On a new episode of the podcast Las Culturistas, Chappell Roan dished with hosts Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers on a number of hot topics: the true meaning of “service top,” how to raise guinea pigs, and more. That included breaking down her latest single “The Giver,” which Roan performed on Saturday Night Live back in November, more than four months before the studio version of the track would come out.
Ultimately, the studio version of “The Giver” cut out one of the SNL performance’s most iconic lines: “Only a woman knows how to treat a woman right!”, which Roan shouted during the bridge. Many fans were confused why the line wasn’t part of the song’s official release — but now, Roan is setting the record straight.
“First of all, I said the wrong thing on SNL. I was supposed to say something else! I got nervous and f*cked up the wording — it kind of makes sense, like, 80%,” Roan began, speaking to the intense pressure of performing on the show. “The fact that I even performed ‘The Giver’ and made it through is amazing.”
“It is so awesome to see everyone be like, ‘Where the f*ck is the bridge!?’” she continued. “And I’m like, ‘Booboo, do you not think I tried? Do you not think I tried over and over and tried different sayings?’”
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“The bridge was the hardest thing to figure out, and now I have an even better idea for it live,” Roan added. “That’s the other thing, is like, the live shows matter just as much as the songs themselves to me. […] It just becomes a character in itself, the live performance. Everyone can wait for the character of the song to come out.”
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Roan also spoke to fans playing into what she calls “demo-itis,” the idea that you’re bound to fall in love with the original version of a song, even if the final studio version is objectively better.
“You fall in love with what you hear first, because you hear a different version and you’re just gonna hate it because it’s different,” she explained. That’s why she wasn’t surprised many fans were disappointed when “The Giver” officially came out.
“All the people who have been living with ‘The Giver’ on SoundCloud or whatever, of course they’re gonna hate it,” Roan said. “They’re attached, and just because it’s different, you’ll hate it. ‘Cause that’s like human nature, you know? So I was not surprised at all.”
She also addressed the fans who assumed that a higher-up — perhaps a man — forced Roan to cut the line from the song.
“I understand people were like, ‘Where is the bridge? Of course. It was probably a man who decided that.’ And it’s like, ‘No baby. I did decide that,’” she said. “And also, do not forget: this is a lesbian country song. This is, like, a big deal. This is, for me, what I’ve always wanted to do — so it may not be what you want.”
Roan’s discussion of demo-itis did yield one exciting bit of news: she’s working on the studio version of “The Subway,” one of her fans’ favorite unreleased tracks. She first performed it last June, and her new update explains why the release might be taking long: “I’ve been banging my head against the wall with ‘The Subway,’ because songs can work live, certain things can work live, and they do not work in the studio,” Roan explained. That in mind, what will the studio version of “The Subway” sound like? We’ll have to wait and see — and hopefully this time, demo-itis won’t rear its ugly head.
Check out Roan’s full episode of Las Culturistas on Spotify below.
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