{"id":6155,"date":"2021-04-08T17:13:48","date_gmt":"2021-04-08T17:13:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scadradio.org\/?p=6155"},"modified":"2021-04-08T17:13:52","modified_gmt":"2021-04-08T17:13:52","slug":"hayley-williams-of-paramore-puts-out-most-poetic-album-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scadradio.org\/2021\/04\/08\/hayley-williams-of-paramore-puts-out-most-poetic-album-yet\/","title":{"rendered":"Hayley Williams of Paramore Puts Out Most Poetic Album Yet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Hayley Williams has done it again. Less than a year after her release of her first solo-album Petals for Armor<\/a><\/em>, she has self-composed her new 42 minute album FLOWERS for VASES \/ descansos.<\/em> It takes us along her road of healing, processing familial traumas, self-destructive patterns, and the joys of life and memories. The album is so beautifully constructed, laid out in such a way that the listener cycles through Hayley\u2019s raw and erratic emotions as she was only coming to understand the simple-complexities of her life. It speaks in memories and visceral emotions, through different timelines within Hayley\u2019s personal life and experiences with relationships with the people around her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n FLOWERS for VASES \/ descansos<\/em> has a low-key beginning with the track \u201cFirst Thing to Go.\u201d It speaks of relationships and how many of us cope with leaving them. Even if the relationship was toxic, we begin to remember only the good traits that the person displayed, \u201cWhy do memories glow the way real moments don\u2019t? My altar is full of our love\u2019s delusion.\u201d Those memories begin to fade, \u201cFirst thing to go was the sound of his voice.\u201d The song is a song of mourning, of remembrance in the worst way, of almost idolatry. The phrasing of \u201cmemories glowing\u201d are reminiscent of the song \u201cRose-Colored Boy\u201d off of Paramore\u2019s last album released in 2017 where Williams sings, \u201cRose-colored boy\u2026 and oh, I\u2019m so annoyed \/ \u2018Cause I just killed off what was left of the optimist in me \/ Hearts were breaking, wars were raging on \/ And I have taken my glasses off.\u201d Williams admitted in her Apple Music interview with Zane Lowe that she has been notorious for painting the reflection of people that sit in her conscious mind with rose-tinted glasses, only focusing on the good parts of her interactions with that person, which can make healing from separation between her and her relationships all the more hard to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And this separation is all or nothing, like the second song on the album, \u201cMy Limb,\u201d which viscerally and elegantly describes the self-destructive preference to bleed out rather than separate from parts of herself or parts of other people that may be negatively affecting her. The sound and ambiance of \u201cMy Limb\u201d is closest to a lot of the melodies in Petals for Armor. <\/em>It\u2019s closely identifiable with the song \u201cSimmer”<\/a>, with kinship in tonality that radiates internal conflict, angry that she has continuously \u201cthrown away\u201d entire parts of herself rather than fixing the parts that need attention. In the chorus she switches between \u201cDon\u2019t let go\u201d and \u201cLet go,\u201d which is the one of the most difficult arguments she must wrestle with in her mind. Does she let go of the parts that are hurting her, or does she stay with harmful habits that are familiar? That’s a question that many of us must ask ourselves, and we must be honest with ourselves, which is the hardest part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTrigger\u201d opens with the powerful lines, \u201cI get off on telling everybody what went wrong \/ It makes me feel like the pain had a purpose \/ Keeps me believing that maybe it\u2019s worth it \/ Truth is all I really want is \/ Somebody who wants me.\u201d Many of the tracks on the album are still exploring the emotions that After Laughter <\/em>and Petals for Armor <\/em>were only beginning to scratch the surface of. It has still only been four years since her divorce, and with divorce being a cyclic theme in her life with her parents, there\u2019s more than just the surface trauma for her to lyrically explore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hayley\u2019s voice harmonizes in \u201cGood Grief,\u201d radiating such emotion with the beautiful tone of a loud-lullaby. \u201cHaven\u2019t eaten in 3 weeks \/ Skin and bones when you\u2019re not near me \/ I\u2019m all skeleton and melody \/ There\u2019s no such thing as good grief \/ Sleep with you in a sex dream.\u201d When going through the stress of her divorce, Hayley\u2019s weight dropped to a mere 91lbs<\/a>. Not only was she barely eating from symptoms of anxiety and depression, and using alcohol to cope with those symptoms. Her panic attacks became so bad that she would pass out, causing her to be hospitalized.<\/a> \u201cPretty sure you don\u2019t miss the way \/ I put all my demons on display,\u201d she serenades; it\u2019s not clear who she\u2019s speaking to in these lines, though it could easily be her ex or other people that are close in her life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Since her After Laughter<\/em> tour, Williams has been in talk therapy to learn how to manage her symptoms and struggles with mental illness. She speaks about her struggles openly, and the objective way she\u2019s able to describe these feelings in this way on the album makes this apparent. \u201cGood Grief\u201d displays the emotions of the moments in her separation with her ex, \u201cTook two months to pack up your things \/ But I left a box at your parents\u2019 house \/ Don\u2019t know whether to feel sad or proud.\u201d There isn\u2019t any \u201csuch thing as good grief.\u201d<\/em> The body still feels the effect of the grief, whether or not if it\u2019s for a good reason. How could grief ever be good? When emotional pain becomes physical manifestations, it becomes very clear to the public eye that you are suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Though, not every song on the album is so somber. \u201cOver Those Hills\u201d is a melodic description of a fantasy land. \u201cThought I\u2019d had enough \/ But the hurt is half the fun,\u201d Hayley Williams belts followed by an amazing guitar riff. Love is such an unpredictable feeling, and pain comes along with the thrill of being in love. Being lucky enough for heartbreak, as Lowe put it in his podcast with Williams, is such a thrill, but pain is something that we continue to process as we move through our lives, which is explored in many of the other tracks on the album. \u201cOver Those Hills\u201d is a more positive reflection on love, fantasy, and relationships that do realistically come with their own hardships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The tone shifts to a more upbeat guitar riff in \u201cWait On.\u201d Calling back to \u201cFake Happy\u201d lyrically in After Laughter<\/em>, but with an upbeat acoustic sound as opposed to synth-pop. \u201cThe sky will wake up every morning \/ And sometimes feel the need to pour out \/ All the feeling it\u2019s been holding \/ But either way \/ It never comes down \/ It knows it\u2019s place \/ And knows a way around the clouds \/ and their design.\u201d Williams\u2019 exploration of co-dependency continues, describing the feeling of not being able to move on with your life without the other person, when it is merely self-sabotage. But further in the track, she discovers some healthy boundaries. Her eloquently written metaphor of the sky being a person, the \u201cpour[ing] out\u201d being emotions, and then the choice of whether or not to rain. Friends and support mechanisms are always helpful, but there also has to be the boundary of whether or not it\u2019s the right time to express or dump emotions onto the other person. Friends know their ways around the clouds, but over-honesty and over-sharing can drain the opposite party. But we still share memories to help each other cope when it\u2019s appropriate. Experiences are different, but we relate and continue to pick up the pieces with the help of honest relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n