TRACK REVIEW: Hayley Williams - Just a Lover

TRACK REVIEW:

Hayley Williams

Just a Lover

9.5/10

The track, Just a Lover, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YF0d7gll09Y

GENRE:

Alternative

ORIGIN:

Mississippi, U.S.A.

PHOTO CREDIT: Lindsey Byrnes

The album, FLOWERS for VASES / descansos, is available via:

https://open.spotify.com/album/3JSvIZCtxK4fUywBK41129?si=w0KARliRRdWiH5mSXQIh8Q

LABEL:

Atlantic

RELEASE DATE:

5th February, 2021

PRODUCER:

Daniel James

TRACKLISTING:

First Thing to Go

My Limb

Asystole

Trigger

Over Those Hills

Good Grief

Wait On

KYRH

Inordinary

HYD

No Use I Just Do

Find Me Here

Descansos

Just a Lover

__________

IT has been a very long time…

IN THIS PHOTO: Tim Barber for The New York Times

since I have featured Hayley Williams in any full capacity. By that, I mean I have not reviewed her I don’t think or shone a spotlight on her amazing work. Although a lot of this review is a look back on her 2020 album, Petals for Armor, I am building up to her new album, FLOWERS for VASES / descansos. There is a lot to unpack and discuss when it comes to Williams’ music. She is the lead of the band, Paramore, and there are plans for a sixth album – following on from 2017’s After Laughter. I want to take a chronological look at Williams and her music. Paramore are a band that I really like and, though there has been talk that they might not release another album, I don’t think that is the case. In an interview with The Guardian from last year, we learn more about why Williams established Paramore:

“Hence Paramore. Hungry to start a band, Williams couldn’t find anyone to play with as a preteen in Mississippi. In 2002, she and her mum fled her “nightmare of a stepfather” to Franklin, Tennessee. They lived with friends, in a hotel, a trailer, an apartment furnished with donations from a church care group. Williams was bullied for her accent, so she started home-schooling with a weekly in-person tutorial. On day one, she met Farro, who introduced her to the boys with whom she would form Paramore. By 2005, they were emo royalty, as much for their soaring choruses as the intra-band drama. Their ever-changing lineup cut Williams deeply: “I was trying so hard to keep a family together.”

It was the same in her relationship with Gilbert, she says, which started in 2008. She wanted to mirror the one steady relationship in her life: her grandparents, who met at age 12 and stayed together. Therapy later made her realise she had also picked a partner with whom she could relive the trauma of her parents’ marriage. “I was in a very unhealthy relationship, and I just kept thinking: ‘I can fix it this time”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Sara Jaye Weiss

Whilst there are definite highs and bonuses about being in a successful band, there are also challenges. When she spoke with i-D, we learned more about some of Williams’ concerns:

“Hayley remembers being very sensitive about being singled out: “Being female and fronting an all-male band was like throwing your soul to the wolves. People didn’t know how to take you -- if your supposed power meant that they should be intimidated or inspired. In the midst of all of that there’s just a tension. Sometimes I didn’t want that.” What she did want was for the band to be recognised as a pack: for their connection to each other, or at least for their songwriting abilities. “All these reviews would come out that would paint me as some sort of dictator in a band setting, or as a brat -- it’s because I was a female, really,” she says, calmly, adding that she learnt a lot from the experience. “I’m not bitter about it but I grew up understanding that I was a little kid wearing a demon costume that I couldn’t see but everyone else could”.

I want to discuss the fact that there has been some struggle in Paramore. There has been disruption in the ranks and, as the lead, that weighed heavily on Williams’ shoulders. Although they have had a lot of success and good times, I think there is this perception that everything has been quite smooth – one might view Paramore that way looking from the outside. In an interview with NME from last year, some of the tensions in the group were outlined:

“And, yes, behind the scenes Paramore have weathered more than their fair share of storms. In 2009, after the release of their third record ‘Brand New Eyes’, the Farro brothers – drummer Zac and lead guitarist Josh – dramatically quit the band, sharing a bitter exit statement in the process. Four years later, hot on the heels of the group’s lauded self-titled album, bassist Jeremy Davis left. That same summer even Williams secretly quit. For a time, guitarist Taylor York was the only remaining member of Paramore. Williams later described 2015 as “the worst year” of her life.

