Kind of in the way that MTA stands for “my time, actually,” Chappell Roan has revealed a similarly loose reading of “The Subway” that belies the music video’s setting and ratty content.
In an Aug. 12 interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music Radio, the Midwest royal disclosed that the track is actually about L.A., but the New York City transport system “is just so much more romantic.” (Debatable if you live there, irrevocably false if you’re ever set foot in an empty car.) “It was actually about me hiding in Los Angeles from someone who I was deeply in love with,” Roan said. “We weren't on bad terms, it was just kind of trying to avoid the coffee shops we went to and parties. And so that's where it came from, was, ‘Oh my God, I don't know how to exist in this city.’ I felt pretty lonely there for many years.”
At the same time, Los Angeles is close to Roan’s heart, even if she still feels unsettled after the January 2025 wildfires, during which she was displaced from her Altadena home. Since then, she told Lowe, she’s been longing for enough calm and routine to even begin thinking about songwriting. “That's just not a thing right now, and it hasn't been for a very long time,” she said. “I finally got a new place, and I've only been there for 10 days. And then I came on this big tour. So it's been a journey on how do I release music within the state of everything?"
That might be why she’s staying mum on her next era for now, but we have a feeling that what she calls the “scariness” of trying out a different sound will turn out to be another massive success.
