Castles Crumbling: Hayley Williams’s New Romantics Connections
Related Reading:
Revelations: A Mass Movement Prophecy
So Many Signs: Mass Coming Out Theory
The Storm Is Coming: Saturn, Time, Fire, & The Glass Closet
Introduction
Inspired by the discussions in the Megathread, so if you participated and contributed your wisdom, I salute you. I only just wrote this today, so take it for what it is. There's honestly nothing more fun than holing up and writing Gaylor term papers. So without any further rambling, let's goooo.
As a neurodivergent 90s music-obsessed kid, I’m a double major: Gaylor and Paramore/Hayley Williams. Taylor and Paramore (and later on, Hayley herself) inspired and informed my own writing and creativity. I have followed Paramore since their debut, All We Know Is Falling. In 2020, along with Folklore, Hayley’s debut solo record, Petals for Armor, was my unofficial COVID soundtrack. This is me flashing my credentials before I dive into this piece, I suppose.
I talk quite the Mass Movement/New Romantics talk, but on the subject of Taylor and Paramore, I consider myself well-informed. So while this is somewhat aligned around Hayley herself, there are Taylor tie-ins included. I was urged to turn this into a full-length post, so here we are, my lovely Gaylors. Take a few minutes of your time (perhaps over morning coffee?) and walk with me.
This past Monday, Hayley surprise-released a 17-track collection of singles referred to as EGO. It was an add-on to anyone who purchased the Good Dye Young (her haircare line)’s bright yellow dye of the same name. In the ad, it read, “EGO is not just a hair color.” Cliff notes on Hayley’s chaotic relationship with hair: she was the “flame-haired” female vocalist, known for her trademark red hair. When Paramore fulfilled their contract with Atlantic Records, Hayley chopped most of her hair off—a symbolic death of her brand that left room for something new to grow.
Even if Paramore is not your cup of tea (or tequila, in my case), you’re no doubt aware of Paramore’s presence on the Eras tour—especially during the European run of Eras II. Nestled in their set was a Talking Heads cover of Burning Down the House, taken from a tribute album, Stop Making Sense, which features contributions from TSCU alumni like The National, Miley Cyrus, girl in red, and Lorde. It’s a bold choice—including the song on a tour that features Taylor burning down her legacy.
And if that wasn’t your cup either, you’ve at least played the hell out of Speak Now (TV), an album that features a collaboration with Hayley: Castles Crumbling. Throughout the song, Taylor and Hayley commiserate over being the faces of a dynasty—Taylor as a solo artist, Hayley as the face of Paramore. Being highly-visible female artists in a vicious industry cemented a friendship that’s endured through emo, country-to-pop switches, and solo projects. Castles Crumbling, like Betty played-with-rainbow-strings during the ACMAs, is a foreshadowing of things to come.
All this to say that Paramore—and, by extension, Hayley’s friendship—have been simmering on the back burner of the movement. Hiding in plan sight, one might say. There have been hints of solidarity, symbology encoded in certain performances that might be a creative coincidence, but in light of Tortured Poets and every visual Taylor has drawn it together with through her TTPD installations, lyrics, and Eras visuals, some of these past instances are downright difficult to dismiss. Perhaps, just perhaps, these issues aren’t exclusive to Taylor. Perhaps they’re cries from behind the curtain that have been going on longer than we’ve realized.
While 2023’s This is Why didn’t dip its toes into the lyrical motifs and themes that I’ve harped on in past posts, Big Man Little Dignity was certainly a hint at the tsunami of change and revelation that would soon be upon us. Think of it as the moment the water is tugged away from the shore. I liken it to Taylor releasing Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve as a Midnights bonus track ahead of TTPD. Where This is Why refused to pick up the ball, EGO snatches it and runs down the field for an unbroken touchdown.
Ego
EGO is a blessing and an odyssey in its own right. It’s an album of “singles,” and it has no proper cover or approved arrangement. Hayley has encouraged fans to make their own. The album is an excavation of ego death, celebrity, polarizing fame, and the trauma and/or agony of carrying a brand/image. The hurt is hidden. While EGO possesses several songs with MM/New Romantics vibes, it’s also a soul-bearing manifesto of a woman who has moved through the industry for twenty years. Taylor and Hayley’s stories are very entwined without these connections.
Between Hayley’s previous releases—2020’s Petals for Armor and 2021’s Flowers for Vases/Descansos—and EGO itself, Hayley has bridged the agonizing gap between authentic self and tortured public persona. In a nutshell, Petals for Armor details Hayley’s recovery from a brutal divorce and the collateral damage of navigating her private and public narratives. Flowers for Vases/Descansos is a deeply melancholic album full of themes of heartache and death. A descanso is a roadside memorial marking where a person has died.
