This is one of those songs that snuck into my life and took it over completely for days on end. In my personal canon, it belongs up there with “Heartbeats” by The KNIFE and “Call Me Maybe” by CARLY RAE JEPSEN as far as songs that I have obsessively consumed. A blog I won’t cite once referred to the latter song by claiming “there are zero songs that are catchy and also bad.” That’s the idea here. If you can make a song that sticks in someone’s head, it’s good. It doesn’t matter if they like it. If it’s in their head, it’s a hit. Living rent free and all that.
Fortunately for me, this song’s catchiness and greatness are mutually reinforcing. I can’t remember exactly where I was when I first heard it, but I was probably at the gym. I don’t listen to music when I exercise, so I’m at the mercy of whatever playlist the current staffer has chosen. Over the summer, I kept hearing this one song that seemed to blend into the rest until it got to the very end and became really slowed down. I liked that part a lot. I still do. I’d hear it again a few days later and think Is this the song that’s slow at the end? I was always glad when it was. After a few listens I finally Shazam’d it and realized this was the CHAPPELL ROAN I’d heard about. Late in the summer, I added the song to the monstrously undifferentiated playlist on Apple Music I’ve called “AAA Pop,” mostly for alphabetical organization reasons. Whenever it comes on, I have to listen to it at least twice. If I can’t think of another song to listen to when I’m getting in the car to run errands, I’ll listen to it (at least twice). I eventually looked up the lyrics and liked the song even more. I’d caught the “you’re nothing more than his wife” and puzzled over it before realizing she’s chiding a woman for breaking up with her and falling for a man that she’ll eventually marry. Then she says to her, “I hate to say, but I told you so” and rubs it all the way the fuck in. Loving that for her ex-lover.
Apple Music tells me I’ve listened to this song more than any other in September, October, November, and, now, December. That only counts the times I chose to listen to it via that app, of course. The listens at the gym or on the radio or anywhere else don’t count toward the total but do still imprint it onto my consciousness. There’s also the delightful MTV VMA performance that pulls from entirely (for me) unexpected sources. Setting a castle on fire with a crossbow and dancing around with sword-wielding knights while wearing chain mail and plate armor is literally heroic. I can now add to my list just a few listens of the actual record. In the fickle world of music streaming services, where no one really owns anything, I’m grateful to have my grubby mitts on a copy of “Good Luck, Babe!” b/w “Read & Makeout (Demo)” because it’s all mine. It also sounds really good for a modern vinyl release on a major label and I’m glad it wasn’t pressed by GZ Media. I would have been happy with it being a one-sided record, but throwing a vinyl-exclusive demo track on the b-side makes this an even sweeter purchase. The song itself shows her range as a performer and indicates what might be a more contemplative direction than some of the songs on her first album revealed. I’m here for it, either way. “I just wanna read and make out” is as good a New Year’s Resolution as anything else you might consider tonight.
That a-side, though. Stunner. Jill Mapes of Hearing Things argued it was “a fever-dream of a hit made possible by the ‘Running Up That Hill’ frenzy of 2022, with an addictive chorus in an octave hardly anyone can reach, that could have been released anytime in the last four decades if it weren’t for its blatant sapphic longing.” That comment covers the sonics and their timelessness about as well as anyone could. The one part I’ll add is that the indelible line “you’d have to stop the world just to stop the feeling” reminds me of a line from DANZIG’s “Soul on Fire,” in which he tells his lover he’s gonna “make you shake till the world aligns,” a line that I took to mean that he’s going to fuck someone so hard Earth will no longer be tilted 23.5° off its axis. In the same way, CHAPPELL ROAN is telling her ex-woman that alcohol won’t numb the feelings she still harbors for her. The world would have to stop spinning, regardless of its rotational orientation, before her ex’s pangs of regret will subside. She’s telling this woman she’ll have to wait until the heat death of the universe before her passionate longings cease, and then, to cap it off, tells her “good luck, babe!” It’s a reflection of the supreme confidence CHAPPELL ROAN feels about inhabiting her body, her lived experience, her relationship status. That we could all be so bold…
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This enthusiastic review was an entertaining read for someone who literally made it to 11:49 PM on December 31st, 2024, who had never once heard this song. So instead of catching it at the gym, I first experienced it on the couch while watching the VMA performance on YouTube (which, by the way, is the VMA performance of any kind that I can remember watching in the past twelve months). Then I had to read Chappell Roan's Wikipedia because although I was certainly aware that she had entered the zeitgeist but my familiarity apart from that was zero.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I'm concerned, this song is no doubt Effective Pop Music in the sense that when I rolled up to a consultation appointment two days later I think that maybe I was humming it. But I think that the hype is way overblown. The artist's so-called Drag Persona, the (essential) mask of makeup that she is always wearing, and the cheeky sapphic angst of the subject matter. It's all.... fine? but it doesn't move me. How realistic is this scenario for women anyway? It reminds me of a tweet from earlier this month that simply said, "White women be like, 'my mom is bi'" I laughed out loud at the comedic simplicity.
I've spent enough time now yucking someone else's yum, which was not really my intention but it is my truth! I cannot tell yet if I will be enduring Ms. Roan in the coming years or not, but I do wish her the best of luck.
This is as Effective as Pop Music gets. Again, if it's in your head two days later, it's a good song!
DeleteI'm less concerned about whether women in general find the scenario of "Good Luck, Babe!" to be realistic or relatable. She's telling us she went through it (or has taken on a persona who has) and she has processed those feelings in the form of a song. That it is catchy enough to have become a hit and also deals with other than heteronormative love is an added bonus.