“The Blonde” by TV Girl

TV Girl is an indie act from San Diego who, in-between 2010 and 2023, has dropped four studio albums, four collaborative albums and three EPs. 

Sometime around 2021 they started to garner what can be deemed akin to mainstream notoriety due to their music, i.e. some of the band’s older tunes, becoming popular on the all-powerful TikTok. But that said “The Blonde”, which was released on 5 June 2014, can be found on the group’s very-first LP, “French Exit”, which by the looks of things stands as TV Girl’s signature work.  And the entire band is credited with writing and producing this track.

The Lyrics of “The Blonde”

Having blonde hair is considered to be some type of blessing, if you will, as far as beauty standards are concerned in places like the United States. It is not readily clear why this is so. 

Perhaps it has something to do with old Hollywood standards or maybe those Master Race ideologies that the likes of the Nazis adhered to (with blonde hair being indigenous to northern Europe). Such a perception is also likely fueled by the fact that this hair color is extremely rare. 

In any event, that’s just how it is. And Brad Petering, i.e. the person singing this song, would know since, by the looks of things, he is naturally blonde.

In fact it may well be that the ideas being relayed in these lyrics were in large part inspired by his own interactions with women. In other words, “the blond” referred to in the chorus is probably Petering himself. 

And we have speculated in the past that he has an artistic tendency to do so, i.e. refer to himself in the third person, as with the utilization of the term “dumb blonde” on TV Girl’s 2018 track, “Blue Hair“.

So with that in mind, the way “redheads”, “brown-haired girls” and “black-haired girls” are depicted at the beginning of the song is of course hyperbole, because we all know that they too have their boyfriends also. 

“Who’s gonna kiss the brown haired girls
Who’s gonna wipe away their tears
And what about the black haired girls
Who’s gonna whisper filthy things into their ears”

But what the singer is getting at is how those who are blonde are held up on a pedestal, being the recipients of “unearned admiration”. So when Brad makes the observation that such individuals eventually get “sick of all the stares”, apparently he doing so from experience. 

In fact what he is implying is that people constantly looking at you for having blonde hair becomes so frustrating that many blondes can’t handle it. But in that regard, what he suggests instead of “(hiding) yourself away” is to rather just “dye your hair”.

And going back to chorus, the vocalist seems to be putting forth – again with the understanding that he is “the blonde” – that some women, particularly those of other hair colors, go out of their way to hook up with him due to his pigmentation. 

This is a notion that also served as a premise of the aforementioned “Blue Hair”, that the women in Brad’s life, due to their own ideologies if you will, tend to perceive him a certain way based solely on the color of his hair. 

And perhaps some of us, if we were in that same position, would take advantage of the privilege and go along with the flow, but obviously Petering is not that type of person. Or let’s conclude by saying that the way he sees it, treating a person as if they are superior or more attractive due to possessing blonde hair is not only stupid but also irritating to those who are the recipients of such treatment.