Influenced by:
- Lily Allen, Bleachers, Cavetown, fun., Lorde, Julia Michaels, PUP, Taylor Swift
Tessa Violet
Williams (born 20 March 1990) is a YouTuber and indie pop singer-songwriter.
She was a prominent figure in the early days of YouTube vlogging under the name meekakitty before she shifted over to her music career and the name Tessa Violet in 2013. She's known for her light singing voice, and her music focuses on themes of love, loss, codependency, and relationships past, present, and possible future.
Discography:
- Maybe Trapped Mostly Troubled (2014)
- Halloway (2016)
- Bad Ideas (2019)
- MY GOD! (2023)
This musician's work contains examples of:
- All Take and No Give: "Sorry I'm Not Sorry" is about leaving a domineering soon-to-be ex-lover who never seems to have time for the protagonist.
- Alpha Bitch: "Small" is a verbal teardown directed at a bullying, gossipy girl who regularly insults people, spreads rumors, plays the victim card, and tries to steal other girls' boyfriends.
- Break Up Song: These are common in Tessa's work.
- In her very first album, we have "Sorry I'm Not Sorry" recounting how a domineering lover did not turn out to be a prince and not being sorry to leave him, making it the Over You flavor, and "Now That We're Done", which is of the I Want You Back flavor.
- On Halloway, every song counts except "Haze" and "On My Own"- "Dream" and "Not Over You" combine the Please Don't Go and the Claims To Be Over It But Is In Denial flavors, with the former being about the protagonist dreaming about their lover returning to them and the latter being about the protagonist reconnecting with their lover. "I Don't Get to Say I Love You Anymore" is of a more traditional I Wish We Were Still In Love flavor, where the protagonist keeps seeing little reminders of their now-ended relationship.
- On Bad Ideas, there's "Games", "Feelin'", and "Words Ain't Enough", all in a row, and all of the Over You variety, but with very different emotions. "Games" is a powerful rap/hip hop-inspired anthem where the protagonist confronts their lover over their awful mind games, "Feelin'" presumably takes place soon after the breakup and follows the protagonist's attempts at sorting through their feelings regarding the relationship's failure and their lover, and "Words Ain't Enough" is the protagonist lamenting how they tore themself apart trying to please their uncaring ex.
- MY GOD! has a few of these, most of which bear the I Wish We Were Still In Love flavor, the first being "Again, Again", where the protagonist reminisces about the happy life they used to have with their lover before they grew apart. "song without a title" is about the protagonist craving the affection they used to share, speculating if they could've fixed it by changing their behavior, feeling adrift and like their love is just a song without a title, and then begging their lover to come back, if only just as a friend. As the title suggests, "I Don't Know Who I Am Without You" is about the protagonist trying to figure out who they are without that person in their life and attempting to brave the loneliness. Finally, there's "You Are Not My Friend", which is of the Don't Want You Back flavor and is about the teenage protagonist telling their ill-advised adult 28-year-old lover to quite literally "go fuck with someone else".
- Cannot Talk to Women: One of the secondary themes of "Bad Ideas", depicted more clearly in the music video, centers around how awkward we get around our crushes. The lyrics refer to wanting to see the grooves between the crush's hands and teeth and mention how the protagonist's sheets smell like their crush, and the video has Tessa in several awkward-looking shots, such as staring into the camera with her cheek mashed into a tabletop and one eye behind a glass of water so part of her face looks backwards, tucked under or in a haphazard jumble of couch cushions, or poking her arms through a giant hanging sheet of paper.
- Celebrity Is Overrated: "When the Curtain Falls" on the MY GOD! album is about the protagonist's loneliness and desire for true connection despite the adoration they receive during performances.I wanna be somebody's best friend
Wanna know that it mattered in the night's end
Guess all this work and fame
Don't do much if you got shame - Concept Album: Nearly all of Tessa's songs are about romance, but Bad Ideas takes this further by being a recounting of a romantic relationship that quickly slides downhill into emotional abuse, as well as the aftershocks this relationship left in the protagonist's mental state.
- Creative Closing Credits: The credits for the music video for "Bored" appear on the screen of the Apple II that featured throughout the video.
- Despair Event Horizon: "Bored", despite its upbeat tune, is about depression and nihilism, culminating with the realization that life is totally meaningless. The music video, on the other hand, gives an impression of the narrator going insane.You look too hard, then you see it's a joke
And, yeah, you think you're trapped, but it's nothin' but smoke, ohh
You want it better but you, you only choke
Is this all there is?
Is this all there is? - Destructive Romance: A frequent topic in Tessa's songs, ranging from a partner who is All Take and No Give in "Sorry I'm Not Sorry", to a straight-up emotional abuser in "Games" whose mind games bring the protagonist to tears and make them feel like they've lost their mind. Unhealthy romances and their aftereffects serve as the main theme of Bad Ideas.
