Chappell Roan is opening up about her brand-new track “The Giver” — and about how her first foray into country music is allowing her to explore in ways that pop music hasn’t.

On Thursday, March 13’s episode of Amazon Music’s Country Heat Weekly Podcast, the “Hot to Go!” singer, 27, spoke with hosts Kelly Sutton and Amber Anderson about “The Giver” and her decision to write a lesbian country song, following all of her pop hits from her debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.

“Well, I can’t call myself the Midwest princess and not acknowledge country music, straight up,” the singer — born Kayleigh Rose Amstutz in Missouri — tells Sutton and Anderson.

“That is what is around me in the grocery stores. That’s what is playing on the bus…I know that my heart really wanted to write a country song, and I’m trying to really articulate that it’s not me trying to cross genres and be like, hey, you know, ‘Look at me,'” the singer continues. “I’m not trying to convince a country crowd that they should listen to my music by baiting them with a country song. That’s not what I feel like I’m doing. I just think a lesbian country song is really funny, so I wrote that.”

For Roan, “The Giver” wasn’t about “invading” country music with a song about her identity, but it was a chance to capture the essence of the genre.

“I wrote a country song not to invade country music, but to really capture what I think, the essence of country music is, for me, which is nostalgia, and fun in the summertime, and the fiddle, and the banjo feeling like country queen,” she says. “It makes me feel a certain type of freedom that pop music doesn’t let me feel.”

Her pivot from pop to country was something she simply “had to do,” she tells Sutton and Anderson.

“I think it’s interesting and I had to do it. I had to do it for myself to know what is it actually like to write a country song and perform it next to ‘Casual’ or next to ‘My Kink Is Karma’ or next to ‘Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl’ I just had to do myself justice.”

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Roan first debuted “The Giver” during her performance on Saturday Night Live in November 2024. After being introduced by host John Mulaney, she stepped out on stage wearing a pink and white gingham bralette as well as matching shorts and cowboy boots, while her band and backing singers sported similarly country-themed looks — her first foray outside her usual drag-inspired performance look.

The star has previously been candid about her love for queer culture, and even booked all drag queens as her opening acts during her 2023 Naked in North America tour.

“It’s just a great way to engage the local queer community to that city,” she told PEOPLE at the time. “I encourage people to tip the queens, that’s redistributing funds within the community there, and also it just gives a platform for the drag queens. Some of these queens have never performed in front of a crowd that big before, and it’s just fun.”

Chappell Roan’s “The Giver” hits streaming platforms on Friday, March 14.