Songfacts®:

• "Hell's Half Acre" is about the artistically vibrant yet violent and impoverished area that once existed where the Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park now stands in Nashville, Tennessee. City officials razed the area in the mid-20th century. Ostensibly they did this because sewer lines couldn't be run though the bedrock, but the suspicion is that it was just an excuse to gentrify the area.
  
  Elizabeth Elkins, one half of Granville Automatic (with Vanessa Olivarez), told Songfacts that she considers "Hell's Half Acre" to be perhaps the best representation of what the duo's music is all about.
  
  "I think this song really hits that, and it kind of sums up this sense that 'that's what happens, babe,'" she said. "When things get old, you just throw them away, even if they're beautiful and vibrant and the greatest thing you've ever seen or felt. Well, it's tarnished now. Parts are broken. Now there's crime and the streets have cracks. Let's just move on to the next thing. I think both Vanessa and I don't believe you should do that all the time."
• Granville Automatic started working on this song during the making of their 2018 Radio Hymns album. The song didn't quite get finished then, but they kept it in mind for Tiny Televisions and included it on that album.