- Downer Beginning: "Prelude" opens Bad Ideas, Tessa's darkest album yet, with a quiet, resigned description of an unhealthy relationship, admissions that this isn't the first relationship of this sort they've had, and the protagonist speculating that they might be the problem, and not their cold, taciturn lover.And even when it's only you and me
There seems to be
Somethin' that you keep behind your teeth - Exhausted Eye Bags: Tessa has noticeable bags under her eyes in the music video for "Crush", which combines with her sloppy clothing and lack of obvious makeup to tie into how her crush on the subject of the song is keeping her from focusing on anything, including sleep, most likely. The eye bags reappear for the final major verse in the music video for "Bored", the part of the song where the protagonist is trapped in the throes of depression and/or anxiety and realizes just how meaningless everything is.
- Fun with Homophones: Some lyrics poetically make use of homophones or alternate meanings to words. "Games" rhymes "piece" and "peace" in its opening lines- "I don't want a piece of that / 'Cause I know there's no peace in that", and their usages contrast each other with the "piece" referring to the lover's mind games, which hold no "peace" for the protagonist. There's also "Separate me from the rest of the herd so / I can run away from all of my hurt, oh" in "Wishful Drinking", about the protagonist shrinking away from people (the "herd") in their pain. "I Don't Know Who I Am Without You" plays with dual meanings of the word "vacuum" in the line "But you left a vacuum in my life that sucked the air out of my lungs", where the vacuum is not only the empty space that the lover left behind in their departure, but also the resultant sucking pain.
- Gaslighting: It's implied that the subject of "Games" has said things to the protagonist that have made them doubt anything is going wrong in their relationship.And I been
Telling everyone I'm fine but
I feel like I lost my mind
Am I the only one? - Gender-Inclusive Writing: Nearly all of Tessa's songs with the exceptions of "Broken Record", "Feelin'", and "Yes Mom" leave the gender of the narrator ambiguous, and most of them (save for a handful of songs on Maybe Trapped Mostly Troubled) also leave the gender of the object of the protagonist's affections unstated as well, which lets listeners imagine any sort of combination of sexes they prefer. This also has the secondary effect of making it easy for anyone to cover her songs without having to change pronouns.
- Homage: The music video for Tessa's collaboration recording of "Games" with lovelytheband is essentially a recreation of the baseball scene from the first Twilight movie in music video form, down to the grayish color wash, the fact that the musicians are playing baseball in a storm, and the occasional flashes of orange eyes signifying a satiated vampire in that series. Peter Facinelli, who played Carlisle Cullen in the films, even makes a cameo appearance.
- "I Am Great!" Song: After the sad subject matter of Bad Ideas, one of the themes of MY GOD! is discovering new confidence. In particular, the opening track "BAD BITCH" celebrates the protagonist's newfound "bitchiness" and success, and "Yes Mom" is all about how awesome it is to be the protagonist.
- The Insomniac: "Bored" starts with:It's 4 AM again
You think that I could sense a trend
I'm stayin' up too late just so I can stay awake - Love Is a Drug: Referenced briefly in "Kitchen Song", which is otherwise a song about the sweet domesticity of life with a lover:And I'll give you all my love
I'll give you all my love
Ain't no symphony, no VIP, there ain't no sweeter drug
Than just giving you my love - Lyrical Dissonance: Some of Tessa's darkest subject matter features in her catchiest songs. "Games" is notable for being about a lover who gaslights the protagonist and plays mind games that regularly drive them to tears and leave them doubting reality, and it's set to a powerful hip hop-inspired beat with a rising background choir. "Bored" is even more upbeat and energetic in instrumentation and style, and it seems to be about depression and nihilism. "I Don't Know Who I Am Without You" outright feels like a dance tune, and the lyrics are about the protagonist desperately trying to hide how hollow they feel after they tried to change themself for their ex before they left.
- Mind Screw: The music video for "Dream" is filled with disparate and assorted scenes and imagery that don't have much to do with each other and even less to do with the lyrics, and were apparently selected on the basis of how dreamlike they are, both in isolation and in evoking the Random Events Plot nature of most actual dreams. Shots include a man reading a burning newspaper, Tessa transformed into a moving marble bust, a man hanging lightbulbs in the night sky, Tessa seated in the center of a bunch of red strings pulled across a room, and more. The end result manages to be incredibly beautiful and well-executed.
- The Mourning After: Non-death variant with "I Don't Get to Say I Love You Anymore"- the protagonist reminisces wistfully about a now-ended relationship, and how much they miss the little things about the other person, despite their attempts at moving on.
- Ms. Fanservice
- The music video for "I Like (the idea of) You" is a rare early instance of Tessa being sexualized, between the 1960s-inspired choreography and costuming that shows off her legs. Usually, she tries to cultivate a 'pretty', or occasionally unkempt aesthetic, and veering this close to 'sexy' was so odd for her that her manager took her aside and asked her if she was okay with being sexy. It does fit with the obsessive infatuation described in the lyrics, what with the bridge being about the protagonist giving themself over to the object of their affections to an unhealthy degree.
