It might have become one of her signature songs, but for a while it looked like Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club would come and go without anyone really noticing. However, co-writer and producer Dan Nigro says that he always knew that it had the potential to be a hit.
“We felt right away that we had something special,” he tells Variety as part of its Hitmakers round-up. “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.’”
Pink Pony Club was actually written and recorded way back in 2019, when Roan was signed to Atlantic Records. She always wanted it to be a single, but the label wasn’t keen.
After pressure from the star, the song was released for the first time in 2020, but didn’t really do much. In fact, Roan was soon dropped - crucially, though, she was able to leave Atlantic with ownership of some of her master recordings, one of which was Pink Pony Club.
Three years later, the song was included on The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, Roan’s debut album, but once again, it passed a lot of people by. In 2024, though, Roan had a huge hit with Good Luck, Babe!, shining a fresh light on the album and its songs.
Since then, Pink Pony Club’s rise has been inexorable, a reward for its creators’ belief in it.
“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 tells Variety, while Nigro says that he always knew that the song was worth fighting for.
So the lesson is clear: if you fall off the pink pony, pick yourself up and get right back on.
