Trixie Mattel performs a trio of songs from her 2020 album Barbara in the latest installment of Rolling Stone‘s ‘In My Room,’ a series in which artists perform from home while in quarantine.
Explaining that she’s in the office at her Los Angeles home, the famed drag entertainer performs against a vibrant pink backdrop of jukebox label wallpaper in apparently not-quite-full dress. “I am, full disclosure, doing what drag queens do on camera, which is being in drag from the waist up,” she says. “Waist down, fully nude.”
Strumming her acoustic guitar, Mattel kicks things off with the power pop-influenced song “Malibu,” which she says is one of her favorites from Barbara. She wrote it about her relationship with her boyfriend, and that feeling of wanting to just hop in the car and drive anywhere when they have the time. Of course, the reality looks a little different. “Now that I’ve learned, when we have the time off, I’m just going to sit on the couch and eat peanut butter and watch The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina,” she says.
Mattel continues the upbeat theme with “Girl Next Door,” a jangling number which describes a flirtation between new neighbors that has the potential to become something more. “People ask for the deeper meaning in that song and honestly I don’t want to ruin anybody’s lives, but it’s about living down the street from my boyfriend and asking him to come over and have sex,” Mattel explains.
For her final song, Mattel slows things down a little bit and returns to her more country-folk roots with “Gold,” pointing out how much she likes the chorus lyric, “Will you grow from those cold blood wrongs?” and how almost patronizing it is to an ex-lover. “It’s like, ‘Are you going to realize that relationships are a two-way street?’” she says.
Barbara is out now and available for streaming or in yellow vinyl form. To support Mattel directly, visit her website.
Trixie Mattel’s appearance on ‘In My Room’ follows recent performances by Warren Haynes, segment follows performances by Rufus Wainwright, the Indigo Girls, Haim, Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith, Phony Ppl, Sting, Joan Jett, Lucinda Williams, Waxahatchee, and others. To support musicians undergoing financial hardship, please consider giving to the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund or MusiCares’ COVID-19 Relief Fund.
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