By LAUREN
KASZUBA
Co-Arts Editor
‘Paramore fans, try to grasp this statement: Paramore will not be performing “Misery Business” live anymore.
“Tonight, we’re playing the song for the last time for a really long time. This is a choice that we have made because we feel that we should. We feel like it’s time to move away from it for a little while,” said a nervous Hayley Williams, lead singer of Paramore, in front of a Nashville crowd on Sep. 7. “This is happening. We’re gonna play it.”
Paramore, a rock band from Nashville, Tennessee, has been around since 2004. Currently made up by lead singer Hayley Williams, guitarist Taylor York, and drummer Zac Farro, their hit single “Misery Business” from 2007 (off their album “Riot!”) was the song that arguably allowed Paramore to become more popular.
The band, over time, has received criticism for one specific line from the song. “Second chances, they don’t ever matter, people never change / Once a whore, you’re nothing more, I’m sorry that’ll never change,” was the line that drew in controversy for being “anti-feminist.” Williams wrote the song when she was seventeen. She commented on the song in 2015 on Tumblr.
“’Misery Business’ is not a set of lyrics that I relate to as a 26-year-old woman. I haven’t related to it in a very long time. Those words were written when I was 17…admittedly, from a very narrow-minded perspective. It wasn’t really meant to be this big philosophical statement about anything. It was quite literally a page in my diary about a singular moment I experienced as a high schooler,” wrote Williams.
She also touched up on the topic last year during the tenth anniversary of “Riot!” “The problem with the lyrics is not that I had an issue with someone I went to school with. That’s just high school and friendships and breakups. It’s the way I tried to call her out using words that didn’t belong in the conversation. It’s the fact that the story was setup inside the context of a competition that didn’t exist over some fantasy romance.”
During the Nashville show, the lead singer skipped over the line as she belted out the song for the last time live. The Nashville show also marked the end of their “After Laughter Tour,” which promoted their most recent album, “After Laughter.”
Some Paramore fans have responded with anger as “Misery Business” is what could be considered an “absolute must” for a Paramore show. Typically played at the end of their shows for their encore, it will be different for many to not hear the classic pop-punk song being played. However, many have responded with positivity, with the thought process that it may be good for artists to reevaluate their works, despite it being several years later.