“From the outside, ‘Paramore’ was our most successful record,” she says now. “We won a Best Rock Song Grammy for ‘Ain’t It Fun’ and I got engaged – all this insanely cool shit was happening.” All these milestones left Williams feeling empty, however. “I spent most of my life trying to be so bulletproof and callous,” she shrugs. “I learned more from becoming pretty helpless after that”.

It must have been especially hard for Hayley Williams seeing the band go through fractious times. One particularly vivid and alarming moment happened when the band were promoting their last album, The After Laughter. Returning to that interview from The Guardian, it was definitely clear that things needed to change:

“The After Laughter promo cycle was just beginning. When Paramore shot the first two videos, Williams weighed six and a half stone. “It wasn’t until I saw the pictures that I was like, there’s no hiding that I’m not OK now,” she says. “And part of me enjoyed that – if people know I’m not OK, they won’t get too close.”

Her bandmates coaxed her to eat after the tour started. Then her coping mechanisms went into overdrive. Williams’ ex is straight-edge, so she hadn’t drunk alcohol for most of her 20s. “But it wasn’t really about me,” she says. “It was about people-pleasing.” Her divorce and slow acceptance of her emotions left her downing tequila before the encore, “looking to break free from a prison that I’d put myself in and to also forget at the same time”.

She wouldn’t describe herself as depressed, even though she had felt suicidal. “What I hated was at the time it was still sort of new to see the word ‘depression’ – it became such a hot-button word, almost clickbait?” she says tentatively. “And it scared me to become part of that conversation, especially if I wasn’t even sure what was actually going on with me”.

Not to say that everyone who is in a band will have the same experiences as Hayley Williams, though I do think there is something to be said for the pressures one can feel as a lead…and the result of success and such a punishing work schedule. Things are more complicated for Williams. It does make for troubling reading learning what she has faced and why she had to briefly step back from Paramore.

PHOTO CREDIT: Lindsey Byrnes

Going back to that interview from i-D, and we learn more about why, in 2015, Williams took a year-long break from Paramore (one can also read more about it in this article from The New York Times):

“At her new home on a planned year-long break from Paramore, Hayley began therapy for diagnosed depression, PTSD and anxiety. She describes asking herself difficult questions in the isolation. Of her rage -- named as a ‘quiet thing’ on “Simmer” while she races through the woods, naked, in its video -- she says, “I was aware of it for a while and it still fascinates me that you can have these massive feelings that are lodged away inside of you somewhere and you don’t have access to them until you allow yourself to, until you get out of your own way.”

At the crux of her therapy work were early memories of her parents’ separation when she was four. That experience left a ripple effect throughout her adult life. “I really thought ‘what a clichéd thing to be affected by -- that can’t be my scar or emotional wound’, because everyone’s parents are divorced. Every character on TV is divorced,“ she says. “I was so desensitised to it, I felt silly being affected by it. And the truth is that it was the most pivotal moment in my entire life”.

Not to dwell too much on the harder years and the darker side of life with Paramore, but I feel it is important when contextualising Williams’ current work and where she is now. She has made some changes in her life that have been of benefit. Not only taking a year out but, a few years back, moving to a new city. Going back to the NME feature, and Williams talked about relocating to a new home:

“Three years ago – the same month in which Paramore released ‘After Laughter’ – Hayley Williams moved to the cottage that she’s speaking to NME from today. She wanted to start afresh. It was in a bad way when she first pitched up, but she was drawn to it all the same. “This house was infested with bats, it was dirty…” Williams says. “It was like me at the time.” She laughs wryly. “It needed a lot of exorcism.”

