Ashley McBryde Finds Hope in ‘Hang in There Girl,’ Conclusion to Three-Part Video Series [WATCH]
Ashley McBryde has shared a hopeful ending to her sinister three-part video series with the release of "Hang in There Girl," the latest song to come off her forthcoming sophomore album. The music video for the song is the conclusion to a story of betrayal, revenge and (maybe) murder that began with "One Night Standards" and "Martha Divine." Press play above to watch!
In previous installments of the video, McBryde and a friend get revenge after McBryde, at her job manning a motel check-in desk, discover the friend's father in the midst of an extramarital affair. A conflicted McBryde calls her friend, who shows up with shovel in hand, and the dad's lover winds up with duct tape over her mouth in the trunk of a car.
Things aren't looking good as McBryde and her friend drive out to find a secluded spot in the country side and dig a hole, but at the end of the story, the woman wakes up alone in the forest, tape still over her mouth. Meanwhile, McBryde and her friend sell their car to a junkyard and end the ordeal at a diner, sipping coffee.
It's a fittingly hopeful video treatment for a song with a message of encouragement. In a statement, McBryde says that she was inspired to write "Hang in There Girl" after driving past a young girl on a remote highway near her house.
"She was just kind of frustrated at the world and at the mailbox, kind of kicking the dirt, and I remember feeling like that," McBryde recalls. "I grew up on a cattle farm. I'm really proud of how I grew up, but I remember being 15 and being frustrated with the world and I thought if I could just pull over and tell her that, 'In three years, you're gonna have a car, and you're gonna get out of here. You're gonna look back really fondly on growing up in the middle of nowhere. If you'll just hang in there, you're going to be okay.'
"But then I thought about how creepy it would be if I pulled over and told this girl that it was okay to be frustrated and to hang in there -- total stranger. So then a couple days later, I went to Jeremy Bussey who I wrote 'Girl Going Nowhere' with, and told him that story. So we wrote 'Hang in There.'"
McBryde's sophomore album, Never Will, is due out on April 3.
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