Paramore’s Hayley Williams Releases New Song, Lyrics Are Emo as Hell: Listen

Paramore vocalist Hayley Williams has dropped the second track from her upcoming debut album, Petals For Armor. Titled “Leave it Alone,” the new song continues with the withheld, alt-pop sound of debut single “Simmer” that was released last week (Jan. 22).

If you ask us, it kind of sounds like Radiohead, but more emo.

Like “Simmer,” “Leave it Alone” is produced by Paramore guitarist Taylor York, a man who’s been widely credited with helping to orchestrate the emo icons’ tonal shift from pop punk to indie pop.

Williams began teasing the release of “Leave it Alone” yesterday (Jan. 30), tweeting how “there’s more to the story. It’s almost never what you think.”

The video for “Leave it Alone” once more finds the Paramore frontwoman-turned-solo-artist in a forest setting akin to that in the video released with “Simmer.” Things are somewhat calmer this time, but there remains an eerie overtone to both the music and the accompanying visuals, as Williams laments in the lyrics about how she’s “Becoming friends with a noose that I made and I been trying to untie it.”

These new songs are the first taste of new material from Williams since Paramore’s fifth LP After Laughter dropped in 2017, but if recent activity is anything to go by, it looks like Hayley Williams is going to have a busy 2020 indeed, even if we are sad she seems to have ditched pop-punk for good.

Still, at least the lyrics are emo.

Leave It Alone (lyrics)

Don’t nobody tell me that God don’t have a sense of humor
Cause now that I want to live
Well everybody around me is dying
Now that I finally want to live the ones I love are dying
Becoming friends with a noose that I made and I been trying to untie it
Make it into something useful or maybe hang it through a window pane
Turn it into a fire escape
It tastes so bitter on my tongue
The truth’s a killer But I can’t leave it alone
You don’t remember my name somedays or that we’re related
Triggers my worry
Who else am I gonna lose before I am ready?
And who’s gonna lose me?
It tastes so bitter on my tongue
The truth’s a killer But I can’t leave it alone
If you know love Best prepare to grieve
Let it into your open heart and Then prepare to let it leave

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