Renee Rapp Sings Her Way Through Tough Times on New Ballad, ‘Snow Angel’

Reneé Rapp reaches deep to find resilience in “Snow Angel,” the titular single from her upcoming album. “I’ll make it through the winter if it kills me,” she sings over a climbing piano, occasionally punctuating her voice with heavy-metal guitar chords. “I can make it faster if I hurry/An angel in the snow until I’m worthy/But if it kills me, I tried.”

The song’s video shows grainy, home-shot video of Rapp in the studio, sitting for the album cover shoot, and generally just goofing around — all signs of how she’s made it through a rough time. The album will come out between winters this summer.

Rapp explained the motivation behind the song on Monday in a tweet. “A little over a year ago I had a traumatic experience,” she wrote without disclosing details of the situation. “I don’t love to throw that word around lightly, so I understand the weight it holds. My last week in Jersey, I texted [producer] Alexander [23] that I wanted to write about it when I got home.”

“I explained and recounted the situation in sessions with collaborators, but it just wasn’t sticking,” she continued. “Then, that night, May 8th, he told me, ‘I really want to write that “snow” song. I think it’s good, really good.’ So, we stayed up. We wrote it that night and recorded it the next day.” She also wrote that she appreciated how her management and label supported the new song, allowing her to change the album title to Snow Angel and release the track as the lead single.

In and around working on Snow Angel, Rapp has been filming scenes for a film adaptation of Mean Girls: The Musical, in which she plays one of the story’s meanest girls, Regina George. She also appears in the TV show The Sex Lives of College Girls.