- Starting with her many livestreamed COVID-19 Pandemic-era concerts, Tessa's gotten more into experimenting with fashion that explicitly paints her as powerful and sexy, culminating in "Yes Mom" and "Breakdown" where she dresses in shiny latex for the cover art and concert performances, and the album art for MY GOD!, where she's wearing nothing but a crown, a strategically draped length of sheer tulle fabric, and her hand and arm covering her chest.
- Obsession Song: The second through fourth songs of Bad Ideas track the progression of an obsessive, unhealthy romance. "Crush" is a love song all about how the protagonist's crush on the subject has consumed their life, and made them start stalking them on social media. The theme is continued through "Bad Ideas" as the protagonist finds themself pining after the object of their affections despite knowing it's a bad idea, and the protagonist's infatuation finally reaches an unhealthy fever pitch in "I Like (the idea of) You" as they declare their obsessive desire for their lover's approval, until the romance comes crashing down in "Games" and continues downhill from there.
- Ode to Intoxication: "Wishful Drinking" is about using alcohol to escape one's demons and to help with "focus", as well as the distant, yet constant fear of drowning under addiction and denial that this is what's starting to happen.This is not a problem if I don't want it to stop
Can't call it a problem if I never let a play drop
This is not a problem if I don't want it to stop
Don't call it a problem; it's the only thing that I still got - The Oner: Tessa's lyric videos ("Haze", "Games") are all shot in one take, each. Even more impressively, the footage for "Haze" is slowed down, and Tessa is onscreen singing and performing a thematically appropriate dance faster than the actual song for the entire take, so it'd match up once slowed.
- Pædo Hunt: In "You Are Not My Friend", the protagonist rages against their crappy ex and then casually drops that when they were together, the ex was twenty-eight when the protagonist was only a teenager.
- Pep-Talk Song: "Breakdown" is about the protagonist starting out unhappy and isolated before they stand up and rage against it in lieu of having a breakdown.
- Please, Don't Leave Me: Attempts at rekindling relationships is largely the theme of her second album, Halloway. "Dream" is about the protagonist recounting a dream they had where their lover returns to them, while "Not Over You" and "I Don't Get to Say I Love You Anymore" both focus on how much the protagonist misses their former lover.
- Precision F-Strike: "Interlude III", the closing track of Bad Ideas, drops Tessa's first swear of any kind in her music, and it's an F-bomb. After an album full of emotionally intense songs, the F-bomb just sort of shows up out of nowhere in this little acoustic ballad, and it really punches you in the face.
- "Ray of Hope" Ending: Bad Ideas slides quickly into heavy themes of emotional abuse, alcoholism, and depression starting with its fifth song, culminating with "Interlude III", where the protagonist comes to terms with their loneliness, isolation, and depression. As many who have dealt with mental illness are likely to be aware, the first step to recovery is realizing there's a problem.
- Recurring Element: Smoke, in the form of smoke grenades that are danced around with and leave obscuring trails, feature in most of the music videos for Halloway.
- Retraux: Bad Ideas has a worn, vintage look for its final album cover, and the music videos for "Crush" and "I Like (the idea of) You" are shot in a way intended to evoke older media. The video for "Crush" is supposed to look like it's being watched on an old VHS tape, even starting with the sound of inserting a tape into a VCR and turning the channel to 3, and "I Like (the idea of) You"'s video looks like it was shot on actual film. "I Like (the idea of) You" is also costumed in a way evoking the 60s, specifically evoking Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots are Made For Walking". A punk remix of "Games" was released in collaboration with lovelytheband, and the accompanying music video legitimately looks like it was made in The '90s and was subsequently home-recorded onto a VHS tape.
- Self-Proclaimed Love Interest: Implied in "Crush", which is basically the protagonist talking about their infatuation on their crush, and how nice it would be if their crush also felt all those warm fuzzies towards the protagonist, too.
- Shout-Out: According to a behind the scenes video, the music video for "I Like (the idea of) You" was deliberately crafted as an homage to Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots are Made For Walking". Tessa and her backup dancers wear baggy sweaters over black leotards and dark pantyhose with heeled black dancing shoes to evoke the minidresses, boots, and usage of Leg Focus from the original video, and the choreography is similar, as well.
- Sigh of Love: "Crush" begins with the protagonist sighing and muttering "alright..." before going into the song proper, which is all about how the protagonist is driven to distraction by the subject of the song.
- Title Track: "Maybe Trapped Mostly Troubled", "Bad Ideas", and "MY GOD".
- "Untitled" Title: The tenth track of MY GOD! is called "song without a title". It's a slow, melancholic Break Up Song where the protagonist longs for the relationship they once had with their ex, and the title references how adrift they feel after the breakup.