On arriving, she didn’t know what she wanted her life to look like. Having moved out of the farmhouse she’d once lived in with her ex, Williams was faced instead with a blank slate. “I had bought [that house] because I thought: ‘This is going to be my life, and maybe I’ll have children here’,” she says now. “I was really gonna get domesticated.” This place, she adds, “resonated with my spirit a lot more”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Lindsey Byrnes

There are not too many interviews surrounding Williams’ new album; a lot of the press attention one can find online is for Petals for Armor. I think that this album, as it was only released last year, is important to dissect. I have already brought in articles that looked at Paramore and how there have been ups and downs. That is not to say that, since then, it has been smooth and there has been this sort of rehabilitation. The album, in a sense, is a sort of therapy. It is clear, as we discover from the i-D interview, her first solo album was very important and personal:

“Years later, and just into her 30s, Hayley was in extensive therapy for the first time and writing a solo album, Petals For Armor, the one she always swore would never come. Created during a year of downtime for the band, the music leans into her newfound femininity, exploring her depression, her longing for family and experiences of hard-earned, bittersweet solitude after her divorce. She explains how she came to reach a kinder, more realistic understanding of herself in early April while she’s quarantined alone, with her dog, Alf, for company.

The search for family has always been integral to the Hayley Williams story. When she was young, her parents divorced and her mother married “a really awful man”. She and her mother escaped to Franklin, Tennessee. It was in that town, where they moved between hotel rooms and a trailer, that Hayley was homeschooled and Paramore were formed, when the members were all in their early-to-mid teens. Hayley was signed to her label as a solo artist but resisted their efforts to turn her into a hit-making pop star, insisting that she came with a band. “I learnt that chosen family was just as vital as family of origin. And my chosen family is my band,” she says”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jason Nocito

I think that Petals for Armor is a terrific album. One experiences something very moving, rich and stirring. That is not to say that all of Petal for Amor is quite emotional and fraught. It is a diverse and interesting album that I would encourage people to seek out. It is a very different album to one we might hear from Paramore. To go back (again) to the NME interview, and we learn more about the creative and personal perspective on Petals for Armor:

“And so instead of penning a big pop record, she cast her ear back to artists who made her fall in love with music in the first place. Williams lived in Mississippi until she was 13. Her parents divorced when she was young and she later moved to Tennessee after the breakdown of her mum’s second marriage. “There’s a section of my life that I often forget, because it was shrouded in a lot of not-good stuff,” she says. “I loved listening to R&B and soul: Missy Elliott, Erykah Badu, TLC. I was inspired by them even though I knew my reality was very different,” she says.

“It’s interesting to be 31, and to have written all these songs drawing from that well,” she observes. “I remember walking into Good Vibrations, a record shop in Mississippi, with my dad when I was about eight. I heard [British soul band] Sade for the first time and that moment has never left me. Sade’s grooves are so sexy, but they’re tough: there was an overt feminine nature to them, but there were teeth, too.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Lindsey Byrnes

Whilst Williams was putting a lot of herself into the album in a very real and honest way, I think that she has also managed to find some answers and focus. I want to quote from a DAZED interview, where Williams talked about the album and her mental recovery:

“It was in the Petals for Armor journey that Williams’ metamorphosis took shape. The hurt and trauma that pocked After Laughter gained clarity and purpose. The songs began to inflect traumas that surprised even Williams herself: her parents’ divorce, discomforts around her marriage from the beginning, a primal fear of being abandoned. Anger became an energy, a cathartic resource. “Simmer”, a track about the abuse women in her family had suffered, opens with a “singular, seething” expression, “Rage.” “I wanted to plunge the furthest depths of my fears and anger. It wasn’t fighting against me bringing it all up though, it wanted to spring up.”

Petals for Armor is structured in three parts, the sound and lyricism distinctly reflect her mental recovery, from dark to light. “I still have such a dark, sappy mind,” she says. “We’ll be sitting with the guys, having the best time, then I’ll get so down at the idea of us ever not hanging out. Why am I such a downer? I am a magnet for tragedy. I have to fight it, but also accept it.” Writing tracks like “Leave it Alone” was a cathartic exercise to acknowledge that fear, while “Cinnamon” is a state of play for new ways of coping.

On “Dead Horse”, Williams shares how her “most significant relationship” with Gilbert began as an affair, as he was still in his previous marriage. “I wanted to tackle the shames of my 20s head-on, finally. I made a lot of mistakes and I’m pretty willing to talk about them, but not at the expense of someone else,” she says, leaving the details at that to give Gilbert grace. “I’m putting a lot out there. I want people to have the opportunity to get on board with this me or peace out, I owe them that. At the same time, I’m grateful that I wasn't thinking about anyone but myself when I wrote these songs”.

