We all remember where we were when we saw Chappell Roan perform The Subway for the first time at the Gov Ball in 2024, dressed as the Statue of Liberty. After a year, she’s finally released the single officially, and fans have been blessed. Sonically beautiful and lyrically complex, the track follows Roan through a breakup, wishing that her ex could be ‘just another girl on the subway’. Her first music video since HOT TO GO! accompanied the single, and it truly enhances the experience of listening to the single. Fans will be stunned by the visual storytelling besides the lyrical, with the Chappell Roan vibes we all know and love, and a few easter eggs in the video.

 

The music video opens with a pair of heels walking towards the subway, followed by a ginger ball of hair swept up in the wind. The track starts, and the video reveals Roan with her iconic curly red hair, this time floor-length. She’s following an unknown figure with the same hairstyle but green, at pace, and misses her as she reaches the subway door. Even by the contrast in the colour of our main characters’ hair, we can see that there’s some striking difference between the two in some way, despite both having the fact that they visually stand out in a crowd in common between them. 

 

Chappell Roan is known for her standout style: dramatic drag-inspired makeup with long, curly red hair draws attention to her even before her elaborate costumes do. Having hair act as a symbol through the music video really draws audiences to consider how the breakup affects her identity, represented by her hair throughout this story. Her ex-lover may be similar to her in style, but is the absolute opposite in colour. The relationship may not be serving her as it used to. And yet, at the end of the video where we see her hair in a bob style, Roan’s makeup is much more subtle, and her outfit could be described as office attire, much different to how we’re used to seeing her. As she cuts off this relationship (and her hair), we come to understand how she feels she’s lost part of her own identity with the girl who got away. 

 

As the story continues, we hear Roan becoming more hopeless in this relationship, the chorus lyrically emphasising how stuck she is: “It’s not over, ‘til it’s over, it’s never over.” We see scenes of Chappell lying sideways in a screen filled with her hair, as she drowns in the identity she’s built for herself while with her ex. The post-chorus strips back on production, and we feel Chappell’s isolation through it. Her long hair drapes from a balcony as she shares her public identity, she’s built with her ex, and contemplates her readiness to let go. The city behind her reveals traffic, perhaps explaining why she chooses to continue using the subway, where her ex is. 

 

We see her in a taxi during the second verse, finally finding some privacy for herself, an alternative way to supposedly avoid her ex. She ‘sees [her] shadow’, ‘even with the lights off’, and we can tell how hard she’s finding it to let go of somebody who is moving on. In an attempt to reconnect when she sees the green-haired girl, she finds herself being dragged by her hair, trapped in the taxi door. This identity she’s kept even after the breakup is hindering her life, causing much more pain than it’s worth. 

 

The story becomes even more visually complicated when Chappell finally finds some of herself again, on the subway with the dramatic makeup we’re used to seeing her in, yet in an outfit purely made from hair. Contrasting the typically dreary subway, there’s a full party going on, a tired-looking Chappell caught in the middle, in some attempt to engage with life away from the green-haired girl, until she notices her again.

 

She even drags her hair across the floor while she’s cycling, as it picks up dirt and rubbish from the floor behind it. After letting herself get trapped in a situation that was only getting worse for her, as the lyrics cleverly switch from ‘she’s got a way’ to ‘she got away’, we see Roan in a bob, the wind sweeping the rubbish through the air around her. Dressed in business casual, we can see that in losing those aspects of herself she had built up in the relationship (her long hair), Chappel has let go and freed herself from the rubbish that was clinging to her, in both a literal and metaphorical sense. However, she’s also lost that over-the-top sparkle we’re used to seeing in her outfits. She dances through the wind, and we can see the joy and acceptance that’s waiting for her after cutting it off. 

 

The final cutoff happens as, after trying to climb the mass of green hair in the middle of the city, Chappell sits alone with a pizza in the dark, and we see her shock herself out of her imagination, back into presence alone on the subway. The song becomes sonically stripped back, and the vocals are powerful. The instruments become quieter, and a vocal chorus builds until only Chappell sings the final line, as she accepts that the girl got away. 

 

We also see some pretty cool references to her other songs in the music video, from a poster that reads “my drink is karma”, referencing her more vengeful breakup song, to an ad displaying “GOOD LUCK isn’t a coverage plan,” a nod to her previous single, Good Luck, Babe!, more of a “screw you” than heartbreak song. There are also posters which read “Babe, let your hair grow” and “Keep your hair, sell your soul.” The subway itself seemed to be encouraging Chappell to stay in the relationship, and, hilariously, we also see a man in a shirt which says “praying for all you h*es.” Probably needed, with a breakup this rough. 

Sonically, lyrically, and visually beautiful, The Subway takes us through a story of heartbreak and yearning with clever visuals, and this powerfully devastating single was worth the wait. Chappell Roan and her team truly understand the art of making an incredible music video, and the song itself packs a real punch.