After Chappell Roan’s meteoric rise to stardom this year, it was only a matter of time before she got noticed by one of music’s most infamous institutions: Kidz Bop.

The music group, which takes popular songs and changes to lyrics to be quote-unquote “appropriate” for children, tackled Roan’s biggest hit, “Good Luck, Babe!” Fans of the song may be scratching their heads as to how they did it: the song is all about a gay love affair with a girl who’s still in the closet, leaving Roan to point out the futility of denying your true self and sexuality. Kidz Bop attempted to take all the queerness out, but what does that leave? A song about hopelessness and — as several folks on social media pointed out — what sounds like suicidal ideation.

The Kidz Bop version changes a few key lyrics: In the chorus, the Kidz Bop kids sing that you can “tell a hundred boys you’re smart” rather than “kiss a hundred boys in bars,” and they recommend “traveling ‘round the world” instead of “shooting another shot.” 

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The bridge, though, is where things get especially dark. Where Roan tells her lover that someday she’ll “wake up next to him in the middle of the night” and be “nothing more than his wife,” the Kidz Bop tell them they’ll  “wake up in [their] bed” — ostensibly alone — and have “nothing more in this life.” It sounds like the message has changed from a cautionary tale of compulsory heterosexuality to one of ending up alone and considering ending it all.

The song stands in contrast to Kidz Bop’s recent cover of Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso,” which seemed to say heterosexuality was inappropriate for kids by changing the lyrics’ pronouns from “he” to “they.” One song got queerer, while one was stripped of its queer themes — clearly, someone at Kidz Bop HQ needs to make up their minds.

Check out Kidz Bop’s version of “Good Luck, Babe!” for yourself below.

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