By LoffMusic Editorial Staff – August 2025
A year after making her debut dressed as Lady Liberty herself at Governors Ball 2024, Chappell Roan officially releases “The Subway”, her new and long-awaited song. And she does so accompanied by a music video shot in 35mm in the bowels of New York: postcards of heartbreak, kilometer-long wigs and her signature mix of the vulnerable and the theatrical.
🎞️ From the platform to the heart
Directed by Amber Grace Johnson, the music video presents Roan walking around the city with an exaggerated and performative melancholy. “The Subway” is a pop elegy about heartbreak, but also an exercise in style: his gestures, the visual rhythm, the looks, all contribute to building a broken but grandiose character, like something out of a 2000s romantic tragicomedy written by Lana del Rey.
“I’m so proud of this song and the journey it’s been on for her,” the artist confessed on Instagram. “I first played it at Gov Ball and have been polishing it ever since until I found the exact right sound and emotion. I pulled out several hairs along the way, but I still have a few left.”
🎤 From Lady Liberty to queer pop queen.
Chappell Roan has proven that there is nothing accidental about her career: every step is loaded with references, personality and purpose. In March she released “The Giver,” a country-pop ballad that not only took her to number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100, but earned her her first number one on the Hot Country Songs chart. A historic milestone, not only for her, but for contemporary queer pop.
With “The Subway”, Roan returns to that emotional terrain where his songs are not only listened to: they are felt and lived.
