True Believer: Hayley Williams Rewrites Belief

Paramore vocalist Hayley Williams appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on 8 October with a hauntingly powerful performance of ‘True Believer’ from her third solo album, Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party (2025).  True Believer is ultimately a protest song, primarily about the hypocrisy of evangelical Christians and the legacy of the American South, as well as the gentrification of Franklin, Tennessee, where Williams moved to at age thirteen from Mississippi.

The performance begins with Williams under a spotlight at a piano. As the room illuminates, a black string orchestra sits before her, and the words ‘Mississippi G-d Damn’ become visible on a cloth on the piano, the title of a song by Nina Simone voicing the anguish of African Americans at racial injustice and violence in the segregated American South. For the second verse, the room darkens again, the orchestra pauses, and Williams uses the clearest diction possible for the poignant second verse, which has garnered widespread attention online: 

They put up chain-link fences underneath the biggest bridges,

They pose in Christmas cards with guns as big as all the children,

They say that Jesus is the way but then they gave him a white face,

So that they don’t have to pray to someone they deem lesser than them,

The South will not rise again,

‘Til it’s paid for every sin,

Strange fruit, hard bargain,

‘Til the roots, Southern Gotham

‘Strange Fruit’ is a poem written by Abel Meeropol in 1937 and popularised as a song by Billie Holiday, protesting the lynching of African Americans during the Jim Crow era, named the “best song of the century” by Time Magazine in 1999. Hard Bargain is a historic black neighbourhood in Franklin, built by a former slave who purchased the land from his former owner. It actively struggles against gentrification to preserve its history. Through these two consecutive references, Williams connects historical racist violence with ongoing issues of economic injustice and gentrification. The song continues with her chilling vocals and concludes with a section of ‘Strange Fruit’ by the orchestra and a following standing ovation.

In spite of criticism from evangelical Christians, as well as from those who prefer artists to be apolitical, the song has received widespread praise for its blunt denunciation of conservative racism in the American South, one Tiktok user asserting “This wasn’t just a song – it was a whole deconstruction sermon wrapped in melody.” In an age full of complicit artists, fear and punishment of disadherence to Republican dogma, and rising fascist sentiments in the US, True Believer’s words are supposed to cut deep, one Facebook commenter stating “So many who claim to be Christian and don’t know of Saint Peter, or his cross. Too many people feel called out, but guess what? You’re supposed to be uncomfortable, that’s the point.” 

Williams has frequently illustrated an avidity for political advocacy, speaking up on such issues as the genocide in Gaza and LGBTQ+ rights. She told the crowd at iHeartRadio Music Festival last year, “Do you want to live in a dictatorship? Well, show up and vote!”, a message met with mixed but strongly felt reactions. In a recent episode of The New York Times’ Popcast, the Paramore frontwoman stated, “When someone tells me that I’m a part of helping that change happen, that’s when I’m like, well, that’s the job.”

At a time of political pressure on late-night talk show hosts, with Jimmy Fallon vowing to keep his ‘head down’ following Jimmy Kimmel’s brief suspension, Williams’ performance is a defence of free artistic expression. This is Hayley’s first project after the expiration of her contract with her longtime label Atlantic Records in 2023. She opted for the unconventional rollout method of releasing the songs as singles first, and encouraging fans to create their own tracklists.

The ‘Decode‘ and ‘All I Wanted‘ vocalist  released her first solo album, Petals For Armor, in 2020 during a Paramore hiatus, and was characterised by experimental art-pop sounds. Her second solo album, Flowers for Vases / Descansos, was released in 2021 with a raw, folk sound. Hayley distinguishes herself from other artists of her calibre through the political themes in her work, with poignant messages arranged to raise awareness and inspire action and change. As a whole, Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party is an autobiographical album, and the Paramore frontwoman masterfully weaves into it the religious and political undercurrents of growing up in the South.

Words By Daniel Spencer