With that in mind, let’s jump into EGO’s most illuminating tracks, which begin with Kill Me.
Kill Me
Eldest daughters never miss their chances/To learn the hardest lessons again and again/Carrying my mother’s mother’s torment/I think I’m where the bloodline ends/I’ll never do the right thing again.
To put it bluntly, Kill Me is a blistering song about killing your darling: the brand and namesake. For Taylor, it was torching the Lover House. For Hayley, it’s an open invitation to the universe.
Go ahead and kill me/Can’t get much stronger/Find another soldier, another soldier.
Hayley has had some choice words for her former record label, Atlantic Records. She’s been outspoken on most things she’s passionate about. In Kill Me, she doesn’t shy away from the role she’s played. Similar to Taylor after she left Big Machine, Hayley is aware that her “good name” could be destroyed. Then again, it was always just a persona; something that glittered, but only vaguely resembled the truth. Knives out, she declares: Go ahead, kill this version of me, gut the product. I’ll survive either way.
Eldest daughters come to stop the cycle/A job you never asked for is paying in dust/Setting down your mother’s mother’s torment/Save yourself or make room for us/’Cause either way, we live in your blood.
I can fix him, no really I can. And only I can. This verse evokes Taylor, but even more, it conjures all the female artists that have been ground up within the blender. This is the clearest reference to the dismantling of the war machine I’ve seen so far on EGO. Save yourself or make room for us. Like a thunderclap, we are coming. Either way, we live in your blood. Gaga’s LoveDrug. Taylor’s white wine and narcotics. Think what you want, but the metaphor carries.
Discovery Channel
Hayley includes an interpolation of the Bloodhound Gang’s song The Bad Touch. From the beginning, the song is sinister and foreboding.
Barbaric bliss, teeth gnash when we kiss/No wound to lick, ’cause the hurt is hidden/Don’t you miss when I used to smile?/Blood on my lips, you start to cry/Barbaric bliss, the hurt is hidden.
Just like Heaven, love is compared to bliss, but the barbaric suggests its brutal underbelly. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Sequin smile, black lipstick. Teeth gnash adds bodily harm to what is outwardly romantic. The no wound line references concealed suffering. The smile is haunting if you know Paramore’s Fake Happy. With blood on her lips, she doubles down: You’ve never known my pain.
After Hayley updated her official website—styled to resemble an old-school desktop computer—to include icons (links) to streaming services, she also included a Recycle Bin. If you check it out, it’s got some interesting goodies in it. Specifically, she includes a video taken from the Robin Williams version of Jumanji.
Twenty-six years ago, we started playing a little game. And now, we're all gonna sit down and we're gonna finish it. And guess what. It's your turn.
Hayley seems to once again institute an interpolation, but she adds a slight revision.
Twenty-something years ago, we started playing a little game. And now, we're all gonna sit down and we're gonna finish it. And guess what. It's your turn. The hurt is hidden.
Here, I’m going to insert a bit of absurdity, so prepare to roll your eyes and change to a browser tab of cat videos.
The Alan Parrish of It All
I had a strange thought: What if Taylor is Robin from Jumanji? Or better yet, what if all these Mass Movement/New Romantic artists are positioning themselves as Robin’s character, Alan Parrish?
Alan Parrish—trapped within a vicious, deadly game for 26 years—symbolizes lost childhood, abandonment, and survival trauma. Like Peter Pan, he never grew up. His arc is built around reclaiming agency, healing family wounds, and learning to trust. He’s a father figure to Judy and Peter—the new kids who find the game and work to free him—and through them, he discovers hope, empathy, and responsibility.
It explains the looping nature of Eras—how she’s still writing about high school deep into her thirties. She’s joked before that people get emotionally frozen at the age they become famous. It also seamlessly weds the themes of Nothing New and Clara Bow—the mixed bag of anxiety, jealousy, and protectiveness Taylor feels for younger female artists. It brings to mind her mentoring artists like Sabrina Carpenter, Ice Spice, and Gracie Abrams.
Additionally, it reinforces the “slowed-down clocks tethered” in Robin, the obsession with time and clocks so prevalent in so many MM/NR artists. They’ve all been participating in The Most Dangerous Game: Music Edition for almost 20 years collectively. Travis has worn checkered flags since the AO3 pap shoot during Eras II. It’s cropped up as Taylor’s lock screen in a recent photo dump. Harry and Louis have worn racing stripes and clothes. Marren Morris has released Welcome to the End (with a pink-and-orange cover), produced by Jack Antonoff.
The moral of the story? The game—the blender—will keep trapping and devouring its players in an endless chess match unless someone (or several someones) is brave enough to stand up and change the prophecy. And from what I can tell on that front, we’re in for a hell of a show.
