Trixie Mattel's New Single Is a Swingy Tribute to Living Country Legend Loretta Lynn

Content warning: this post mentions physical abuse and intimate partner violence.

Trixie Mattel continues to be a fierce competitor. The drag queen, singer-songwriter, and "RuPaul's Drag Race" alum, who won "All Stars" season three, is back with a new single and corresponding music video depicting a serious game of tennis — dead serious. Released on April 15, "C'mon Loretta" is the first single off Trixie's fourth album: a double album titled "The Blonde & Pink Albums" coming this summer.

Inspired by the tennis world's real-life Battle of the Sexes, the video shows Trixie engaged in a hostile match with her opponent, played by nightlife fixture Mario Diaz. (Comedian Michael Henry also makes a cameo as a ball boy.) In the end, Trixie is victorious when she lights her tennis ball on fire and swings it straight through her opponents midsection, in an homage to the famous "hole in my stomach" scene in "Death Becomes."

Despite its swingy sound, the song is a tribute to country icon Loretta Lynn, and its lyrics ("Singing songs 'bout runnin' the show / But your heart will never let him go.") reference Lynn's marriage to Oliver Vanetta Lynn, who was physically abusive and carried on affairs throughout their 50-year relationship. Following her husband's death in 1996, Lynn opened up about the alleged abuse in her autobiography, "Still Woman Enough," in which she described the marriage as "one of the hardest love stories."

Trixie has also been open about being allegedly abused by her stepfather as a child. "Everybody has something bad happen to them," she told Observer in 2019. "I want people to think I was born at 18 years old. I don't identify with anything that happened before that, because I don't wish to carry it into today. I don't like the narrative that you're gay or you dress up because bad things happen to you, and I don't want to perpetuate that, 'cause that's not true."