It's time to talk about "Pink Pony Club". Super hot, popular song by the one and only Chappell Roan, which has gotten so popular as of late. The song has truly taken on a life of its own. Now, in this rant, I'm not really sure where to start, honestly. Maybe with my own personal experience with the song.

Now, if you follow my channels closely, you know that I actually did listen to Chappell Roan's debut album around when it originally released, and honestly, my first impressions of the record genuinely were underwhelming. Since that original listen to the record here and there, I had heard her music played and performed in a few different contexts. Actually, I was in attendance at that big Gov Ball performance that has become of legend since it happened in New York. I heard her perform "Pink Pony Club", among other hits. Was a bit more sold on Chappell after that performance, looking forward to what she might do next. And weeks and weeks later down the road, I think I just idly caught myself having the chorus to "Pink Pony Club" stuck in my head and not really thinking anything of it.

I decided to just put it on my phone while I was doing other things. Just like, okay, this is a song that's hot right now. It's stuck in my head. I want to hear it. I put on the song. I'm literally doing other things around the kitchen while I'm playing the track, like, utterly distracted, not giving the song my full attention at all. And for whatever reason, when the chorus of the track hit in the background, not paying full attention again, I start weeping like a bitch. I'm getting choked up. I'm getting choked up with this song just playing in the background. And I'm taken aback and I'm thinking, What the fuck is going on? What is happening? Then I start paying stronger attention to the song itself, start losing my shit even more so as I'm giving it more focus. And then before you know, I'm playing the song and just completely losing my mind and feeling like I'm going insane. Now, after having come away from this experience, I could put on the song today and keep my composure, but I have gotten a better sense of why exactly the song set me off in that way, and it's for several different reasons.

One, and I think the clearest and most obvious is that the vocal performance on the track is really powerful, truly. And when Chappell does sing that first line on the course, the way her voice cracks, it does sound like, in a sense, she is crying – she's letting out a painful yelp. And then beyond that, the lyrics of the song are genuinely moving and actually very compelling, too. While the track is very specifically about the experience of a queer person seeking out a different life in a different place where they can truly be themselves, the idea of dealing with some repression and acting against it in order to be your truth and live the life that you want to lead is a pretty universal feeling. It's all that stuff, among other things, such as just very good, solid, straightforward, melodic songwriting that I think has made the song such a hit – not only among the communities of people who directly and literally relate to the lyrics of the song, but even people like Uncle Rick Beato, who you can find noodling over the track with his guitar, complementing the solo on the song. Because it's true, there is something about the songwriting of the track that I feel like if you genuinely care about songwriting you care about tunes, you care about song structure, this track is just going to appeal to you on some level.

From the storytelling, to the vocal performance, to the melodic makeup of the song and the production, the track truly is the total package. I feel like that has been reflected in its commercial performance thus far. As of the shooting of this video, the track has been sitting on the Billboard Hot 100 for 46 weeks. Its peak position was number 4, and while that's not the most impressive performance of any song on the charts currently, there's just been an omnipresence of "Pink Pony Club" that I feel like is just not so much the case for tracks like Drake's "Nokia". Let me explain. I mean, obviously, that's a fun song. It's a popular song. I like it myself. But personally, I don't find it to be quite as inescapable as "Pink Pony Club", not only when it comes to just being out and about and hearing the song played organically or randomly in public, but also as the weeks have drawn on and the song continues to hold a pretty steady momentum, there are more and more and more cover versions of the track out there in the world.

Cover versions and also remixes like the recent Chainsmokers rendition of the track, which is absolute, total, utter trash. It's like they did the straight EDM dance remix of the song. And look, this newly remixed version of the track is just one of many new iterations of the song, because it seems like everybody in music on some level wants to get in on the Chappell Roan action. I swear, it's insane. This woman's music is covered as if she were an artist who had six times the length of her current career, five times the length of her current discography, and has dropped multiple classics and is most likely dead. The frequency with which she is covered is really at that level right now, which is crazy. You can really spend all day going down the rabbit hole of different versions and covers of "Pink Pony Club", which is exactly what I did, and that's why I'm making this video right now. Please stop covering this goddamn song. You're ruining it. You're taking it further and further and further out of context. It's losing all meaning, especially when you do, let's say, a Kidz Bop version of the song, which I'm not speaking hypothetically on that front.

