Chappell Roan owns sapphic music scene with ‘Good Luck, Babe!’

A NEW queer anthem is taking over the charts and shooting through the sapphic community’s hearts!

Sapphics are chanting “Good Luck, Babe!”, a song by queer lesbian pop star Chappell Roan (born Kayleigh Rose Amstutz) that has become the perfect addition to their WLW (women loving women) playlists. 

Since its April release, it’s been effortlessly climbing the hill of mainstream pop starting from its 77th rank debut at the Billboard Hot 100 to its Spotify global chart peaks and more. Starting at 7 million Spotify streams in its first week, it now has over a hundred million streams. 

It’s a fitting breakthrough for Roan, an American singer-songwriter who’s been in the music industry since 2017. Her music career has showcased single after single, finally hitting the mark with “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess,” her first full-length debut album that got included in a series of 2023’s best albums list. 

Perhaps this was what led to her red carpet of elevated success the next year. It was extended by her two month-long opening stint in 21-year-old American singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts World Tour that began in February, and her Coachella performance in April that boosted her popularity. 

These feats became apparent on Spotify where she reached over 500% increase in her monthly listeners from February to April and where some of her songs landed in the Daily Top Songs USA Chart.

It’s only after these that “Good Luck, Babe!” was released, the “first song of the next chapter,” according to Roan. Aside from the strong ‘80s synth-pop energy it radiates, the meaning behind the song is what ultimately ties sapphics, especially lesbians, to it. 

In a Rolling Stone interview in April, Roan explained that the song was “about wishing good luck to someone who is denying fate.” As a product of her rage, the song tried to flesh out the struggles of a closeted queer woman who got broken up with in her past WLW relationship because she couldn’t come to terms with her own identity. From Roan’s point of view, she wishes good luck to the woman who denies herself of her true feelings. 

Discussions among the LGBTQIA+, particularly in the sapphic or WLW community, have bared issues that reflect their personal experiences. One example is compulsory heterosexuality (“comphet” for short), which is a theory that pins heterosexuality as the norm in a male-dominated society. It forces a restrictive mindset where a woman is capable only of developing romantic and sexual attraction to the opposite sex.

On social media, lesbians have claimed Roan’s song as theirs, with some explaining that it was tailored exactly for women who have experienced or are experiencing comphet in their lives. 

On TikTok alone, people have been using the audio to post videos detailing their interpretations of the song, with others including their personal experiences with comphet. Some also posted video edits featuring queer fictional characters.

With reports from Adelainne Balbin