Going solo and stepping away from Paramore must have been quite intimidating for Williams. I am interested in band members releasing solo material and how they cope with that shift. It has been a period of transition but, as Paramore have not split up, I guess Williams’ experience is different to other people’s. When speaking with Ben Barna in Interview Magazine, she was asked about her musical solo endeavour:

“BARNA: You’re used to speaking about your music alongside your bandmates. What’s it been like to be the only person representing the music?

WILLIAMS: On the one hand, I fucking talk so much. The guys always laugh at me because before an encore, we take shots of tequila. It was a little tradition for us during the After Laughter tour. And you always knew when I took part, because when I take a shot, I talk even more. But this whole process is just me puking it up. I’m pretty unfiltered these days, and I feel okay about that. If this were a Paramore project, you’re absolutely right. It’s not because I feel ashamed of the work, or because the guys don’t want me to talk, it’s just that it’s not only me, and I love just as much for them to have the light on them. If anything, I love that more. Right now, I’m just letting my fucking mouth flap around, and I’m saying too much. But I don’t ever regret it. There’s no point.

BARNA: Is there a specific moment when you know it’s finally time to let go of an album and move on, and is that process more nebulous now that the traditional markers of releasing and promoting an album don’t exist?

WILLIAMS: The blissfulness of writing some of these songs, the pain of writing some of these songs, that’s all a passing moment. I have to move on to other stories. I think it usually takes me a week or so after the record comes out, because we’re always working so hard the week of release. We’re always doing extra press, last-minute promotions, but once that’s over, there’s this quiet moment where the real release happens for me. I already wrote on Instagram, in a letter to the fans, “This is yours. Please take care of this. This is a really major part of my life but it’s time to move onto the next.” The truth is I say that, but it still takes me a bit of time to live that down”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Josh Brastead

BARNA: I read a review the other day that said the album feels like meeting Hayley Williams for the first time. Do you feel like you’re introducing yourself to us for the first time?

WILLIAMS: Oh man, that’s a good question. I feel like After Laughter was the moment where I started to let myself be known. I think the guys feel that way, too. It really felt like that was the first time our band had autonomy apart from the hype and the industry, and also from who we had been for so long in the public’s eyes. Before we wrote After Laughter, we were so sick of the grind, and so sick of the family drama of Paramore and the fact that most of the world only knows us for wearing skinny jeans and “Misery Business.” So After Laughter was when I said, “Okay, now we’re in a relationship. Let me let you know how fucked up I am”.

One can make an argument to say that Williams can take a lot of positives back to Paramore when they start recording again. I feel Petals for Armor, and FLOWERS for VASES / descansos have shaped, shifted and sharpened her as a person and songwriter. Nodding to an interview with Vanity Fair, and Williams said that, despite the fact that her solo work is very different (to that of Paramore’s), there might be some similarities when she returns to writing with them:

“Now that she’s pursuing stand-alone solo work, Williams sees it as a way to begin carving out her own musical future as well as Paramore’s. “I’ll probably write about some of the same shit when it comes time to make the next Paramore record,” she said, “but I know it’ll feel different. I just don’t know how.” And even if she’s strayed from the sound and model of when she was 17, Williams doesn’t view her current work as too vast a departure from what she was doing then. “I’ve been making music for two thirds of my life now, but I still wanna make things that are cool,” she said. “I still have that thing in me that’s very teenaged, that’s just like, I just want it to be so fucking cool”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Lindsey Byrnes

There are a couple of other things that I want to tackle before coming on to reviewing a track from FLOWERS for VASES / descansos. Not to concentrate too much on Petals for Armor – as I said, there is not a lot of interview material from this year -, but solo work has provided Williams the opportunity to address her relationship with femininity. Williams explains more in the DAZED interview:

“The evocative pastoral imagery runs parallel with Williams’ changing relationship with her femininity, blossoming across the record. “I envision femininity as strong hands, reaching in the dirt. It’s in the songwriting, digging past the stones and hard shit, tilling soil until there is a place for you to plant something.” She watched Ari Aster’s rural horror Midsommar several times, enthralled by the women’s communal scream scene. Conversations at a recent all-women tea ceremony she attended inspired her to explore women’s health and psychology. “I was 30 when I started writing this project. I woke up at 30, and I felt very aware of my body, of the work that I had been doing, my desires and hopes, and they all felt very feminine, they felt earthly too.”

