Since she started performing live under the name King Princess, Mikaela Straus has played a number of songs that her fans adore, but she hadn’t released. But today, one of those fan-favorite tracks finally got its long-awaited release.
On Tuesday (Feb. 11), King Princess debuted her newest single “Ohio,” a song she’s been performing live since her first EP, Make My Bed, and that fans have repeatedly asked her to officially release.
The track begins as a hypnotic ode to a lost love, before quickly devolving into a fuzzy, rocked-out jam, as Straus confronts her lover for leaving her to go to the Buckeye State. “Well come here and I’ll show you what I like about it/ And I don’t know where you’ll be babe,” she wails on the song’s bridge.”
Straus picked an unconventional route for promoting her new single — along with letting her fans on social media know that the song was finally on its way, the singer also rented out a billboard in Columbus, Ohio, where she was performing a show earlier this week, with the song’s opening lyric “How’s it been in Ohio?” plastered across her face.
In the new video for the track, King Princess is introduced in a black and white clip, appearing on a small stage wearing her now-iconic Cheap Queen makeup look, performing a soft, love song to an intimate crowd. But, just as in the song, the video quickly shifts, cutting to actual live clips of her live shows, as the video oversaturates and the song becomes a garage-rock anthem. “So is it me or is it you, baby?” she sings from the stage.
The track is one of five previously unreleased songs due out on the deluxe edition of Cheap Queen out Friday, Feb. 14 via Zelig/Columbia Records. Other unreleased tracks appearing on the new version include “All Dressed in White,” “Forget About It,” “Best Friend” and “Back of a Cab.”
Check out the full video of King Princess’ “Ohio” below: