Paramore’s After Laughter: a Perfect Album for When You Want to Give Up
It’s a really weird time in life, the point when you’re not a teenager anymore but you aren’t really an adult. You have no money, no sense of who you are, and as far as you can see, no future prospects. It’s as if someone has tied you to the end of a hook and thrown you deep into a pond, where all the fish are now niggling at you and you are trying to get away and not be eaten but instead you just thrust about and hurt yourself more than you would have if you’d have just stayed still. This is what Paramore’s 2017 album After Laughter is about.
When you’re out of school, out of education, suddenly faced with the very real prospect of failure of staying in your tiny Welsh town for the rest of your life, it hits you in the face and you keep going anyway, waiting for it to get worse, because you know it’s going to. And you know you’re going to just get back up because you just have to. This is what the album is about. It’s not the positivity of their self-titled, the absolute faith in hope and life, and it isn’t the driving force of bitterness that propels Ignorance or Playing God or Careful on Brand New Eyes. It’s the numbness. It’s the wanting to give up and not being able to because, in reality, you can’t. No matter how much you want to reach rock bottom and lounge there for a while, just basking in the nightmares because even though it’s horrible, it’s a few moments peace, it doesn’t happen. Because life goes on. So you have to, too.
The album’s leading single Hard Times is sarcastic and cynical, it’s the depressive eye-roll of someone who has long given up “staying positive”. Williams repeats throughout the song, in a wail-like groan, “I’ve gotta get to rock bottom,” she begs to let herself finally reach the end, the pit, so it can’t get any worse. But she can’t do that — she has to keep getting up and moving on. That’s one of the worst things about depression: wanting to sit in your squalor and self-pity, but not being able to, because when you’re an adult, you have to keep going. Rent needs to be paid, you need to go to work, you need to keep close those you love. Adulthood is like a ticking-clock, counting down seconds you don’t feel like you have. Depression takes it deeper. You want a break you don’t have time for. So you have to keep going, and every time you do, you get kicked in the back of the legs again. And you roll your eyes. You actually laugh, because this is life now. It can’t get any worse at all, and then it does just that. All you can do is embrace the difficulties, and try the best you can. That’s a running theme throughout the album. That’s why the lyrics are bleak, but you can dance along anyway. (Even if you are crying.)
There’s no little skin-deep pin pricks here. It’s music growing from the wound inside yourself.
But there’s a spin to it — there’s taking pride in how deeply you feel everything, though it’s painful. There’s no little skin-deep pin pricks here. It’s music growing from the wound inside yourself. In Rose-Coloured Boy, Williams is bashing away all the brightness that comes from a person who sees only the good, who is asking for her to see it too. She whispers, “Hearts are breaking, wars are raging on,” in a way to remind herself or the boy? Williams is trying to convince herself that even though there’s a little bit of light, there’s still too much darkness, swallowing it up. She almost feels guilty for feeling good, for two reasons; her awareness of ongoing tragedy in the world, and because she can see herself getting hurt again — would it be her fault for falling for the idea of happiness once again? Of course not — but when you’re at a loose end, these are the sorts of fears that follow you like a phantom. However, the tone of her voice doesn’t sound as desperate as it does in Hard Times, and it doesn’t sound as broken as in Fake Happy. The song is light-hearted and cheerful, despite the pessimistic lyrics, and Williams’ voice sounds like that of someone who wants to stay in her own rut, and as she clings to her comfortable home of dirt and disappointment, the Rose-Coloured Boy is taunting her out slowly, with treats in the shape of harmless jokes and sweet smiles. And that’s where the hope lies. When you meet people who are luminous, who challenge your gloom, every moment spent with them forces you to question your nihilistic philosophy. Williams reminds us of the honesty and kindness you forget is in other people, she teaches us that learning to trust again once your trust has been ripped into tattered pieces and thrown onto the floor is difficult, and long-winded, but worth it for the little sparks of joy.
