Chappell Roan’s The Giver: Lyrics, meaning, country style and more explained
14 March 2025, 12:09
The ‘Pink Pony Club’ artist's latest single is a country bop that’s ‘Hot to Go’.
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Chappell Roan has released a new single, and she's gone country!
The pop-star – famously your favourite artist’s favourite artist – released ‘The Giver’ on Friday, March 14, after months of anticipation for her sophomore album’s first single.
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Now that Chappell has finally gifted fans with ‘The Giver’, here’s everything you need to know about the fun and provocative country track...
Chappell Roan - The Giver (Official Lyric Video)
Who wrote Chappell Roan’s ‘The Giver’?
‘The Giver’ was penned by Chappell Roan, Dan Nigro and Paul Cartwright.
Dan also produced the track, and worked with the 27-year-old BRIT and Grammy Award-winner before on her album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.
Paul previously featured on the same album as a strings player and arranger.
Watch Chappell Roan and Elton John Perform Pink Pony Club!
Chappell first performed ‘The Giver’ live during her appearance on SNL in November 2024, but only released the single in March 2025.
What is ‘The Giver’ about?
‘The Giver’ is a lesbian anthem which celebrates how the singer can give a woman all she needs, as she’s “no country boy quitter”.
“When you need the job done / You can call me, baby” Chappell sings in the song’s chorus, celebrating how giving her partner pleasure is “just in [her] nature... cause baby I’m a giver.”
“Other boys may need a map / But I can close my eyes / And have you wrapped / Around my fingers like that” the singer brags suggestively in verse one.
To advertise the release of ‘The Giver’ in March 2025, Chappell posted billboards featuring herself dressed as various professions, from a lawyer to a dentist to the builder she appears as on the single’s cover.
Each billboard emphasised how people should trust in the lesbian icon to get the job done.
Chappell told SNL’s audience to whom she first performed the song: “All you country boys saying you know how to treat a woman right. Well, only a woman knows how to treat a woman right.”
Why did Chappell Roan choose to write a country song?
Chappell shared her reasoning for going country on her latest track while celebrating the release of ‘The Giver’ on March 14.
"I have such a special place in my heart for country music," Chappell penned on social media.
"I grew up listening to it every morning and afternoon on my school bus and had it swirling around me at bon fires, grocery stores and karaoke bars... may the classic country divas lead their genre, I am just here to twirl and do a little gay yodel for yall."
She told Amazon Music: “I wrote a country song not to invade country music, but to really capture what I think, the essence of country music is, for me, which is nostalgia, and fun in the summertime and the fiddle and the banjo, feeling like country queen.”
“It makes me feel a certain type of freedom that pop music doesn’t let me feel,” she added.
Chappell later explained that she thought releasing a lesbian country anthem would be “funny,” “campy and fun”, while also allowing her contemporary self to reflect on her “Christian and country” upbringing in southwest Missouri.
“I have kept country in my heart,” she told Apple Music’s Kelleigh Bannen, E! News reports.
Chappell named Big & Rich’s ‘Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)’ as one of the track’s main inspirations.
Big & Rich - Save A Horse (Ride A Cowboy) (Official Music Video)
“I was like: ‘I want to feel [that song’s joy] on stage. I want to feel that.’ Because that’s how I write.
“I’m like: ‘How do I want to walk around on stage and sing?’ And I was like: ‘I want to write that song, but Chappell’s version.’”
Is Chappell Roan going to release a country album?
Chappell Roan currently has no plans to release a country music album.
It sounds as if ‘The Giver’ is set to be a one-off country single on the ‘Pink Pony Club’ star’s next album.
“I really just did it for fun. I’m not switching genres or anything,” she told Kelleigh.
But she’s also not ruling out writing more country songs in the future. “It’s not no forever,” she stressed.
‘The Giver’ by Chappell Roan is out now.
Chappell's new track is Smooth Country's Record of the Week! Click here to discover all the ways you can listen to Smooth Country.