There is, in fact, now a Kidz Bop version of the song, which honestly reads as uncanny to me more than your average Kidz Bop version of any popular track. It sounds like one of the children's voices is more autotuned than all the others, and when they're all singing together in harmony, I use that word loosely. With the instrumental being so low in the mix, it sounds like a chorus of weird aliens just whaling filling out a cover version of the song. Not to mention, I feel like the lyrical alterations that typically come with Kidz Bop versions make less sense here than in most cases. First off, if you're trying to subvert any innuendo, show or reference to the real and genuine meaning of the song in queer culture, I don't think they've done that great of a job. They literally maintain lyrics like, "And I heard that there's a special place where boys and girls can all be queens every single day." Simultaneously, obviously, in the pre-chorus of the song, they changed the lyrics about dancing at the club to singing at the club. However, dancing at the Pink Pony Club is too vital, a reference in the actual chorus itself, and they keep the reference to dancing at the Pink Pony Club in the actual chorus.

If you were going to change the first mention of dancing to singing, why wouldn't you do all the other mentions of dancing? This version is just so unnecessary, especially since it was originally written to not bop you over the head with everything. If the OG version of "Pink Pony Club" is too salacious for your kids to hear, they shouldn't be listening to any version of the song. But you know what? As annoying as this Kidz Bop version is, there are iterations of the track that are genuinely more disheartening and head-scratching. For example, there's this metal version by Lauren Babik, where you can hear the track with roaring, detuned gent metal riffs, and it's got to be some of the hottest garbage I've ever heard in my life. Genuinely gives me indigestion just thinking about it. There's also this one take on the track from a steam-powered giraffe. I don't follow this YouTube channel. I don't think I will be past this point. The singing in this cover is absolutely terrible. But with that being said, maybe it gets away with doing what it's doing here for its campiness.

It does have camp points, and we do know Chappell and the Chappell audience enjoy some camp. The song, believe it or not, has also been covered by Corey Taylor of Slipknot fame just live on guitar, not a crazy studio version or anything like that. But Corey is a guy who famously tends to give it his all vocally with everything that he does. And yet, he's performing the song over here with the passion and chutzpa of a Christian youth group guitar singalong. We can probably do without that. However, what's even more offensive is this Sirius XM Studio live cover of the song by Alex Warren, who is somebody I'm not really familiar with, and I don't want to be any more familiar after having heard this cover. Going from the OG version to this is like taking a really ornate, beautifully crafted chair and then turning it into a soulless, boring, off-white, boxy piece of IKEA furniture. Especially with this very reserved vocal performance style.

But honestly, the creme de la creme when it comes to covers of "Pink Pony Club" has to be this AI Plankton sings version of the track. Which, yeah, I love that not only do we hear the song in an AI version of Plankton's voice, but it is sung in such a tone to where it sounds like he's screaming the entire time, which, yeah, if Plankton is going to sing "Pink Pony Club", he should be screaming the entire time, even during the quieter moments.

So, I mentioned all of this overexposure and cover versions of the song to say that, you know what? It's sad and unfortunate that a song in a very short period of time, which even when just playing it in the background, just made me completely lose it and just felt like this supremely powerful moment has been played for me over and over and over and decontextualized in so, so many ways so many times that when I hear it, I still mostly enjoy it, but I feel much more numb than I did originally when I had that first big reaction.

And that sucks, which I guess is why I'm going to say: Stop covering this goddamn song. Please leave it alone. Let it regrow its magic a bit, and just try to appreciate what it is and where it's coming from without treating it like your karaoke night opportunity to get some applause. Now, I know I'm not the President of music or anything like that, so I have no real control over who covers the song and when. I feel like the only thing I can do to be the change that I want to see is imbue cringe into the act of covering this track by covering it myself.