There's a lot to be said about the song's tag line: The hurt is hidden. In combination with Hayley's EGO art (which features a drawn-on lock necklace) and her use of the 'playing games' metaphor, this feels significant. Think of the chess game of Mastermind. The play stupid games, win stupid prizes checkered flag towel. Niall Horan’s version is playing cards. Niceboy Ed used an arcade.
Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party
This song’s timing couldn’t have been better. Flash back to the not-so-distant Tight End University event where Taylor performed Shake It Off. For a moment, let yourself relive the outrage and upheaval that this single night's collective caused throughout the Swiftie and Gaylor communities. OK. Now we’re ready to press play.
I’ll be the biggest star/At this racist country singer’s bar/No use shooting for the moon/No use chasing waterfalls.
Yes, you read that right. I don’t think Miss Williams wrote this about that exact night, but it is very pointed. The racist singer’s bar intuitively shares DNA with the bar Taylor centers around I Can Fix Him. This only tightens my theory that ICFHMRIC is about collectively changing the industry. The chorus references the industry’s backwards politics, glass ceilings, and frustrating limitations.
I’ll be the biggest star/At this bachelorette party bar/No use shooting for the moon/No use chasing waterfalls
Verse two critiques the way the industry fences in its female artists. They must be poised, presentable, and desirable to be marketable. Sensual politics, right? The emphasis on public image and aesthetics derails any true ambition and growth for its female artists. Even today, women are seen as objects rather than artists.
The bridge narrates Hayley’s meteoric rise to fame and its unfortunate consequences.
And I just want to be in California/Heaven laughs ’cause they all tried to warn us/They sent me right back/From where I came from/My tail between my legs/On Broadway
Lastly, she reflects on how most women with wild ambitions are reduced to songs that other people regurgitate. Or even worse, when artists with true artistic visions are often pigeonhole into recording songs that they either didn’t write or that don’t align with their authenticity.
I’ll be the biggest star/At this fucking karaoke bar/No use shooting for the moon/No use chasing waterfalls
Glum
In Glum, we find Hayley in the aftermath of leaving Atlantic Records. She’s reflecting on their influence and comparing it to her independent status. Similar to another EGO song, I Won’t Quit on You, Glum feels like a space-centric song exploring the distance and isolation from your previous self and life.
In the wake of your sunshine/I’ve never been more glum/Think I’m made up of moonlight/Don’t reach quite as far/But I still show up
Hayley is clearly feeling long, wondering where she should go from here.
Do you ever feel so alone? That you could implode and no one would know? And when you look around and nobody’s home. Don’t you anna go back to wherever we’re from? Wherever we’re from?
There’s a very clever joke about feeling alienated hiding within the lyrics of Glum. Here are the lyrics that really caught my interest:
Spaced out at a stoplight/Who’s laying on their horn?/’Cause it’s in tune with this song/Wanna put it in park/Listen all day long
I ask the traffic lights if it’ll be alright. They say, ‘I don’t know.’ The mixture of Getaway Car and DBATC here kind of intrigues me. Not gonna lie. It’s circumstantial evidence at best, but we’ve all seen the motifs of stoplights pop up throughout Taylor’s. It’s used as a flair here. It exists for very good reason, and now we are seeing it pop up with other artists.
Hey man, roll down your window/Light’s already yellow
In conjunction with the racing stripes and allusions to the end, the stoplight is yet another symbol in Taylor’s arsenal that’s metaphorically keeping me awake at night. Whether you subscribe to the 3, 2, 1, the 112 theory, or the Taylor Nation Lover calendar theories, Taylor’s mythology contains so many perplexing and fascinating moving parts. It’s impossible not to wonder which ones are moving in tandem and which are clever red herrings.
I Won't Quit On You
This is a rare song in MM/New Romantics. Hayley positions herself on Mars, the red planet. In my mind, she’s referencing her image trademark: her red hair. Taylor’s the girl in the dress. Hayley is the girl with red hair. It’s fitting that IWQOY begins with, “Stranded here on Mars, what’s the odds you’d get stuck here too?”
However, it’s the chorus that sucks all the air out of the spacesuit. It combines so many Mass Movement/New Romantic themes that I consider it a unicorn. I Won't Quit On You seamlessly fuses the aliens/space/astronauts motifs with a chorus full of heaven/hell, angel/devil imagery. The chorus is as straightforward as it gets:
Come Hell or Heaven, angels or devils, I won't move. And I don't care what happens after. I won't quit on you.
And because using the most prominent MM/NR is not enough for an artist like Hayley, she slyly ties in another movie reference, this time winking at the Steven Spielberg-directed 80s epic, E.T.
Chaos-ridden inner space/Turns out home is not a place/When I think “home,” I see your face/Up there so long, everything changed
These artists, stranded on land (Mars, in Hayley’s case), are reaching out longingly towards their authenticity. See Taylor’s Down Bad and Snow On the Beach. Harry Styles’ Golden. Zayn’s Stardust. Niall Horan’s Heaven.
