“Sweet reader, I cannot sleep –
Chappell Roan has overcome me
with reverence for her lyricism.
(And also longing for a girl.)”
— Sappho, kind of
So many excellent albums have come out this autumn, and yet The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess by Chappell Roan is the only one that has wormed its way into my playlists. Chappell, an indie pop phenomenon, has reminded me of the glorious days of youth when I would listen to Kesha and anticipate similar climactic experiences in dark crowded rooms. But she has also shown us the way forward into the noise of the 2020s. “I’m so sick of online love,” she croons, before launching into an album opener for the ages, “Femininomenon.”
I can’t and won’t explain why her music itself is so addictive. (Something about rule of threes, pedal points, vocal agility, wide vowels, frequently landing on leading tones, reluctance to resolve chords, etc, etc.) But here I will attempt to unpack one aspect of her lyrics with which I am truly obsessed: she frequently will slightly alter lines from one chorus to the next.
This sounds kind of not important. Let me explain.
She most frequently employs these slightly altered lyrics to comedic effect. In “HOT TO GO,” her self-professed ‘cheerleader song,’ she sings:
“Baby, do you like this beat,
I made it so you’d dance with me.”
And later, after talking about how long it’s been since she’s gotten any, she sings:
“And baby, do you like this beat,
I made it so you’d sleep with me.”
You’re expecting “dance with” (normal for a dance song), but you get “sleep with” (raunchy and unexpected). Haha! What a jest! A jape!
Equally funny and more bisexual is the chorus of “After Midnight,” where “I’m feeling kinda freaky, maybe it’s the club lights / I kinda wanna kiss your girlfriend if you don't mind” becomes “I’m feeling kinda freaky, maybe it’s the moonlight / I kinda wanna kiss your boyfriend if you don’t mind” in merely three intervening lines. This substitution subverts the expected to unexpected progression, because “girlfriend” is less expected from a female voice than “boyfriend,” and “club lights” and “moonlight” are equally likely. In fact, these substitutions remind you how similar these two couplets are. Not only do both end in the same syllables, but neither are materially different. A nonchalant statement about bisexuality! This is why the bi girls love Chappell.
The subtlest, but in my opinion the most impactful example of this device in The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess is in “Casual,” her ballad about her semi-girlfriend telling her friends their relationship is just ‘casual.’ The chorus uses the following lines (italics are slant-rhymed stress that all fall on beat 2 or 4):
“Two weeks, and your mom invites me to her house in Long Beach,
Is it casual now?”
A triple rhyme followed by a departure from the rhyme mirrors exactly what Chappell laments, which is the disappointment of not following up on the expectations of the relationship. And this repeats a few times, given that it’s the chorus. But in the final bridge, we get this extended rhyme:
“Knee deep in the passenger seat and you're eating me out
Two weeks and your mom invites me to her Long Beach house.”
Oh my god how do I begin to unpack the genius? Connecting the rhyme with the previously disjointed “knee deep” line starts to connect the dots of the passionate and committed moments in the relationship. The lengthened rhyme indicates a longer time to wait, as if the relationship and its disappointments have progressed within the song. The line “is it casual now” is just implied in the rhyme rather than being said, leaving both the listener and the subject to draw their own (obvious) conclusions. And the lengthened and repeated diphthong of [ou] in out/house creates a sort of howl, both far more plaintive and far less urgent than the repeated vowel [i] in weeks/me/beach.
She switched just three words. Three!
Chappell is an artist of connected polarizations. She’s bicoastal and rural. She dances at the “Pink Pony Club” in Santa Monica, but she “miss[es] the seasons in Missouri.” She wants a “Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl,” but is “so sick of online love.” She’s gay, obviously, and hyperfemme, obviously. So her artistry hinges on the collection of opposites into a cohesive performance.
And this lyrical motif, something that seems so small, is the perfect encapsulation of her as a performer. The differences don’t bother her, because she makes them as similar as possible. She navigates lyric changes so smoothly that you barely notice them, or you notice them and immediately laugh them off. Chappell is just gliding through, and if you’re caught off guard, that’s your problem.
Also, Chappell is the queen of puns. “I heard you like magic / I got a wand and a rabbit.” Come on, now. Go listen to the album. And let this be my bid to get it on all of our party playlists here at 21 South St. I want to dance to “After Midnight,” after midnight.
2025