Chappell Roan Finally Releases ‘The Subway’: Listen
Chappell Roan breaks down seeing her ex on public transit on her new song “The Subway,” which finally arrived Friday alongside a wild music video. The ballad has been a highly anticipated song for her fans ever since she began singing it during her live sets last summer.
“I’m very proud of this song & what a journey she has been on. I first played it at gov ball when I was painted green as lady liberty and in the past have played new songs live to feel them out,” Roan wrote on Instagram after its release. “Obviously not knowing this really chaotic year would follow the performance, it didn’t really leave me the time to build the world the song deserved. But finally, we are here.”
On the song, Roan runs into her green-haired ex on the subway and it brings back all the same grief she felt from the end of the relationship. As the song progresses, she reveals her hopes to move on to the point where her former lover is “just another girl on the subway.” But her alternative plan if that doesn’t happen is to move to Saskatchewan, as she jokes on the second verse.
As for music video for “The Subway,” it was directed by Amber Grace Johnson, who shot it on 35mm film on location in New York City. The clip visualizes the song’s heartbreak and longing with surreal, high-camp flourishes, whether it’s Roan dreamily floating in the Washington Square Park fountain, or getting her comically large wig caught in the door of a cab, which proceeds to quite literally drag her through the streets of NYC.
“I def ripped my hair out trying to figure out the puzzle of how this song should feel musically and visually and emotionally, luckily there are some to spare,” Roan said on Instagram. “Thank you for sticking it out for a whole year. It was worth it to make sure everything was absolutely right.”
Her spring single “Good Luck, Babe” became a Top 10 hit as did her 2020 song “Pink Pony Club.” In August of last year, she revealed to Rolling Stone, however, that she would not be releasing it as the follow-up to “Good Luck, Babe!”
“I just like performing it,” she said at the time. “I have two others that I really want to perform, too, [but] I don’t know what’s next. When I don’t know, it just hasn’t hit me yet because usually I know. I always have an answer. I don’t think it’s ‘Subway.’ ”
She ended up not officially releasing a new song before the end of 2024. Her next single, the bold country-pop cut “The Giver,” arrived in March, three months after she sang it during her Saturday Night Live debut. Since then, Roan has been playing festivals all over Europe and the U.K.
Roan will release a video for “The Subway” on Friday morning. She was seen filming the visual all over New York City and teased it with paper flyers as well. She did not film videos for either of her last two singles; this will be her first one since “Hot to Go!” in August 2023.
This fall, Roan will be playing a string of pop-up shows in New York, Los Angeles, and Kansas City. She announced with the show dates that she will be taking some time off to finish working on her sophomore album.
This post was updated 8/1/25 at 10:40 a.m. ET with the music video for “The Subway.”
