Punk-pop superstars Paramore have announced they will no longer perform their breakthrough track Misery Business at live shows. Over a decade after the song’s original release, Paramore revealed to a concert crowd in Nashville that the one-off show in their hometown would be the last for Miz Biz. The track has been a topic of controversy due to lyrics which may be considered ‘anti-feminist’, written by lead vocalist Hayley Williams when she was 17 years old: “Once a whore, you’re nothing more, I’m sorry, that will never change”.
Before the final performance, Williams said:
“This is a choice that we’ve made because we feel that we should, we feel like it’s time to move away from it for a little while.
“This is to every bad decision that led us here, this is to all the embarrassing things we might have said, but we owned up to it and we grew.”
A band that we have watched grow up, and grown up with, their decision is the ultimate example of what it means to mature and accept the responsibility that comes with leaving your teenage years behind.
Williams previously spoke about the backlash that Misery Business received to Track 7 last year on the song’s 10 year anniversary:
“The thing that annoyed me was that I had already done so much soul-searching about it, years before anyone else had decided there was an issue. When the article began circulating, I sort of had to go and rehash everything in front of everybody. It was important, however, for me to show humility in that moment. I was a 17 year old kid when I wrote the lyrics in question and if I can somehow exemplify what it means to grow up, get information, and become any shade of ‘woke’, then that’s a-okay with me.”
The Nashville show was the grand finale of their After Laughter album tour and the crowd sent Misery Business off with bundles of energy and good-spirit. Whilst fans took to twitter to lament the loss of the much-loved track from the band’s live setlist, tribute band Paramore Or Less quashed fears that they too would retire the song, saying, “We based our whole look around this iconic song, in our world #miserybusiness will still be going strong, we will always play it live and we will always get you guys to come sing it with us on stage. We understand why @paramore are doing this but for us? It’s very much ALIVE”.
But for the real thang it’s RIP Miz Biz, gone but never forgotten.
Catch up on more of Paramore’s goss here.
He discovered the gem when he was 12 years old and still has it now, claiming it to be why he fell in love with music. He likes to play disc golf when he's not writing about music. He is a one-of-a-kind individual who is always the first to bust out his air guitar on the dance-floor.
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