"Good Luck Babe" - A Review of the Song of the Summer
My introduction to lesbian1 music came through Hayley Kiyoko. I was a college sophomore starting my fall semester. I had just somewhat come out for the first time the summer before and was trying to understand these new feelings. So, like a good millennial, I turned to YouTube. It was there that I found the “Girls like Girls” music video by Hayley Kiyoko. The visuals captured my imagination. If you haven’t seen it, the music video is more of a short film. The protagonist realizes that she is falling in love with her friend and their connection surpasses that of the one her friend has with her boyfriend. The boyfriend finds out and beats up the protagonist but she runs away with her best friend and they live happily ever after.
The lyrics proclaim over and over “Girls like girls like boys do, nothing new.” I was given poetry for the first time to understand my experience. Girls can like girls and that doesn’t make me weird because it’s just like the way boys do. This is a very simplistic view of lesbian identity, but I could take hold of it. From that point on, I often turned to Hayley Kiyoko’s music to give me words to express my emotions, from happiness of a girl you like smiling at you to true heartbreak. I would go on to expand the library of lesbian music I enjoyed but this starting point was really impactful. One of the evils of homophobia is making you think you are alone in your experiences. Access to queer music breaks that thinking as you realize your feelings aren’t that different from other queer people. You have access to a culture, not just a set of attractions.
Fast forward to summer 2024 and Chappell Roan has taken the world by storm. The Washington Post is writing articles2 and Rolling Stone is calling her “the future of pop.”3 Some queer music aficionados I know discovered Roan’s music two years ago with the release of “Pink Pony Club.” But I discovered her this past spring. Roan’s new 2023 album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwestern Princess, falls within the lesbian pop tradition with both its ballads full of yearning and glittery dance songs.
I don’t have the space to do a full album review here (It’s a fun time. Listen to it.) but I wanted to chat about a single not on the album, “Good Luck Babe”. “Good Luck Babe” is the single that catapulted Chappell Roan on the music charts this year when it was released in April. “Good Luck Babe” has an 80s pop aesthetic that is fun and airy while also boasting powerful vocals from Roan. And I think it is a song with lyrics that have something to say about the lesbian experience and maybe the gay Christian experience in particular.
The lyrics feel like Roan is talking herself through the end of a friendship. They start with “It's fine, it's cool / You can say that we are nothing, but you know the truth/ And guess I'm the fool”. The lyrics feel like a common conclusion of a conversation with that friend. You’ve been going back and forth trying to talk about why the relationship just makes you feel bad. And she’s not listening. She claims that nothing has changed. But to you, it feels like you are constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. But you jump to saying it’s fine because you love and care for her.
Roan continues painting a picture that feels familiar with the first pre-chorus - “I don't wanna call it off / But you don't wanna call it love/ You only wanna be the one that I call baby.” This captures such a specific common experience. The possessiveness of someone who would never claim you as her own. And because you love her, you allow yourself to be used. You pick up every time she calls you. You would travel to the moon and back for her but your emotional desires and needs are silly to her. You keep hoping if you keep doing things for her then one day she’ll claim you.
Although Roan isn’t speaking specifically to a Side B experience, I think this experience she explains is even more real for Side B folks. As we straddle the dividing wall between queer and Christian communities, we aren’t given clear labels for our deepest relationships. You haven’t necessarily crossed the line physically but your lives are entangled together. If you were both straight, you would basically be dating. But, you aren’t straight. So, now, you have the one sided possessiveness that Roan speaks about without a way to articulate the kind of relationship you desire. Also because of religious homophobia, you may not feel you are even worth having someone care for you as much as you care for them.
The iconic chorus seems to be Roan coming to a final resolution.
You can kiss a hundred boys in bars
Shoot another shot, try to stop the feeling
You can say it's just the way you are
Make a new excuse another stupid reason
Good luck, babe! Well good luck, babe!
You’d have to stop the world just to stop the feeling
Good luck, babe! Well good luck, babe!
You’d have to stop the world just to stop the feeling
In the chorus, Roan makes clear that her friend can’t admit to what their relationship has become because she is afraid and chasing after an evasive heterosexuality. The chorus builds on the picture drawn in the earlier lyrics. The friend on the one hand feels drawn to Roan and uses her to fill emotional needs and desires. But, she also is chasing after insignificant relationships with men to meet the outside world’s expectations.
As gay Christians, we often can be on either side of this “Good Luck” equation. We can be the friend trying to wish the best to someone who is unwilling to actually come to grips with their feelings in a productive way. We have to then realize that we can’t be the one to fix their internalized homophobia that doesn’t allow for them to be honest. I’ve been there and it’s hard. But, you finally realize you can’t just be a toy for someone else to use for their emotional and/or physical needs.
We can also find ourselves on the other side chasing after church or family or society expectations. We can find numbness to be more holy than honesty. The line “You’d have to stop the world just to stop the feeling” struck me when I first heard it. We try to control other people or separate ourselves so severely from the world because we don’t want to feel our own emotions. We cause pain for others because we don’t want to deal with our attractions and feelings. I’ve also been there too and it’s hard.
But also, I just love the tone and feel of the chorus. Roan isn’t the first to write a song about a girl who won’t admit her feelings for you. This is a very common theme in lesbian music. But, the tone is not self-depreciation or even anger but of a kind of acceptance. The kind of acceptance that is necessary to walk away and move on with your life.
The bridge is what made me fall in love with the song.
When you wake up next to him in the middle of the night
With your head in your hands, you're nothing more than his wife
And when you think about me, all of those years ago
You're standing face to face with "I told you so"
You know I hate to say it, I told you so
You know I hate to say, but I told you so
It’s super catchy and the vocals are next level. Another reason I love the bridge is because Roan is unapologetic in her belief that there could be goodness that comes from her friend choosing her. We get told all the time by society that there is something lost in being queer. Roan pushes back on that by claiming that you lose something if you never acknowledge it. Chappell Roan and I would likely argue on what acknowledging one’s queerness means but I think there is definitely something to the idea that true life only happens in the light. I know that I don’t want to wake up one day in a life I hate because I was afraid to take a risk.
One review I read said “This song wraps a common queer experience into a hug that never lets go” and I think that really sums it up well. “Good Luck Babe” captures common but complex queer emotions in a way that is relatable – but also you can dance to it. I hope this review made you want to check it out if you haven’t already. But, more importantly, if you connect with any of the
themes of the song, I hope you feel less alone. If this is your first lesbian song, I wish you had a sense of hope like I did the first time I heard Hayley Kiyoko all those years ago. You have access to a culture, not just a set of attractions.
I like the word lesbian and mean it in the fullest sense similar to how one might use Sapphic or wlw (woman loving woman). It’s a whole other article to explain why.
Never heard this song, but thanks for making me cry at work. Guh, great post.
Another great post. Loved the review and have definitely added to my playlist. I always find it comforting to know how a song touches someone so I understand them a bit more. I've heard Good Luck Babe several times and honestly didn't give a lot of weight to the lyrics but you have me listening to it a whole new way. THANK YOU!!