Chappell Roan has owned 2025 already, with massive hits “Hot to Go” and “Good Luck Babe” heralding this Missouri-born singer’s dramatic debut on the pop-music scene. Superfans will note, of course, that she’s been around a bit longer than that; but this year has seen her go supernova. And now she’s back with another lovelorn hit, “The Subway,” which debuted at a career-best No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Roan’s talent and emotive voice are undeniable as she pines for a lover who’s left her. Equally undeniable is the fact that Roan is utterly unambiguous regarding the fact that this lost love is another woman. (In fact, you could argue that there’s not a higher-profile artist anywhere right now so unabashedly representing an LGBT perspective in her storytelling.)
In “The Subway,” Roan chronicles her pining, almost mournful broken heart as she constantly sees people on the subway and elsewhere who remind her of the woman that left her: “I saw your green hair, beauty mark next to your mouth?/There on the subway, I nearly had a breakdown/A few weeks later, somebody wore your perfume/It almost killed me, I had to leave the room.”
None.
Many, if not most of us, have likely suffered a romantic loss that leaves our hearts feeling shattered. Roan earnestly gives voice to that constellation of lovelorn feelings here. In that outpouring of loss, her emotions and her expression of those feelings feels very relatable.
Her very relatability, however, further normalizes the same-sex relationship context she’s coming from. And she’s very clearly lamenting the loss of a female soulmate: “But I’m still counting down all of the days/’Til you’re just another girl on the subway.” Later, Roan deftly articulates how special this woman was to her (“She’s got, she’s got a way”) and simultaneously mourns her departure (“She go, she go away”).
Along the way, we get one f-word, though the song lyrics themselves never get as suggestive as we saw in “Hot to Go”: “I made a promise if in four months, this feeling ain’t gone/Well, f— this city, I’m moving to Saskatchewan.”
The video for the song finds Roan traversing a variety of urban locales, including, of course, the subway. A lengthy scene at the end pictures many women dancing suggestively on the subway, several of whom wear revealing clothes. Additionally, at the beginning of the video, a man on the subway wears a t-shirt printed with the words “Praying for all you hoes,” alongside an image of Jesus kneeling.
Youth culture expert Walt Mueller has often noted that the stories entertainers tell—on the screen, on social media, in video games, in music—are both a mirror and a map. They are a mirror in that they reflect the current cultural moment. And they’re a map because they offer a sense of where our culture is headed, the direction we’re going.
I think that’s definitely true of Chappell Roan’s plainspoken stories about same-sex romance and heartbreak. Songs like this weren’t at the top of the mainstream music charts a decade or two ago. But now they are, and Chappell Roan’s experiences and songwriting are representative of the LGBT worldview’s ascendent positive at the apex of pop culture.
As I wrote above, the effect of that is further normalizing the notion that there’s no difference at all between a same-sex romance and one involving a man and woman. “Love is love,” as the popular pro-LGBT saying goes.
The biblical worldview, in contrast, teaches that God created man and woman in His image. And His design for sexual expression takes place in the context of a covenantal union, in marriage, between a man and woman.
The gulf between these two worldviews continues to grow ever wider, as Chappell Roan’s latest hit illustrates. And the need to think about sexuality from a biblical perspective—and to mentor our children in that worldview—has never been more critically important.
After serving as an associate editor at NavPress’ Discipleship Journal and consulting editor for Current Thoughts and Trends, Adam now oversees the editing and publishing of Plugged In’s reviews as the site’s director. He and his wife, Jennifer, have three children. In their free time, the Holzes enjoy playing games, a variety of musical instruments, swimming and … watching movies.
