Dirty, Hairy: Chappell Roan’s ‘The Subway’ Video Is Grimy, Gay & Gorgeous

Even when life grabs her by the hair and drags her forward, Chappell Roan just can’t move on in the music video for “The Subway.”

Released on Friday (Aug. 1) hours after the song dropped the night prior, the Amber Grace Johnson-directed visual finds the pop star haunted by an ex, as represented by a long train of hair Roan drags behind her through New York City. Even as her tresses get longer and longer, trapping pieces of garbage and rats in their tangles, the Missouri native just can’t cut it off as she searches the city for her green-haired one who got away.

That is, until the end of the video, which shows Roan sporting a symbolic red bob as she belts out the cathartic outro: “She’s got, she’s got a way/ She’s got a way, she’s got a way/ And she got, she got away/ She got away, she got away.”

The song and visual come more than a year after the Grammy winner first debuted “The Subway” live at her 2024 Governors Ball set, after which she began incorporating it into her live performances. “I’m very proud of this song & what a journey she has been on,” Roan wrote on Instagram after the track dropped Thursday (July 31). “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.”

Following the release of “The Subway” and, before that, “The Giver,” Roan is now gearing up to work on her hotly anticipated sophomore album. Before she does, however, the star will play a handful of pop-up shows in Los Angeles, Kansas City and New York City, as announced in the last week of July.

Watch Roan’s “The Subway” music video above.