Paramore, Hayley Williams Reveal ‘Rose-Colored Boy’ Is About ‘Feeling Pressured’ Into Being Fake Happy
Hayley Williams may have reduced Paramore fans to tears after decoding the meaning behind her band’s latest single, “Rose-Colored Boy.”
After debuting the track, which features on the band’s fifth studio album, After Laughter, during their showcase on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last night, the 29-year-old spoke earnestly of what the performance meant to her by sharing the song’s intense meaning via Paramore's Twitter account Thursday (May 3).
“Adding shame to sadness is a pretty toxic cocktail. It’s hard enough to deal with sadness, depression, or any type of anxiety without the added societal expectations,” she continued, adding: “It’s important & more healing to meet ppl where they’re at - EMPATHY - than to try & paint everything rosy.”
For the singer-songwriter, who has been active with the band since their early ‘00s inception — an era which lionized Paramore as the alt-rock underdogs behind crowd anthems like “That’s What You Get” and “Misery Business” — life even before the creation of After Laughter caused the songbird a great deal of stress due to contention with friends and previous bandmates.
"I'm tired of losing friends, I'm tired of doubting myself and maybe if I'm just not doing it at all, then I won't have anything to doubt," Williams avowed in an April 2017 interview with Zane Lowe about Paramore’s decline to near-disbandment.
“I was kind of flat-lined and I think that if it weren’t for [guitarist] Taylor [York] the band would be over. That is just kind of the truth. Yeah, I had enough. I’m tired of losing friends or I’m tired of doubting myself, and maybe if I’m just not doing it all then I won’t have anything to doubt. I can see what else I can do."
The sentiments expressed in Williams' explanation of "Rose-Colored Boy" are echoed even clearer in the band's third single, "Fake Happy," which extends on the morbid inclination of faking one’s feelings.
When a fan inquired Williams to describe the meaning behind their exuberant Late Show performance of the song, she said the showcase was meant to translate the anxieties and pressures felt from the outside world.
Evidently, since the upshot of their new LP, the remaining band members — Williams, York, and returning original bandmate, Zac Farro — have found their footing again: Paramore is hitting the road for their 25-date After Laughter summer tour in the U.S. and Canada starting June 12.
See the band's Late Show performance of “Rose-Colored Boy” below.