Grapes Upon the Vine: ‘Hang On’ and Read This Album Review

TV Girl’s new album was released this year on June 30th. This album covers some serious topics that TV Girl mentioned in previous albums, but it goes into deeper detail with their poetic lyrics, upbeat sound, and experimental gospel samples.

By Alina Ramirez

Not too long ago, TV Girl’s new album “Grapes Upon the Vine” was released. This was their first album in 5 years, however, when it was released not many people liked it.

It wasn’t very popular because it wasn’t ‘TV Girl’s sound’. People did not like the new sound the band experimented with. For this album, TV Girl mixed in gospel and most people weren’t fans of this. 

Besides the massive hate wave from the album, the meanings behind the 12 different songs are interesting.

This album brings up love (a popular topic with TV Girl), life, death, heaven, hell, and some other topics that are interesting but not unusual for the band to sing about. 

The album opens with “I’ll be Faithful” and immediately hits you with samples of gospel, a great way just to push TV Girl fans into this new sound.

The lyrics in the song are very poetic and an interesting way to introduce the song’s topic. In the song, ‘I’ll be faithful’ is repeated as an answer to the protagonist’s questions that he asks about his relationship [in which the girl is not committed] throughout the song like, “How could you see heaven through this smog”.

The song ends with the lyric ‘I’ll be faithful’ once again, being repeated till the music stops. 

‘Hang On’ is a mild tone change from the second song, as the other tone was more neutral but this one is more sad.

There’s not as much gospel used in this song but, there’s a piano that carries the song. This meaning behind the song is sad, matching the tone of the song.

The protagonist is thinking he’s not good enough to have a long relationship. “If it ain’t tied down, just take what you can and move on” is a lyric that introduces that interpretation as he would rather be with someone random them be alone.

But even with someone who loves him, he’s not overly confident in this newly made relationship so he just separates himself from it.

The tone is changed once again as ‘Shame’ starts playing. The beat is more lively and upbeat but the meaning behind the lyrics doesn’t match the mood of the sound.

The lyrics focus on the vulnerability, a part of being in love that the protagonist goes through. Towards the end though, the relationship described in the song [in which the protagonist is smitten], unwanting falls apart, and like the lyric repeated, “It’s a shame” that this relationship between the protagonist and his girlfriend has ended.

Most meanings behind songs have mostly just mentioned love and heartbreak so far but, ‘Big Black Void’ brings up a fear that most people have, death. There’s heavy piano again but this song features more samples of gospel.

The samples say “I’m gonna up to heaven and meet my lord” which plays a big part in finding out what the meaning of this song is. The protagonist is trying to counter his depression but nothing works. The more you listen to the song, he is looking forward to dying and is slowly anticipating it.

‘99.5’ was a song that a lot of TV Girl fans were fans of. This song was the most popular one out of the whole album.

This song consists of another lively beat and contains no gospel till the very end which only lasts about 22 seconds. This song’s lyrics contain something most people need to hear and that’s perfection isn’t possible.

The protagonist knows that it’s not so he doesn’t strive to attain it as shown in the lyric, “But ninety’s close and ninety-nine is almost true”. This song does deserve all the praise it’s getting from fans. 

The last song in the album ‘Heaven Over Our Heads’ starts the same way the first song starts. Just pushing fans straight into the new experimental sound.

The protagonist has gone through so many things throughout this album and his final obstacle is questioning the existence of a higher power and what really happens in the afterlife.

One thing he’s not questioning though, is that the world is an evil place. This song is a strong way to end the album as the meaning of the lyrics goes into deep topics. 

This whole album has an existential focus which is not rare for TV Girl to do as one of their other albums, ‘Death of a Party Girl’, brings it up a little bit. This album may not have been as popular because of the gospel samples, but the deep meanings behind the songs definitely make up for it.

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