Jan. 18, 2026
2026 Grammy Nominee - Chappell Roan - "The Subway"
Welcome back to Hitmaker Chronicles! I'm your host, Garrett Fisher. This week we continue our Grammy countdown with Chappell Roan's "The Subway" - the song she was terrified to release because fans already knew every word. We'll trace how a year-long rollout tested her patience, why she threatened to move to Saskatchewan (and what happened to tourism there), and how missing someone on the F train became her biggest hit. It's a story about live debuts, shoegaze guitars, and learning that sometimes the fans are right - even when that's absolutely terrifying.
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WEBVTT
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Callaroga Shark Media. I'm Garrett Fischer. And in mid twenty
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twenty four, Chapel Roane had a problem. She'd written a
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song called The Subway with her longtime collaborator Daniel Nigro.
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It was about heartbreak, healing, and those moments on public
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transportation where you think you see someone who broke your
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heart and for a second everything rushes back. The song
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was beautiful, dream pop guitars, shoegaze textures, that jangly nineties
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alternative rock sound that Ron and Nigro had been experimenting with,
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lyrically intimate but emotionally devastating. One of the best things
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she'd ever written. She started performing it live at her
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shows and her fans went absolutely insane for it, which
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created the problem. How do you release the studio version
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of a song that thousands of people have already memorized
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from concert bootlegs. How do you meet expectations when fans
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have built up this live version in their minds as perfection.
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Chapel Rone was terrified, Terrified that the studio recording wouldn't
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match what people had imagined, Terrified that she disappoint the
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very fans who loved the song. So much they were
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begging her to release it. So she waited and waited,
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and as she waited, the Subway became something bigger than
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just an unreleased song. It became a phenomenon. Let's back up,
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because to understand why the Subway matters, why it debuted
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at number three on the Billboard Hot one hundred, became
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her first UK number one, and earned a Grammy nomination
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for Record of the Year. You need to understand Chapel
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Roone's journey and how unlikely all of this was. Kayleie
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rose Amstuts grew up in Willard, Missouri, population five thousand.
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She started writing songs as a teenager, posting videos to YouTube.
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In twenty seventeen, when she was just nineteen, she signed
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to Atlantic Records and released Good Hurt under the name
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Chapel Rone, her stage name, combining her grandfather's name with
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her favorite song by The Smiths. That first single got
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some attention. It seemed like a career was launching, except
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it wasn't. The label didn't know what to do with her.
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Her sound was still forming. She was young, figuring herself
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out artistically and personally. By twenty twenty, Atlantic had dropped
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her chapel Rone was twenty two years old, with no
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record deal and no clear path forward. She could have quit,
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a lot of artists would have. Instead, she linked up
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with producer Daniel Nigro, who'd worked with Olivia Rodrigo on Sour,
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and started making the music she actually wanted to make,
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queer synthpop with eighties influences, theatrical, emotional, unapologetically herself. She
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released her debut album, The Rise and Fall of a
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Midwest Princess independently in September twenty twenty two. It didn't
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immediately explode. Success came slowly through relentless touring, through TikTok,
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through word of mouth. Songs like Pink Pony Club and
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Good Luck Babe became cult favorites. By twenty twenty four,
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chapel Rone had gone from drop by her label to
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playing Coachella, opening for Olivia Rodrigo, headlining her own sold
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out tours. She'd become an LGBTQ plus icon. Her shows
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were spectacles, drag inspired makeup, elaborate costumes, fans dressed in
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homemade recreations of her looks, and she was working on
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new music for what would become her second album, The
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Subway emerged from writing sessions in late twenty twenty three
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and early twenty twenty four. Ron and Nigro had been
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exploring a different sonic direction from Midwest Princess. That album
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was synth heavy, bright, explicitly Eighties influenced. For the new
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material they were pulling from nineties alternative rock, dream pop,
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shoegaze bands like The Cranberrys The Sunday's Mazzi star artists
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who combined jangly guitars with ethereal vocals music that felt
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both intimate and expansive. The Subway fits perfectly into that aesthetic.
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The production features layered guitars with chorus effects, creating that shimmering,
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dreamlike quality. Roane's vocals are mixed close but surrounded by space.
