When you think Chappell Roan, you probably think of her long, luscious, curly red hair. Though the pop musician wears lots of wigs to change up her look for performances and incognito shopping trips, the red hair is definitely her signature—and now she’s wearing miles upon miles of that truly iconic red hair in her new music video, “The Subway.”
“The Subway” is a fan-favorite song with a passionate following; Roan originally debuted it during her 2024 Governor’s Ball set and just released it as a single. Hair is a central motif of the video, which is set in New York City; it literally opens with hair, as tumbleweeds of those signature red curls blow over a subway grate and someone kicks them away with a high-heeled foot. Roan’s hair in “The Subway” video isn’t just big hair, like the disco glam curls she’s known for. No, this is next-level, jaw-dropping hair art, crafted by Roan’s go-to hairstylist Dom Forletta to help tell the story of a broken heart and getting over the one who got away.
We see Roan walking the streets covered in red hair from her head to her ankles, following someone with matching long green hair—a symbol of her lost love—through the subways of the city. She stands on a fire escape singing the mournful breakup ballad with her curls tumbling down like Rapunzel, even wearing what appears to be a hair bra top and miniskirt. Her mile-long hair gets longer and heavier; it ends up stuck in a cab door as she tries to run after her former lover and the taxi drags her down the street. In another scene, Roan lounges in an ocean of auburn curls as NYC rats “swim” through it. At the end of the video, Roan leaves the subway car-slash-nightclub in a red hair vest and XXL lengths, which trail behind her collecting garbage as she rides a CitiBike down the street before plunging into the fountain at Washington Square Park. We couldn’t help but wonder: how many pounds of extensions and wigs did it take to bring this story to life?
Eventually, Roan realizes she has to stop chasing the green-haired figure, even though it’s hard to move on. There’s a brief cameo from a red bob, which may symbolize a new beginning for our main character. “She got away,” she sings plaintively all over New York City. The object of her affection eventually vanishes into the depths of another subway car, and Roan is seen clinging to the lengths of said green hair, still figuring out how to let go.