Chappell Roan dropped the music video for her long-awaited single “The Subway” on Friday, just hours after she dropped the song on Thursday night, and over a year after she first performed the single during her viral Governors Ball concert in June of 2024.
“I’m very proud of this song & what a journey she has been on,” Roan wrote on her Instagram Thursday after the song dropped. “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.”
The video, shot in New York, was directed by Amber Grace Johnson and shot on 35mm film, depicting Roan making her way through the city in cartoonishly long wigs and loathing about a broken heart on the subway.
“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,” Roan wrote. “But finally we are here. 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. Thank you for sticking it out for a whole year. It was worth it to make sure everything was absolutely right.”
“The Subway” comes four months after Roan had dropped her country-tinged “The Giver” back in March. Fans had been waiting on that song for months after she debuted it on Saturday Night Live, and she teased the song with an extensive marketing campaign that included billboards in cities around the U.S. “The Giver” debuted at Number 5 on The Hot 100 and marked her first-ever number one on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart.
With “The Subway” out, Roan will be performing a slate of pop-up shows in New York, L.A., and Kansas City later this fall.
