lyrics.

While country duo Brothers Osborne has found continued success since member T.J. Osborne came out as gay in 2021, she says many queer musicians who came up in the country scene, like Chely Wright and Ty Herndon, have had a challenging time finding acceptance since coming out.

Canadian country singer Drake Jensen told CBC in 2017 that coming out as gay five years earlier "totally detoured" his career and said he was no longer part of the Canadian country music scene.

The country industry was hit with accusations of bias against queer and Black musicians in 2019 after Billboard pulled Lil Nas X's hit Old Town Road off its country chart in 2019, saying the song did not fit the criteria.

Country musician Maren Morris publicly left the country music industry last year over its unwillingness to accept more women, queer people and people of colour or reckon with its history of racism and misogyny.

Slight shift in country music

Goldin-Perschbacher says there have been some recent shifts toward acceptance of queer artists and themes in country music, noting lang's September induction into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame, but says those discussions are still discouraged at the corporate level in the industry.

"They don't want to alienate any listeners, since it is meant as a commercial enterprise, and that's frustrated musicians," she said.

On the other hand, she says artists like Roan and other pop stars who first found success outside of the country scene — adding drag queen-turned-country-singer Trixie Mattel and Canadian crooner Orville Peck to the list — are able to ignore the genre's thematic trappings.

"I don't think any of them need the country music industry to do well, and so they can kind of take that risk, if it even is a risk," she said.

"They don't need the tightly managed Nashville scene to have success."