The new single from SoCal songwriter and Bartees Strange collaborator Eliza Vera’s Hot Moms Club project is a Christmas song in the same sense that Die Hard is a Christmas movie—you probably won’t find it in Netflix’s heavily advertised carousel of feel-good Hallmark-core holiday films, but its setting is pretty hard to overlook. Named after the holiday-agnostic breakfast staple, “Bacon” recounts the first Christmas morning Vera spent with her boyfriend and the subtle moment of acceptance she felt in his family’s kitchen.
“I woke up on Christmas day to the smell of bacon, and I went downstairs to find his mom preparing breakfast for everyone,” Vera recalls. “She asked if I wanted to help, and it made me feel so loved and like a part of a family. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt that. Now whenever I smell bacon it brings me back to that sweet Christmas memory with his beautiful family.” The experience also convinced Vera to take to Instagram to solicit similar stories from her listeners to help flesh out the lyrics: “I asked my followers what some of those things were for them and I got such cool answers. I used some of them in the preceding verses of the song, like the part on clean bed sheets.”
The track is the second single to be released from Vera’s second EP, Welcome to the Club, which will arrive early next year. Following the woozy, tropical “Trader Joe’s,” “Bacon” is a janglier affair recalling the beachside indie-rock of Real Estate while Vera’s vocals bring to mind the music of that band’s peers Air Waves.
Check out the track below, and pre-order the EP here.