As with many songs on After Laughter, there’s many layers to the lyrics. Rose-Coloured-Boy isn’t only about the decency of others, but also about being stubborn in your depression and demanding that your feelings are valid. There’s pride in her emotionality, which is important as most listeners of Paramore will be young women. Williams insists to show her feelings, something that women often aren’t allowed to do. She commands to be heard and taken seriously about her broken heart and throbbing head. In Rose-Coloured Boy Williams shouts “Just let me cry a little bit longer, I ain’t go smile if I don’t want to.” She pushes on us the emotions she has repressed throughout Paramore’s earliest albums. She demands that we listen to her, we respect her space to feel what she feels. Williams is finally opening up, in a way which makes younger women know that it’s not only okay, but essential, that they do the same.
Williams writes about forgiveness of the self and forgiveness of others, but not forgetting about it; the sting of being crushed by love when you were so reluctant to letting go of your own fear of that very action. To acknowledge that someone “wants forgiveness,” but you “just can’t do it yet,” is a bold move. Her voice conveys the hurt she’s feeling, shows to the listeners how she wants to forgive, but she knows she can’t. This is another important part of the album, for young women listeners especially. Williams stands her ground and puts what she needs before what anyone else — even her own heart-wants.
The musical genius of Zac Farro and Taylor York is also emphasised on After Laughter. The melodies are upbeat, original and imaginative, contrasting with the anxious, stressed and despondent lyrics. The synths on Fake Happy conceal the desperation in Williams’s voice as she begs “Oh please / Just don’t ask me how I’ve been.” As far as the music goes, you can dance to it. Listen to it deeper, you can dance AND you can cry to it. You feel free. You can crawl up into this album, make a home in it, live in it with comfort.
You can scream these lyrics about being misguided (“No! I don’t need no help / I can sabotage me by myself”), about the confusion of wanting to be left alone but wanting to be saved (“throw me into the fire / throw me and pull me out again”), about the universal feeling of being overwhelmed by being alive. You can scream along to all of it. You can dance along to all of it. It’s liberating.
The album lets you break down the barriers you hold up around yourself and says it is more than okay to be completely lost, it’s okay to be humiliated by your own past and it’s okay to only see darkness in your future. It’s normal to feel like that. No one is doing better than you just because you’ve tripped and fell into the sidelines, into a liminal space occupied only by you and fear and regret, because everyone’s been there. There’s no one worthy of being a hero because everyone is doing as badly as you are, (“be sure to put your faith in something more / I’m just a girl and you’re not as alone as you feel … we all need heroes don’t we…but there’s not a single person here who’s worthy”) which means, really, no ones doing that badly. We’re all just plodding along without any direction and hoping for the best. After Laughter is about being stuck at a dead end and not knowing where you go from there and accepting it. It’s all about acceptance.
But more than that, more than anything, the album is about hope, as always the case with Paramore. It’s hidden in the lyrics, sure, its hard to find, but the album is as optimistic as it is shrouded in shadows. The album makes you feel okay, even though you don’t think you are, it lets you know that you are, and more importantly, you will be. After Laughter waters the smallest faith you have, and tells you even in it’s tininess, it’s still worth everything.
This album has granted Hayley Williams the space to grow and explore herself, in a way shes has never done before. The lyrics are personal in a way Paramore have never been. It’s mood is unquestionably dismal, juxtaposing with the colourful image this band have built themselves upon. It’s the most Paramore album they’ve ever made. It’s honest — it comes truly from the heart. In an extension of this, it provides listeners a place where they can examine themselves in a similar way to Williams.
It’s about growth and forgiveness. Expectations and desperation. It’s a trip through Hayley Williams’s head which, unsurprisingly, is exactly like everyone else’s. Full of fear, confusion, and indecisiveness, bitterness, shame and heartbreak. It has everything — including hope. It always has hope.
The album is essential. For me, After Laughter perfectly summarises the confusion of being a post-teen girl with no idea what is going to happen next, especially with lyrics like “I’m just a little bit caught in the middle / gotta keep going or they’ll call me a quitter”. It demonstrates to listeners the absolute hopelessness of depression. While the last song, Tell Me How, might make you cry — “Keep me out with your silence / take me down with your quiet / of all the weapons you fight with / your silence is the most violent” — you still come away feeling fulfilled. You come away feeling whole. You actually feel sort of like, d’you know what? Things will be okay.