Femininity is something she has long wrestled with. “I’ve always been a bit timid about my femininity, always wanting to show my tough side first – this was a real big catalyst for this album. On-stage, I’ve always railed against the stereotypical expectations of being female. I wanted to just be a spirit. The stage and my music is where I’m not as vain or shameful. Unlearning that... I really wanted everyone involved in the project to imagine femininity in different ways than people are used to seeing – it is primal and ferocious and gross and beautiful.”

In darker moments, Williams had distanced herself from friendships, but found strengthened bonds with women in her life – her mother, childhood friends, wives and girlfriends of bandmates – helped her most. “When I started to be a little bit more open about things with the women in my life, my music felt different. To feel seen in moments where I was diagnosed with depression, when I started taking medication or going through my divorce – I found faith again, but in women. And in life, I have never felt more… feminine? So proudly feminine. With that, I’m giving myself the grace I deserve”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Lindsey Byrnes

The last point I want to explore before reviewing is a photographic one. Many of the photos used in this review are from noted photographer, Lindsey Byrnes. I think that photographers can bring the best out of artists - and, if you work with one often, there can be this very trusting and special bond. In that interview from VICE that I have sourced, Lindsey Byrnes explored shooting with Hayley Williams:

“As the Petals For Armor creative director, Lindsey shot nearly all the visuals at Hayley’s property or in her own home studio. According to Lindsey: “Hayley really wanted things to feel very family-familiar.” She considered that Hayley has emerged with a drastic hair and make-up look for each phase of Paramore, as created with Brian O’Connor. One day, Hayley was on Lindsey’s couch with her hand up to her mouth (on her hand is a cover-up tattoo of three black squares, over her ex-husband’s initials). Lindsey told her friend, “Let’s expand on that and show that you made art out of your experiences, and you’re a sum of your experiences and you’re not ashamed of them”.

I should crack on and get to reviewing a song from the terrific FLOWERS for VASES / descansos. I am surprised that there have been two albums from Hayley Williams in a year but, in great creative form, I would not be shocked if we got more material from her later this year! Go and listen to the album as a whole. I wanted to review Just a Lover, as it makes for particularly interesting assessment. It is a great song that I wanted to explore in greater detail.

PHOTO CREDIT: Lindsey Byrnes

The start of Just a Lover is so stirring and emotive. There is this gorgeous piano line and vocals from Williams that sound far away. Almost haunted or a distant memory, one is instantly invested in the song. The lyrics in the opening section definitely get one thinking: “Love is not a friend, it's not a brother/Love is not a Wendy-Moira-mother/Love has turned me into many others/Now I guess I'm just/Just a lover”. Williams’ vocals come to the front, and we get this transition from the echoed and far-off sound to something with greater clarity and weight. I love Hayley Williams’ lyrical approach and how she can pen these incredible lines that seem very personal and oblique at the same time. Her voice stretches and elongates as the piano provokes and elicits shivers. Back by quite a soft beat, Williams’ vocal changes from a more pained and dramatic sound to something more tender and intimate. Again, the lyrics really capture the imagination: “Once upon a time, when we were school kids/Mix CDs and carpool kids/No little cameras to witness/Really hope we don't wreck this/When you coming over?”. I was listening to those lines being delivered and images flashed in my mind. Those scenes of school and mix CDs are ones that many of us can relate to – especially for people of a similar age to me (thirty-seven). I love the character and personality in Williams’ voice. She delivers her lines with warmth and curiosity; there is this lushness and beauty that means you will come back to the song again and again. I would be intrigued to discover the origins of Just a Lover and whether it is based around a particular relationship. As the song continues, the lyrics become more vivid and moving: “Space and time/Waking hours before I/Open my eyes/In the morning, I feel my/Heart crack open/One last chorus”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Lindsey Byrnes

