hi! tv girl has been one of my interests for some time, and i've noticed
some reoccuring happenings and characters throughout their music. so i'm
going to do a full, in-depth analysis of the story that happens in tv
girl's music.
to look at the connections between all of their music, we have to first
look at what each song and album talks about.
i'm going to start with
french exit, after trung ngo leaves the band, as that's when i consider
brad petering to have taken full control of the lyrics.
this song apparently takes inspiration from a book about a boy wearing his
girlfriend's pantyhose in war, as a superstition that gives him luck. i
think this is showing the narrator (whom i'm going to refer to as brad,
assuming he's the main character in his own story) relating to this, some
token of his girlfriend's (either her pantyhose or something else of hers)
being a "good-luck charm" to him."And when her letter came he didn't cry"
at the end of the song, brad shows his girlfriend leave him, still
imagining himself as a boy in war, maybe like the phrase, "love is war".
however, he still holds on to this lucky charm ("Even though she didn't love him anymore / You can't kill a lucky
charm"), similarly in the book where the main character is caught in unrequited
love. "More than anything, he wanted Martha to love him as he loved her."
i believe this to be him refusing to let go of his now gone girlfriend,
believing there's still a chance with her.
this song, as described by a genius contributor (Cruxiated), i believe to
be about a past relationship, possibly the one we just saw be broken up.
shown in the song,
"if you walk out that door in disgust," brad's girlfriend is
leaving him both metaphorically and literally. the song also says, She said, "How could you joke at a time like this? / I know why,
'cause this is what you wanted all along now, isn't it?..." showing that brad might've wanted to break up for a while now too,
possibly shown by how in pantyhose, brad doesn't cry when he hears his
girlfriend wants to break up with him. he also says that,
"Girls don't call and they never tell you why / That's just how they
say goodbye,"
or saying that he was ghosted for a while before being told to break up.
additionally, the line "So, if you walk out that door in disgust / I guess there's
nothing more to discuss" might show his apparent uncaring attitude toward the relationship ("I
guess there's nothing more to discuss") as well as explain the lack of
crying in pantyhose. not to mention, "Don't listen to my music, don't lie in my bed"
could be brad doubling down, telling his ex that he wants nothing to do
with her. however, whether this is how he actually feels or if it's just
how he acts, i don't know. it doesn't fit well with the first song,
pantyhose.
i'm skipping this song because brad has said that it's a song about a real french girl whom he met a friend. ^_^
sourced from:
https://genius.com/artists/Tv-girl
The Things They Carried (O'Brien, 1990)