Chaos reaches outer space/Turns out nowhere is a place/Look down on a brilliant blaze/Phone home, baby, everything changed
In my Revelations post, I predicted a metaphorical end of the world. Hayley’s IWQOY cements that, as well as the theory of quitting. Look no further than Haim's most recent album, I Quit. Many artists in the movement have referenced quitting, death, dark clouds, and rebirth. IWQOY is Hayley's way of saying: shit is about to get very ugly, guys, but don't worry. I'm not going anywhere.
Honorable Mentions
Mirtazapine
For when the heart’s a sinking stone/That’s smashing, fusing to your bones/For when you’re crying at the sky/And losing all your appetite.
All the mention of the authentic self being metaphorically “in the sky.” This line also brings me back to My Tears Ricochet: And I still talk to you when I’m screaming at the sky. And when you can’t sleep at night, you hear my stolen lullaby. However, I didn’t really want to include it in the formal section because while Mirtazapine explores the way anti-depressants can dull or fog out the trauma caused by the industry, it didn’t have the same punch that others did.
True Believer
While True Believer is a blistering commentary on racism, hypocritical religion, outright greed, and prejudice, it’s not as straightforward about the industry in specific. However, it does include:
I’m the one that loves your ghost. I reanimate your bones with my belief. I’m the one that loves your ghost. I reanimate your bones because I’m a true believer.
I can’t help hearing it through a fan’s lens, sort of how Eminem heard Dido’s chorus for what became Stan. There’s been so much discourse over the parasocial nature of fandoms, proper etiquette during concerts, and the expectations we place on our idols. Maybe that’s why the chorus of True Believer resonates so profoundly.
Hard
Hayley explores the journey she took through therapy to recover from a toxic relationship riddled with infidelity. She had to kill her femininity to survive. So while this song is a direct reference to the concerted effort it takes to trade your petals (for armor) for thorns and the painstaking process of salvaging those petals in the fallout, it did hold a kernel.
Always ready for the piano to fall/Always ready to be left out in the cold/Armor’s heavy, never suited me at all/But it’s the devil I know
This song is more about Hayley’s marriage, but the mention of sacrificing softness for cold impenetrability reminded me of the twisting smiles into thorns imagery we see in Tortured Poets. It also brought to mind all of the references to death, blood, battles, and war we see spread across Lover through TTPD.
Ice In My OJ
It’s safe to say Hayley laced this song with a bit of her natural swagger. Aside from rizz, Ice in My OJ touches quite quite a bit on Hayley’s—and by extension, Paramore’s—past life and struggles she’s dealt with as a prominent female vocalist in a hard rock band.
I’m in a band! I’m in a band! I’m in a band! I’m in a band! I’m in a band! I’m in a band! I’m in a band! I’m in a band!
Yes, those are actual lyrics. Hayley’s struggled with being the central focus ever since Paramore’s commercial breakthrough album, Riot. In the first single for their Brand New Eyes album, Ignorance, Hayley holds a light and despite shining it on everyone in the band, the light still shines on her. She quite literally screams the above lyrics at full volume. Free, cathartic, and therapeutic.
Conclusion
So, what do we do with all of this? With the blood-slick metaphors, the red planet exile, the Alan Parrish survival arcs, and the neon signs blinking The Hurt Is Hidden? We witness. We document. We decode. And we keep showing up with sharp ears and open minds. Whether it’s Hayley screaming from the karaoke bar or Taylor looping time like a clockmaker in purgatory, the message is clear: these women aren’t playing anymore. They’re tearing down the gameboard.
Maybe the castles crumbled because they were never safe to begin with. Maybe ego death is the beginning of resurrection. Whatever comes next, one thing’s certain—we are not watching the end of something. We are watching the prophecy get rewritten, in real time, by the very girls it tried to bury. Keep your eyes on the smoke. It’s spelling something.
Whether we like it or not, it's more than music now. It’s trauma alchemized into art, legacy folded into lyrics, rebellion stitched into every goddamn note. These aren’t random aesthetic choices or tossed-off metaphors—they’re strategic, cinematic, painfully earned. Every racing stripe, every stoplight, every burning house is a signal. A flare. A breadcrumb trail for the ones who see and ask too many questions. If you’ve ever felt trapped in a rigged game or devoured by your reflection, welcome. You’re not alone. I'll just leave you with this ruminate on.
Dear reader, if it feels like a trap, you're already in one. Dear reader, get out your map, pick somewhere and just run. Dear reader, burn all the files, desert all your past lives. And if you don't recognize yourself, that means you did it right.
Posted Aug 2, 2025, 10:19 PM UTC