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The rhythm section is steady, but not driving. It's walking pace,
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the pace of someone moving through a subway car looking
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for a familiar face. Lyrically, the song is devastating in
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its specificity. It's about being in New York City, trying
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to move on from a relationship, and constantly thinking you
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see your ex on the subway, on the F train. Specifically,
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Rone sings the actual train line, the bridge contains the
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line that would become iconic. I I made a promise
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if in four months this feeling ain't gone, well, fuck
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this city. I'm moving to Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan, not Los Angeles,
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not London, not Paris, Saskatchewan, the Canadian prairie province that
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most Americans couldn't locate on a map if their lives
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depended on it. It's such a specific, unexpected choice, and
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it's funny, which cuts the emotional intensity just enough to
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keep the song from becoming too heavy. You're crying about heartbreak,
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and then suddenly you're laughing at the absurdity of threatening
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to move to Saskatchewan. Rona said. The lyric came from
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a real conversation she had with herself during a difficult breakup.
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When you're heartbroken in a big city, sometimes you fantasize
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about just disappearing to somewhere nobody would think to look
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for you. Saskatchewan became that place. Musically, the song builds gradually.
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It starts quiet, almost tentative, just vocals and guitar, then
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layers ad base, drums, additional guitars, vocal harmonies. By the
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final chorus, You're in this wall of sound. But it
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never feels overwhelming. It feels like emotional release. Daniel Nigro's
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production is crucial here. Nigro has a gift for creating
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space and arrangements, for knowing when to add and when
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to pull back. The guitars have that jangly, slightly distorted
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quality that's pure nineties alternative rock. There are shoegaze elements,
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those swirling effects, heavy guitars that create texture rather than melody.
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But underneath all of it, the song remains fundamentally a
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pop song verse chorus, verse structure, a memorable hook, lyrics
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you can sing along too. Nigro and Roan understand that
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experimentation works best when it's grounded in strong song craft.
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Chapel started performing The Subway live in mid twenty twenty
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four during her summer tour dates. She'd come out, maybe
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mentioned she had a new song, and then lawn into it.
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The crowd response was immediate and intense. People were filming
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it on their phones, posting it to TikTok and Twitter.
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Within weeks, there were compilation videos of different performances. Fans
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were learning the lyrics from bootlegs, singing along at subsequent shows.
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The Saskatchewan line became a meme. People started posting about
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actually visiting Saskatchewan. The province's tourism board even got involved,
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joking about Chapel being their new unofficial ambassador. And Ron
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watched all of this happening and got more and more
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nervous about actually releasing the studio version. She talked about
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this anxiety and interviews later. The live version had this
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raw energy, this immediacy. People loved it partly because it
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felt like a secret, like something special. They discovered what
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if the studio recording felt too polished, too produced, what
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if it lost whatever magic the live performances had. But
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her label and management were pushing her, You have a
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song that it's already a hit and it's not even
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officially released yet. Put it out, capitalize on the momentum.
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So Rone did something unusual. She dragged out the rollout
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for almost a year. She kept performing it live through
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the fall of twenty twenty four. Each performance was slightly different,
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sometimes more guitar heavy. Sometimes she'd change the phrasing of
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a line, Sometimes she'd extend the instrumental sections. She was
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using the live shows as a testing ground, figuring out
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exactly what the song should be. Meanwhile, she launched a
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gorilla marketing campaign in New York City. In early twenty
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twenty five, mysterious posters started appearing in actual subway stations,
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just the lyrics fuck this city, I'm moving to Saskatchewan,
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and various fonts and colors, no artist's name, no release date,
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just the line if you knew, you knew, and Rone's
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fans definitely knew. The posters became Instagram fodder, TikTok content,
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and people were hunting for them, taking pictures posting their
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locations online. Ron loved it. It was playful, interactive, building
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anticipation without being heavy handed, and it kept the subway
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in conversation without actually releasing the song yet. Finally, on
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July eighteenth, twenty twenty five, the studio version dropped. The
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reaction was relief because Ron and Nigro had nailed it.
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The studio recording captured everything that worked about the live performances,
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while adding production polish that elevated the song. The guitars
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had more texture, the vocals were mixed with more nuance,
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there were layers you couldn't hear in live bootlegs, and crucially,
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Roan's vocal performance on the studio version was remarkable. She
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didn't try to replicate what she did live. She sang
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it differently, more vulnerable in some moments, more powerful than others.
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It was the same song, but it was a new interpretation.
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The song debuted at number three on the Billboard Hot
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one hundred Chapel, Roan's highest charting single ever, higher than
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Good Luck Babe, which had peaked at number seven, higher
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than Pink Pony Club, which maxed out at number forty nine.
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In the UK. The Subway went straight to number one,
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Ron's first UK chart topper and only her second song
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to chart there at all. The accompanying music video, directed
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by Ron's frequent collaborator Hailey Appel, leaned fully into the
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New York City subway setting. Roan wanders through subway cars, platforms, tunnels.
