We first bought a preview of Chappell Roan’s new single, “The Subway,” final fall throughout the singer’s set at Austin Metropolis Limits. She’s been auditioning the observe, which she first debuted at New York’s Governors Ball competition in 2024, to rave critiques from followers and critics alike for over a yr now. However an official launch virtually didn’t occur.
It’s been an extended and winding street to Roan’s as-yet-untitled sophomore effort, which nonetheless has no launch date. The album’s de facto lead single, “Good Luck, Babe!,” was launched in April of 2024, and its follow-up, the country-centric “The Giver,” did not match the success of that breakout hit. “The Subway,” which was produced Roan’s perennial collaborator Dan Nigro, goals to place her again on the proverbial observe.
Described by Roan as a “cousin” to “Informal,” a cheekily express sleeper hit from her 2023 debut album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, “The Subway” is a midtempo dream-pop ballad—replete with crisp, teary-eyed guitars—that finds her pining for the one which bought away. “I’m nonetheless counting down all of the days/’Until you’re simply one other woman on the subway,” she laments achingly.
The music itself was virtually the hit that bought away. Roan was reportedly hesitant to document a studio model of “The Subway” for concern that she wouldn’t be capable of replicate her reside vocal efficiency. However these issues are largely assuaged, particularly throughout the observe’s elegant outro: “She’s bought, she’s bought a manner/She bought, she bought away,” Roan declares, the lilting crack in her voice recalling that of Cocteau Twins’s Elizabeth Fraser.
Nestled inside the lyrics to “The Subway” are tributes to each sense reminiscence and the metropolis of New York, and the music video sees Roan partaking in such NYC pastimes as taking a dip in Washington Sq. Fountain and falling asleep on the subway. The clip, directed by Amber Grace Johnson, mixes the realism of dwelling (and loving) in the Massive Apple with surreal bits like a crimson tumbleweave rolling down a crowded sidewalk and Roan climbing an enormous inexperienced wig. Cameos abound, together with Elisabeth Easton Rosenthal, referred to as “the green lady of Brooklyn,” and New York’s iconic subway rats.
Watch the video for “The Subway” beneath:
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