Gregory McLoughlin has marked Independence Day weekend by surprise releasing a new Americana single, “Queen of the Drive-In.” Arriving six months after his first solo album under his own name, the track is the New Jersey-based musician and onetime Relix On the Verge subject’s 18th single as a solo artist. 

McLoughlin started working on the track over 20 years ago, though it is just now seeing the light of day. “I wrote Queen of the Drive-In at a time in my life, when I was hanging out at a country music bar on the Lower East Side of New York City called 9C (later it became Banjo Jim’s),” he says. “I was witnessing a rotation of musicians who were clearly influenced by Gram Parsons, and something about that musical spark gave me this song. Also, if you’ve never been to a drive-in movie theater, it is something I recommend doing at least once in your life.”

The track is intended to fill in the gap between proper full-length LPs. “Releasing a single does not mean that I am going back to all singles. I am starting work on my second full-length album, but as the pieces come together, some songs just need to stand on their own,” the bassist says. ‘Queen of the Drive-In’ is one of those.”

McLoughlin will perform at the Invertase Brewing Company in Lambertville, NJ tomorrow, July 3. He also continues to host the TGIM livestreams he has done most weeks since early on in the pandemic on Mondays.