“Pink Pony Club” may be one of the biggest hits of 2025, but Chappell Roan’s anthemic ode to gay bars was first released five years ago. Roan co-wrote the song with producer Dan Nigro in 2019 and spent a year begging Atlantic Records to put it out. Eventually, the label relented, making it the lead single on what was meant to be Roan’s debut album. But Atlantic dropped the singer before the end of the year, and she recouped ownership of the master recording.
Three years later, the song reemerged on Roan’s debut album, “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess,” and two years after that, it topped the charts and amassed nearly 1 billion streams on Spotify.
“It took five years and a ton of blood, sweat and tears from so many people to get this song to where it is now,” Roan says. “To see it go No. 1 is just affirmation that we were right all along.”
Nigro said he knew early on that “Pink Pony Club” was worth the effort it took to get it released — and rereleased. “There are times you know in your heart you have to fight for a song,” Nigro says. “I always think, if a song gives me this feeling, then it has to be able to do it for other people too.”
“Pink Pony Club” is inspired by Roan’s visit to West Hollywood gay bar The Abbey after moving from Missouri to L.A. Roan became infatuated with the go-go dancers and thought of the nightclub as a refuge for queer expression. She and Nigro wrote the entire song to a drum beat before laying the throbbing synth foundation under the pre-chorus: “God, what have you done?”
“We felt right away that we had something special,” Nigro says. “I remember my assistant putting on his headphones in the studio, and he took them off after a few minutes, looked at me and said, ‘Wow, this song is crazy.’” Another one of Nigro’s engineers told him, “This might be my favorite song you’ve co-written.”
The lyrics trace Roan’s journey from the Midwest to the West Coast, fictionalizing a few key aspects. Like, she’s leaving Tennessee — not Missouri — in the song, simply because “it sounded better,” Nigro says. And while the Pink Pony Club does not exist, it has come to symbolize any space where people are free to be themselves.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve cried listening to this song,” Nigro says. “It still makes me emotional.”
Songwriters: Chappell Roan, Dan Nigro
Producer: Dan Nigro
Label: Amusement / Island Records
Hitmakers: Dan Nigro, co-writer/producer; Gia Rigoli, Griffin Stoddard, music video producer and director; Heather Baker, Direction Music Group; Ramisha Sattar, creative director
