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Music

Alex Winston's "Tourist" Is a Pretty Savage Takedown of an Ex

Do: Listen to this song. Don't: Fuck with Alex Winston.
Photo by Silver DeStouet

Alex Winston has been through the wringer a few times. After her sole album, 2012’s criminally underrated King Con, got lost in the record label shuffle, her follow-up suffered an even worse fate, ultimately getting shelved and never seeing the light of day. After her trials with record labels, she had an ongoing battle with Lyme disease that kept her out of the studio all together. And Winston has taken these bad situations in stride, mostly. But on her new song, “Tourist,” she makes it clear that there’s only so much shit she’s willing to tolerate.

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Unlike her work on King Con, which was largely playful in Winston's idiosyncratic way, “Tourist” is downright mean as she takes aim at an ex who wronged her. The airing of dirty laundry gets personal and scathing in spots, knocking the dude’s “shitty tattoos” and mentioning how Winston “knows about the girl in San Francisco.”

Winston leans into the tourism theme of the breakup—the notion that her ex was just passing through and she was not his permanent home. “It can be validating and heartbreaking when your intuition is right, especially when you don’t want it to be,” she tells Noisey. "I learned that the hard way with this one. Everything is always prettier when you’re just visiting.”

And while Winston has been working on music with her pop duo Post Precious, “Tourist” is a good reminder of her prowess as a solo artist. It’s also a good reminder that you should never, ever under any circumstances fuck with Alex Winston.

Check out the Vegas stroll of a lyric video (or listen on Soundcloud). Winston is also playing New York and LA soon. Dates below.

August 9: Los Angeles CA - The Bloc
September 29: New York NY - Knockdown Center