Chappell Roan debuts lesbian country song ‘The Giver’ on ‘Saturday Night Live’

Her kink is… country?

Chappell Roan went from “Pink Pony Club” to country club on “Saturday Night Live,” surprised fans by going country in both look and sound for her second number of the show, premiering a brand new song, “The Giver,” that marries C&W with LGBTQ.

“I get the job done,” Roan sang on the chorus of the new song, which shares a theme with “Femininomenon” in arguing that sometimes (or always?) it’s a job best left to a fellow woman.

“All you country boys that say you know how to threaten a woman right,” Roan said during a spoken word aside in the song – “Well, only a woman knows how to treat a woman right. She gets the job done .”

For this second appearance late in the show, Roan still wore the big red wig with white stripes that marked her first appearance when she previously performed her signature song “Pink Pony Club.” Other than that, everything was different, until Roan’s backing singers and all-female band switched to old-school denim and western shirts, while Roan reappeared in a gingham-style halter top, short shorts and boots that could have almost been straight out of “The Dukes of Hazzard”.

Except “dukes” had little to do with it: Roan clearly celebrated the Duchesses of Hazzard with moderately risqué lyrics about partners giving and receiving and the assurance that “it’s just in my nature to take it like a taker ” and “you don’t need to hurry.”

Cartoon bears and other animated woodland critters looked on as Roan’s suddenly fiddler-driven band drove the country groove home.

Although the song title was not known until its debut on “SNL,” and fans guessed from the chorus that it was called “She Gets the Job Done,” NBC posted a portion of the performance on social media afterward with a caption revealing that it called “The giver.“

Last week, Roan posted a photo of herself wearing the LP jacket from her debut album, suggesting in the caption that it was being replaced by a new one, though no timetable was offered for its recording or release. (“Album bounced a bit imo, but it’s time to welcome a new bombshell to the villa,” she wrote, riffing on a catchphrase from the reality TV series “Love Island.”) But her producer/co-writer , Dan Nigro , offered clues as to how the album is coming along in a recent New York Times interview, saying they’d done five tracks so far — noting that one of them was a “fun, up-tempo country song.” that includes “a violin … a new version of Chappell.”

Earlier on “SNL,” Roan performed the “Pink Pony Club” and went off-mic for the final pre-chorus so the studio audience could sing it for her. Perhaps the show’s sound engineers turned up the ambient sound more than usual, but it sounded like the entire audience might be die-hard Roan fans, judging by the volume of the chorus coming through the TV speakers.

At the end of “Pink Pony Club,” Roan shouted, “Live from New York!”, repeating the show’s traditional cold-open catchphrase—the only time in memory a musical guest has done so—in what felt like a spontaneous exclamation of triumph over how thrilling the performance had been, or even scene-stealing chutzpah.

Roan’s appearance on the show was 13 years in the making, or at least the dream. On her social media earlier this week, she posted a screenshot of a Facebook post she made in April 2011, when she would have been 13, under her pre-stage name, Kayleigh Amstutz, reading prophetically: “I am determined to be on SNL.”

Roan’s move toward country is likely a one-off and not a significant change of direction, as Nigro stated in his New York Times interview that only one of the songs they worked on for the second album was a country track. (She’s also used concerts to premiere another new tune, “Subway,” that isn’t in a country genre.) Either way, she’s one of several major pop artists who have recently dipped their toe into the genre , featuring Beyonce and Post Malone have both released country-themed albums this year, and Lana Del Rey has been working on one for some time.

Of course, Roan’s new song isn’t the first lesbian country song. Among them is Highwomen’s “If She Ever Leaves Me,” and points of comparison in this burgeoning subgenre could come up as a topic of conversation when Brandi Carlile moderates a discussion with Roan and Nigro in Los Angeles this week.

Now the big question is: Will Roan be invited to get the job done with a Grand Ole Opry performance?