You know that feeling when you listen to an album and it feels specifically for you? I don’t often listen to popular music from the afterlife, but when I heard the gospel of Chappell Roan I felt joy. I heard the sound of trumpets and rejoicing. I felt seen. This pop singer who performs in drag, knows what it’s like to face crowds in the temple weeping and gnashing their teeth at perceived sins. And what it’s like to be in a situationship.
Her album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, starts with the song “Femininomenon.” It’s like the story of Easter morning. Talk about a femininomenon: All the men left the prophet’s tomb, went home to their pillows of goat hair. The other Marys and I slept under the stars. I lied to them about liking his mother (I mean, she was there), and that he’s a good lover. Did we sleep together? Or didn’t we? I never told. I explained what we really need: men who respect us and care about our pleasure but without the eloquence of Chappell, who sings about getting it “hot like Papa John.” But I sayeth unto them, we need a femininomenon! Lo, in the morning Jesus appeared and our plans were for naught. Attention returned to the guy phenomenon, now able to ascend and then descend. Like the hemlines in Sodom.
Our stories especially converge in the song “Casual.” Getting led on by someone who insists the two of you are casual? Girl! Our experiences are so similar they rhyme. She describes a lover knee deep in the passenger seat. The old men who translated scripture describe me knee deep, anointing his feet. As Chappel’s lover said unto her, Jesus said unto me. “Baby, no attachments.” Even as he invited me to travel around Judea listening to his sermons.
“Red Wine Supernova” makes a person, even a saint, want to gather fellow apostles into a line to dance and kick in cowboy boots and sequins. I too knew a red wine supernova. Long hair? Check. No bra? Check. That’s my type: Jesus traveling in his bed clothes and turning jugs of water into wine. Believe me, it’s not hyperbole when I say this man walked on water.
Of course in “Red Wine Supernova,” the long skirt and no bra describe the frock of a woman and not a roving teacher. This is where Chappell is a true prophet. Upon his resurrection, Jesus said unto me: find contentment in your heart and you will be aligned with the spirit. Sin comes from being adulterous to our true selves. It doesn’t have to do with who we love. I tried to carry this message on in my own gospel, but the men in charge buried it in a jar for hundreds of years, lest a woman be seen with power or wisdom.
Little did they know I have the same kink as Chappell: karma. From mine own afterlife I got a kick out of watching those fools ruining their lives, losing their minds, even dating girls who were eighteen. Unlike the lover Chappell sings to in “My Kink Is Karma,” I didn’t find them hateful in fake Gucci sweaters, though. They knew blended fabrics are considered sinful.
She knows what it’s like to want to shine when people in the kingdom show wrath at her joy. When the mother screams, God what have you done? in “Pink Pony Club” I can hear my mother beseeching me: You were mine own donkey girl. Now you follow that stud? Like the sinner in that song with wicked dreams of leaving Tennessee, I had wicked dreams of leaving Galilee. I followed Jesus, because no man (or woman) who hath lighted a candle should put their candle under a bushel. They should giveth the light to all who are in the club.