Pink Pony World
The thing I love most about Chappell Roan’s sudden rise in popularity is watching the effect she seems to have on people. Look at any video of her concerts online and check out the audience. Doesn't it look like a lot of those people are getting more out of these shows than just standing there listening to a girl sing songs? It seems many of her fans are finding the ability now to convert the vicarious thrill of watching a young beautiful pop star as she performs her process of self discovery onstage and online into improved self confidence and feelings of empowerment to improve their own lives.
Maybe there are a lot of crossover experiences for these people where the positive influences they’re feeling are coming from several sources converging lately (e.g., Brat Summer, Kamala Harris, Simone Biles, etc.). However it’s happening, I love to see it. It reminds me that there’s a lot of good things in the world. Chappel Roan is definitely one of them!
As to my website’s recent blurb advertising myself as a former barista at the Pink Pony Club...okay fine! Let’s unpack that. The Pink Pony Club is a song and part of Roan’s fictional universe and since it's a bar, would probably employ a bartender not a barista, but since I was a barista for several years I can indulge in redecorating her fantasy venue to suit myself. Besides, it’s a cool thing that Roan and I have in common: We both were baristas and know how to make latte art.
That song brought back a lot of memories. Her lyrics for Pink Pony Club resemble my entire twenties and even thirties. Here I am more than twenty years on (Sorry, age-drop there...look, if I can admit it, you can deal with it!) and Chappell Roan is discovering for the first time in her life the joy in some of the same things I found for myself in the nineties. I count myself among the lucky that I never lost those sensibilities, and the girlfriend I met in one of those pink pony clubs way back then is still married to me today. So there! Sometimes it does work out.
Another thing I love about Chappell’s act is the positivity she projects. Her performances make people feel great about everything despite lyrics that can cover topics like humiliation, breakups, rejection, and depression. People come away from her show thinking everything is still somehow going to work out, for Chappell and for them.
I played in a band with similar energy in the early 2000’s. We were a big drag king/queen fifties cover band called The Woodyz that played at gay pride events around the country. No matter how raunchy our act got it always generated positive feelings and excitement with audiences. The band I now perform with, Split Window, also projects its own kind of positivity and excitement.
Having played with other bands that spewed all their darkest emotions and got back pretty much the same from the crowd, I have to say I like the positive thing a lot better. It seems to work better psychologically for the audience members as well.
Note: You know, I think this is the first time I've noticed that both of the band's names I mentioned I played with are automobile references: A “woodie” was a kind of station wagon popular from the thirties through the sixties, and “split window” refers to the divided windshield on a VW Microbus from the fifties and sixties.
-V
Photo: The Woodyz at El Rio, San Francisco