Video: Mediocre – “Mattress Bitch”

Directed by Keely Martin and Piper Torrison. Single out now on Dangerbird.

I got my flu shot and covid booster last night. At the pharmacy while I was waiting my turn there was a family with a five-year-old boy and a six-year-old girl getting their first dose. The little boy was nervous. His big sister agreed to go first. She was a boss and didn’t even cry. She told her brother to pinch his leg to distract himself. It worked. He took it like a champ and got a sticker and some candy. After his ordeal I heard him say to himself, “Safer and closer to normal.”

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Piper Torrison and Keely Martin formed Mediocre in high school, and “Mattress Bitch” is their third single on Dangerbird Records’ Microdose series.

Martin told Audiofemme, “I wanted to make it like, kinda funny, and I was trying not to think too hard about it when I was writing it, but of course when you look back, you’re like oh, there is deeper meaning to this. I do think that it is a sad song in a way, and vulnerable, but hidden behind that humor – which is very much a common thing that I tend to do, or anyone else does when they’re confronting a something or someone but they don’t want to reveal too much about their feelings. Compensating with humor, just that general experience of making yourself small and forgetting your worth, I feel like that’s very relevant to anyone’s experience.”

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When it was my turn to get my shots the kids were still there waiting out their 15 minutes. I pinched my leg to distract myself and I barely felt the pokes. I got my sticker and some candy. And now hopefully we’re all a little safer and closer to normal.