‘Knee deep in the passenger’s seat and you’re eating me out, is it casual now?’ is arguably the most iconic lyric of 2024, from Chappell Roan’s hit song Casual.
It was Morgan St. Jean who gave the Pink Pony Club hitmaker the idea for this memorable line, years ago in her parents’ basement. But while even your gran has heard of Chappell by now, you’ve probably never come across Morgan.
Let me introduce you: Morgan is a self-titled ‘feminist pop princess’ with almost 300,000 Instagram followers, one of which is the Good Luck, Babe! hitmaker herself.
Casual aside, one of Morgan’s biggest moments on the world stage so far came in the form of Not All Men, her 2021 campaigning single which went viral, amassing 1.4million TikTok views in 48 hours. Now, she’s approaching 900,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.
Morgan is currently working on her debut album, having signed a publishing deal, in part due to the success of Casual. Let’s just say, things are bubbling.
‘It’s been amazing, because now I have a whole team of people whose job it is to put me into sessions and to pitch my songs,’ she tells Metro on a Zoom call, in a down-to-earth West Coast accent.
‘It happened right after Covid,’ Morgan said of the collaboration she never realised would be a pivotal moment – culturally and personally – until years later, when Chappell exploded into the mainstream.
‘I was living with my parents’ house. A friend of mine was managing me at the time, it wasn’t anything serious but he was helping me out.’
This manager asked Morgan if she would be up for doing a session with this cool artist. Luckily, Morgan was ‘very much in my yes phase of life’.
‘So she came over and we wrote it in my parents’ basement,’ said Morgan with a half laugh.
‘I remember her telling me about a situationship she was in, and she said something about being casual, and we were like, “That’s cool. Let’s lean into it a little bit.””
‘I remember she said something about Alanis Morissette saying, “Would she go down on you in a theatre,” and Chappell said, “I love how aggressive that is, and how direct it is.”
‘It’s almost hard to remember the details, because it was so long ago and no one had any idea it was going to be an important moment,’ Morgan admits, continuing: ‘But I think I said something along the lines of, “Would you say, ‘you’re in the passenger seat and you’re eating me out, is it casual now?’”‘
Fortunately, that was exactly the kind of lyric Chappell digs, and one thatepitomises her frank, kinky spirit fans have come to obsess over.
‘I actually listened back to the original demo we did in my parents’ basement. Originally it was waist deep in the passenger seat, I didn’t even remember that,’ says Morgan.
‘I remember she was playing the piano, her voice was this cool, yodelling almost. It was just amazing. Just her and I.’
Morgan knew ‘very little’ about producing at the time, but was able to get a little demo together for Chappell.
After that, Morgan didn’t hear anything about Casual for years, aside from a few message exchanges with Chappell.
‘Years later her team reached out to me – she was starting to bubble but she certainly wasn’t Chappell Roan yet – and said she wanted to release Casual as a single.
‘But they had changed most of it. The thing that stuck was the chorus.
‘It was really cool to hear. I think what they did is magical. I just feel so lucky I was in the right place at the right time. I think she’s a once in a generation talent, I really do.’
Surely, Morgan must have been just a little envious that her work blew up under the banner of a different singer?
Not one bit.
‘That session was always meant to be for her. I never planned on cutting it or singing it. The re-writes she and Dan Nigro did made it so special,’ she says.
Morgan covers the song regularly at her own gigs, which she takes pride in.
‘It’s so fun because I think my version when I sing it is so different than hers,’ she says. ‘I’m just so grateful she brought it to life. It was always meant to be her song. There isn’t a piece of me that feels like it was meant to be my song.’
Imposter syndrome is something Morgan is grappling with, as she’s being approached for work opportunities more than ever, rather than shamelessly flooding the DMs of producers as she has done in the past.
‘It’s opened doors for me to work with other people I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to before,’ she says. ‘It’s been crazy.’
‘I know that it sounds silly, and we shouldn’t wait for external things to build our own value, but after many years of really putting in the work and trying, it is nice to get a little bit pat on the back.’
Chappell hasn’t forgotten Morgan’s contribution, either.
‘What I really admire and respect is that from my perspective, I only met her that one time in that session,’ she says.
‘I never worked in a room with Chappell and Dan when they were finishing the song.
‘Yet, they invited me to this Grammy performance at the Grammy Museum the night before she was nominated for every award, because they were performing that song. It was a very small intimate room. To me, that speaks volumes to their character.
‘That they still include me in the success of that song, it means so much to me.’
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