“The Subway” by Chappell Roan is a song about the yearning you feel for someone after losing them while still in love. The song deals with how you feel the constant need to get over the person you lost while realizing you might never do so.
The song is a strong breakup ballad with influences from mellow, alt, dream, and power pop genres. Roan’s strong, emotional vocals pack an extra punch into the song that just add to the heartbreak themes found within.
This is a particularly interesting song because each section describes a different part of the relationship, but only before and after. It opens with Roan recalling the moment she first saw her muse on a subway ride. She describes her as a green-haired girl with a beauty mark and a distinctive perfume. It is such a distinct perfume that Roan then sings “Somebody wore your perfume/It almost killed me,” and then she tells about how that experience made her leave the room.
The middle section of the song highlights how Chappell was acting on her anger that her muse left her with. In her anger, she sings how she “Made [her] the villain/Evil for just moving on,” and claims how she still sees her silhouette everywhere she goes. Roan then practically screams how if she cannot escape the feelings swallowing her then she is going to move to Canada.
The outro of the song repeats the same lyrics, with different emotions portrayed each time they are said. “She’s got, she’s got away/And she got, she got away,” are the lyrics where Roan is slowly accepting the fact that her muse is gone and will, unfortunately, never return to her life. Her vocals in this section start semi-soft, as Chappell has such strong vocals that they are never entirely that way. Throughout the outro, however, she builds up until she is belting and holding notes for extremely long periods of time.
Although the chorus is the same each time, this is the section that specifically highlights the struggles of getting over someone. “It’s just another day/And it’s not over til it’s over/It’s never over,” shows how Roan is struggling with the fact that it is over by claiming it is not
I chose “The Subway” because it has caused a whole lot of controversy online. The outro is a fan favorite section. However, Chappell played the song live before its release and when it sounded different in the recorded version people were wildly upset. Some believe the live version shows more vocal agility on Roan’s part, and some people believe the calm chaos of the recorded version adds to Roan’s ability to produce well.
You can find “The Subway” by Chappell Roan on all streaming platforms.