As Chappell Roan hits No.1 with The Subway, here's a chance to revisit our Hitmakers interview with Daniel Nigro from December 2024. Here, the co-writer and producer of The Subway reveals how they created global smash Good Luck, Babe!...
Audiences across the globe have been going wild for Chappell Roan’s Good Luck, Babe! since its release in April this year. It spent six weeks at No.2 in the UK and has over 900 million Spotify streams to date. Here, producer and co-writer Dan Nigro reflects on how the Missouri-raised star blew his mind when they met, outlines the creative process behind the hit and looks back on how ‘Jane’ became ‘Babe’...
Chappell Roan is a very special artist. I always knew there was something unique about her, it was just about getting her in front of as many people as possible.
We met through my manager, who was a fan of hers. When we first starting writing together, it was a little slow to start with as we were just getting a feel for each other. I remember her sitting on the couch telling me she liked ethereal-sounding guitars, so I started playing some chords. She was chill and quite coy, but she said she liked it. So I made a loop, and she started writing in her notebook. I was thinking, ‘Is she enjoying this?’ I didn’t know what she was doing for about an hour, but I just let her be!
Finally, she said, ‘I think I have something.’ I was like, ‘Oh cool!’ Then she got on the microphone and sang pretty much the first verse and chorus of a song that became Love Me Anyway [2020]. I was blown away. I thought, ‘Shit, what a beautiful voice, this person is incredibly talented.’ And from there, it all just blossomed.
We wrote the first idea for Good Luck, Babe! with Justin Tranter in late 2022. At that time, the tracks for her album [2023’s The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess] were kind of picked out already and we were trying to figure out when we were going to release the record. We came up with ideas for the verse and chorus and we all really liked it, but I was convinced it still needed some work. In my mind I had to compartmentalise it – it was like, ‘This is a great song but we still have to finish Red Wine Supernova and Coffee and Hot To Go! and all these other things for the album.’
So, we forgot about it for a while. Then, when the album was nearly finished, Chappell and I opened up the song again and were like, ‘Wow, there’s something in this.’ There were great melodies, but the lyrics and some other things needed work. We tried to rewrite a bit, but we didn’t really get into it and put it away again. A few months later, we opened it once more and I realised the key was wrong – it was like this puzzle we were trying to piece together.
It wasn’t until December 2023, after the fourth or fifth time we’d opened it, that Chappell and I went back in, fixed some lyrics, got a great vocal performance from her, and I felt like this was really cool. At that point, I was like, ‘I have to prioritise this.’ The song was originally called Good Luck, Jane! because we thought it would be interesting to use a specific name, but the more we went back and forth, Good Luck, Babe! just felt more sarcastic and playful.
So once we had that, we had so many options for how the song could sound. I remember laying the pre-chorus string part down, and Chappell was like, ‘That’s cool!’ But then I was a bit nervous about basing the song around strings, because it could become pretty epic that way. As we were doing it though, I was just like, ‘No, this is amazing, we have to go with this.’ I mapped out a quick preliminary string part and then [arranger] Paul Cartwright came in and when he heard my ideas, he was like, ‘I get it, let’s do this!’
The hard part with writing is getting what I call the ‘meat and potatoes’ down – the vocals, the lyrics, the emotion. So once we nailed those things, the other stuff came easily, especially things like the bridge. But I do get pretty hung up in my head about things like song transitions, how good it feels when the chorus hits, that kind of stuff. I get lost in trying out different variations. With Good Luck, Babe!, I’d worked on it so long and had been listening to it over and over... I got so hung up on the little things. At that point I had to just be like, ‘Right, I’m done!’
Chappell was on tour when I sent it to her and she thought it was great. Then we sent it to the label, and no one had any notes. That kind of scared me – I thought, ‘Are they just trying to be nice?’ People like to have notes normally [laughs], but it was definitely gratifying when people seemed to like it.
I try not to have too high expectations for songs, because there’s always room for let-down. But with Chappell’s career, it felt like we were going step by step and Good Luck, Babe! was going to be an amazing way to kick off the next part of it.
But I didn’t realise it would take off like it did. From the start, there was this energy around it – I had that with [Olivia Rodrigo’s 2021] Drivers License – where it was like everyone I knew was sending me messages about it, even when it had only been out for 12 hours. It felt different, people were really connecting with it.
But the thing with Chappell is, she has such a confidence in who she is and what she wants out of a track and her performances. Her songs are just classics. They’re tracks you want to listen to, that you want to play. That, with her dynamic live show, her stage presence, her outfits... people become enthralled by her.
And with Good Luck, Babe! specifically, I think it will always be a very important song for me and my career. I feel like the whole point of making music is to keep the innocence of writing songs that feel good, that feel natural and that go on instinct. That is exactly what we did with this song, and I hope that never changes.
PHOTO: Shervin Lainez
Writer’s Notes
PUBLISHERS: Sony Music Publishing, Warner Chappell Music
WRITERS: Chappell Roan, Daniel Nigro, Justin Tranter
PRODUCER: Dan Nigro
RELEASE DATE: 05.04.24
LABEL: Island Records
TOTAL SALES (OCC): 953,334
Publisher’s Corner
Leading executives salute their star songwriters...
Nick Bral, SVP, creative, Sony Music Publishing: “Dan’s studio is where the next wave of star talent is crowned. He is a proven tastemaker, who is shaping the landscape of music and culture – and what we are witnessing is just the beginning of his next chapter as a prolific executive as well. We are honoured to be his partner on this journey.”
