Constructing Lyrics
While she may be a newer artist with only one released album, Chappell Roan still has developed a sort of lyrical style across all of her released songs. In contrast to Lady Gaga, Roan does not seem to illustrate a metaphorical style in order to tell vivid stories; she lacks a significant amount of cultural references within her music. Alternatively, Chappell Roan uses realism, relatability, and honesty within her lyricism, grounding most of her songs in actual events that occur within her life instead of references. This comes as no surprise in Roan’s historical context: according to news website Little Black Book, other artists like Billie Eilish have created contemporary trends in popular music in which “more free-thinking and candid lyrical content [...] has undeniably increased the [artist’s] reliability factor.” Thus, Roan’s relatable and honest lyrical content comes as no surprise, as successful contemporary popular music utilizes the same style. With the reliance on realism within her lyrics, Roan’s hyper-exaggeration and dramatization of her real life events reflects a sort of theatricality and camp, despite having quite a different lyrical style than Lady Gaga.
This section is greatly inspired by the work of music scholar Keir Keightley, who wrote a chapter titled “Reconsidering Rock” in The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock. Keightley wrote extensively about romanticism within contemporary recorded music in regards to musical styles. He claims that romantic music involves a sense of “sincerity” and “directness” (137). Chappell Roan’s music utilizes this sort of direct and blunt attitude within its lyricism, making her music representative of the romantic style of music. Thus, the argument within this chapter hinges on the idea that Chappell Roan specifically calculates romanticist lyrics to form a specific, and often campy, brand image. Below are three songs that exemplify this phenomenon.
"Casual," The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess (2023)
“Casual” was released on October 28, 2022 by Chappell Roan, and the song was eventually added to her album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. In the song, Roan recalls a relationship with a romantic interest, and she continually asks her lover if their relationship is ‘casual.’ More specifically, she asks her lover in the chorus, “Knee-deep in the passenger seat and you’re eating me out / Is it casual now?”
Throughout the entire song, Chappell Roan employs bluntness and honesty within the song. All of the song is grounded within Roan’s real life; for example, she makes references to her friends (“my friends call me a loser”) and her lover’s family (“your mom invites me to her house in Long Beach”). Overall, Roan tells a vivid story about her relationship with an unnamed lover, and she bluntly writes about her fears regarding the relationship eventually becoming more casual (i.e. she “tr[ies] to be the chill girl” but “hate[s] that [she] let this drag on so long”).
Chappell Roan’s recalling of a seemingly real event with her lover is strategically calculated to form a brand image. Her honesty and reliability within her lyricism certainly feels similar to romantic music with its directness and sincerity. Further, with its bluntness, “Casual” could be seen as camp in a non-traditional sense, particularly considering Roan hyper-exaggerates her fears and emotions in a quite dramatic lyrical manner. Thus, in conclusion, “Casual” depicts how Chappell Roan strategically calculates her lyricism to create a brand image that demonstrates romanticism and camp, which transforms her into a consumer product that could be sold to a broader audience.
"Coffee," The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess (2023)
Similar to “Casual,” “Coffee” recounts Chappell Roan’s romantic life. Unlike many of the previously mentioned songs, “Coffee” was released alongside Roan’s debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. In the song, Roan declares that she would prefer to get coffee with a potential partner rather than wine, considering drinking will lead the partner to “say that [they] want [her].” The entire duration of “Coffee” revolves around Roan forming an argument as to why getting coffee is her preferred method of seeing her partner; for example, she declares that she “can’t meet [her partner] for dinner at the Italian place” and claims the park “gets dark.”
“Coffee” feels incredibly blunt and honest from Chappell Roan’s perspective, especially since the artist shares her fears about going out for drinks with her potential partner. Roan’s different arguments as to why she wants to get coffee further builds a sense of transparency, and they also create a vivid story grounded in realism. This unabashed honesty showcased in the song continues for the entire duration—even by the end Roan claims that she and her partner should “not do coffee, let’s not even try.”.
The blunt attitude and lyricism in “Coffee” is strategically calculated to fit within Chappell Roan’s brand image. Her directness with her lover articulates a sort of romanticism within the lyricism, and her dramatic interpretation of her romantic reality feels reminiscent of the camp style. Through utilizing realism and honesty, with an additional layer of camp, Roan builds a relatable brand image in “Coffee” that could be sold to a broader audience. This formation of a clear brand image through the lyricism transforms Roan into more of a consumer product.
"California," The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess (2023)
Chappell Roan released “California” on May 29, 2020, and the artist added the song to her debut album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. Seemingly a direct contrast of “Pink Pony Club,” the song describes Roan’s homesickness and sadness of leaving her hometown in Missouri to go to California. In the song, she pleads, “Come get me out of California / No leaves are brown / I miss the seasons in Missouri.”
Chappell Roan bluntly shares her emotions throughout the entirety of “California.” She shares her sadness that she hasn’t reached stardom yet in California (“thought I’d be cool in California”) and feels like she let her audience down because of this (“But I let you down”). This sadness and hopelessness continues throughout the rest of the song, when Roan claims that she can’t find any motivation to stay in California (“Too hard to find reasons to stay”)
With this honesty about her sadness of not making it in California, Chappell Roan builds a brand image of being direct and sincere within her lyricism. The style references the romantic musical movement, making it an important part of Chappell Roan’s persona. Considering the lyricism does not feel exaggerated or theatrical, its sadness and genuineness lean the song away from camp, making “California” an outlier in Roan’s discography as a song that doesn’t fit within her campy brand image. Even still, Roan’s directness has become a valuable part of her brand image, and it has helped her gain recognizability and relatability from her fans and beyond, as shown through “California.”