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She's looking for someone who isn't there. Other writers fade
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in and out of focus. The lighting is fluorescent, harsh,
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exactly like real subway lighting, but there are surreal elements too.
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At one point, the entire subway car is full of
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people wearing Roan's face as masks. Another moment shows her
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standing on the platform as trains rush by, and each
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train window shows a different memory, a different version of
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the person she's lost. It's artistic without being pretentious. It
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serves the song rather than overwhelming it. The video also
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included shots filmed in Saskatchewan. Ron actually went there, filmed
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herself walking through prairies under enormous skies. The landscape empty
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and beautiful and the exact opposite of New York City's density.
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Saskatchewan's tourism board absolutely ran with this. They created a
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whole campaign around Chapel Roan, Saskatchewan, featuring the locations where
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the video was shot. Tourism to the province increased twenty
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three percent in the months following the video's release, twenty
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three percent. Because of one line and a pop song
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about heartbreak, it became a running joke in Roan's shows.
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She'd get to that line in the song and the
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entire arena would scream Saskatchewan along with her. She started
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wearing t shirts with Saskatchewan Imagery during performing, and she
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even partnered with a Saskatchewan based LGBTQ plus advocacy organization
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donating a portion of merchandise sales. What started as a
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throwaway line about escaping became this beautiful, unexpected connection between
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a queer pop star and a Canadian province. Musically and thematically,
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the Subway connects to earlier Chapel Roone songs, particularly Casual
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from Midwest Princess. Both songs deal with complicated relationships, with
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trying to move on, with the messiness of modern dating
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and heartbreak. But the Subway is more mature, more refined.
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Casual was sharp and bitter. I hate that I let
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this drag on so long. You can say that we're nothing,
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but you know the truth. The Subway is softer, sadder,
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more resigned. The anger has faded into melancholy. It's the
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sound of someone who's been through heartbreak enough times to
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know that it eventually passes, but who's still in the
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middle of it and can't quite see the other side yet.
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The song also represents Rone's growth as a vocalist. She's
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never been a technical powerhouse. She's not doing Christina Aguilera
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runs or Ariana Grande whistletnes, but her emotional delivery has
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become so sophisticated. The way she sings four Months. There's
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this weariness in it, this exhaustion at having to weigh
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out your own feelings. In September twenty twenty five, Ron
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performed The Subway on Saturday Night Live. The staging was simple,
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her a microphone, Daniel Negro on guitar, a small band,
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no elaborate costumes, no drag makeup, just Rone in a
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simple outfit singing the song. It was the most stripped
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down she'd ever been on national television, and it was devastating.
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You could hear every nuance in her voice. The performance
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went viral, with people praising her vulnerability and vocal control.
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On November seventh, twenty twenty five, The Subway was nominated
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for Record of the Year at the sixty eighth Annual
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Grammy Awards. For Ron, this was massive, her first Grammy
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nomination in a general field category, recognition that she wasn't
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just an indie darling or a TikTok phenomenon. She was
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making music that the industry considered among the year's best.
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The nomination also validated her decision to wait to release
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the studio version. She could have rushed it out in
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twenty twenty four tried to capitalize immediately on the live buzz. Instead,
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she took her time, got it right, and created something
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that resonated broadly enough to earn a Grammy nomination. What
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makes the Subway work is its specificity. It's not a
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generic song about missing someone. It's about missing someone in
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New York City on the I've trained specifically during a
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specific emotional period in your life, when you've given yourself
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a deadline for healing. That specificity makes it universal. Everyone
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has had that experience of thinking they saw their ex somewhere,
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of bargaining with themselves about how long they'll let themselves feel.
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This way of fantasizing about escaping to somewhere completely different
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Saskatchewan is funny because it's so random, but it's also
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perfect because it represents that universal impulse to just disappear
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when you're hurting. The song's success also speaks to changing
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tastes in pop music. In twenty twenty five, straight ahead
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dance pop wasn't dominating the way it had in previous years.
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Artists were experimenting with nineties rock influences, with shoegaze, with
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dream pop. Roan's decision to go in that direction with
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her second album positioned her perfectly for where pop music
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was heading, and the fact that she was openly queer
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that her fan base was heavily LGBTQ, plus that she'd
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become this icon for young queer people. None of that hurt,
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If anything, it amplified the song's impact. Queer heartbreak sounds
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the same as straight heartbreak, but having an openly queer
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artist singing about it on mainstream radio felt important. By
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the time the Grammys rolled around in February twenty twenty six,
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the Subway had spent months on the charts. It had
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been streamed hundreds of millions of times, It had launched
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