The composition is really interesting. From that opening where the piano took centre stage and there was this sense of drama and romance, the mood and pace changes as the song evolves. There is this great beat and guitar line that mixes alongside the piano to create something really rich and impactful. No matter what the inspiration behind the lyrics, one can definitely feel something in Williams’ voice that suggests Just a Lover has some personal origins and means a lot to her. (“Space and time/Waking hours before I/Open my eyes/In the morning, I feel my/Heart crack open/One last chorus, I'll be singin' into/Empty glasses”). The final lines of Just a Lover, to me, are the most interesting: “No more music for the masses/One more hour/One more ugly, stillborn cry/I know exactly what this is/Or whatever it was/Or whatever it was”. The pace picks up and the percussion gets heavier. Williams’ voice rises and there is this brilliant swell at the end. One is left to contemplate this very touching and beautiful song that is a definite highlight of FLOWERS for VASES / descansos. I have heard Just a Lover a few times and it is a song that is going to stay in my mind for a long time! Hayley Williams is an exceptional performer and writer and, on Just a Lover, she shows that in spades! There are so many different moods and sounds on FLOWERS for VASES / descansos. From flowing and gorgeous Wait On, to the wonderful opening track, First Thing to Go, there is so much to enjoy and cherish!

PHOTO CREDIT: Lindsey Byrnes

I want to finish off with a couple of unrelated subjects that caught my eye. I was reading an interview Williams conducted with Stereogum last year. I mentioned Williams’ bond with photographer Lindsey Byrnes. I think that style and the visual side of things is very important when it comes to Williams’ music. She was asked what her favourite music beauty look was:

“WILLIAMS: Easily Missy Elliott. “Supa Dupa Fly.” Very good. That was a moment that I’ll never forget. I was probably eight years old. I don’t remember exactly. I just remember I had a very young brain and I was sneak watching MTV because I wasn’t allowed to at the time. And she popped on my TV and I was like, “I want to go and live on whatever planet she lives on, wherever she is is where I belong. I don’t belong in Mississippi.” At the time we also had like shit like Aaliyah and TLC, beautiful women that were wearing things that challenged the norm. I mean they were obviously sexy, but they wore a lot of oversized clothing.

That’s one thing that I absolutely fan out about with Billie Eilish. She literally reminds me of being a kid, seeing Mary J Blige, she looks like she lived it and it’s crazy because obviously she’s so much younger. She wasn’t even around for that era but it seems to be authentic to her. Also she kind of made neon cool again after it had sort of died down a little bit. She kind of brought it back with her roots and now we’re seeing it grow out and she keeps refreshing it and it just makes me so happy”.

To round off, and I want to go back to the Interview Magazine piece. There has been some transition in Williams life in terms of moving between cities. She did move out of Nashville and lived in Los Angeles. Now, she is back in Nashville. We learn more of why she moved back:

“WILLIAMS: I thought that I was going to get married, and I thought maybe I’d just live a simpler life near my family. I tried L.A. for a while to be closer to my ex, and I was really lonely. I love California and I have really great friends now, but it’s mostly because a lot of my friends from Nashville are in L.A. I tried to make it work, but it was pretty unhealthy for me. I came back in 2015 to get married and do the domesticated thing, and honestly, if that had been the right relationship or a healthy place for me to be in, I would have been fine. But I actually was pretty miserable the first year coming back home. I thought, “Holy shit, Nashville’s completely changed, it’s not a small town anymore. It’s a big city with tons of construction, my life is falling apart, and I don’t know why I’m making the decisions I’m making in my personal life.” But I’m so glad I stuck it out and I didn’t go running back to California after my divorce, because I do have a true community here”.

I shall wrap up now, but I have loved reviewing Just a Lover. I really like FLOWERS for VASES / descansos. It is a terrific album that everyone should check out. I don’t think that one needs to know about Hayley Williams work or be familiar with Paramore to appreciate her new album. It is a tremendous album from one of the best songwriters in modern music. It is that autonomy and very personal approach that, to me, defines Williams’ music. On FLOWERS for VASES / descansos, she has created an album that is among her very finest music to date. I am not sure whether a Paramore record is imminent but, I guess, we will all have to wait and…