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Artist News
Hayley Williams can still be a feminist, despite what she said when she was seventeen
By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 3 June 2015
Paramore vocalist Hayley Williams has said that the lyrics to the band’s song ‘Misery Business’, from their 2007 album ‘Riot!’, are “not a set of lyrics that I relate to as a 26 year old woman” but their existence does not mean she can’t be a feminist.
The lyrics in question, which apparently some people have decided to suddenly take offence at in 2015, go like this: “I never meant to brag/But I got him where I want him now/To steal it all away from you now/But God does it feel so good”.
Writing on her Tumblr blog, Williams said: “I read a couple comments today about how I can’t be feminist, or whether or not I’m a ‘good’ feminist. To speak specifically to one of those comments, I’ll say this: ‘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 seventeen – 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”.
Yeah, I’d like to state right now that I don’t think we should hold people to things they believed when they were seventeen. I was a fucking idiot when I was seventeen. Seriously, even worse than now.
“I’m a 26 years old person”, concluded Williams. “And yes, a proud feminist. Just maybe not a perfect one”.
