Towa Bird Shredding Guitar to “Good Luck, Babe!” Is My Roman Empire

This may be one of the most beautifully lesbian Mad Libs-style sentences I have ever written, but Towa Bird played electric guitar to Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!” and maybe melted the entire sapphic internet in the process.

The singer-songwriter and emerging guitar icon posted a 25-second TikTok video on Monday in which she plays along to the chorus of the queer anthem, plucking out an emotional glam-rock line on her Gibson Firebird, and throwing in just a dash of a hair-metal vibe for good measure. The collision of multiple WLW worlds sent the commenters into a frenzy, with some begging for a collab and others simply noting that they understand why girlfriend Reneé Rapp is obsessed with her. (As for me, I hyperfocused on the fact that Bird is wearing at least five rings, proving some stereotypes about queer women are just true.)

Towa Bird is the Queer Guitar-Shredding Rock Star of Your Dreams

Bird talks with Them about her “very abundantly gay” songs and her dream of becoming “the lesbian Paul McCartney.”

Bird is on the verge of releasing her debut album American Hero, coming June 28 from Interscope, with an early single “Sorry Sorry” already available. It’s worth stressing that while many internet lesbians, myself included, remain gooped and gagged over moments like Bird and Rapp’s Vanity Fair Oscars party “hard launch,” these women are indeed artists who are making remarkable music! Bird herself has been praised as a guitar virtuoso in the vein of Jimi Hendrix and other legendary masters of the instrument. In fact, Them’s own guitar expert Juan Velasquez — who is himself something of a queer punk L.A. icon — ranks among her biggest fans.

“I want to be the lesbian Paul McCartney,” Bird told us in February, adding that she has no shame about infusing queerness into her music.

“A lot of my songs are very abundantly gay,” she said. “It was something I had to keep secret for a really long time. And I’m fucking proud to be able to share that part of myself with people.”

We can’t wait for Bird’s album — and also for the possibility of her playing live with Chappell soon. They’re both playing the All Things Go festival in September along with seemingly every other sapphic artist on earth. Let’s make it happen!

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