No. 054 - Paramore’s “Misery Business” changed my life
Diana Filar reexamines her past disdain for a 2007 chart-topper
This Song Changed My Life is an independent music publication featuring essays from people all around the world about the songs that mean the most to them. Created by Grace Lilly, supported by readers.
• 5 min read •
The year was 2008. I was a little over a month away from graduating high school, and a few days away from taking AP exams, but none of that mattered because my two best friends and I were going to East Rutherford, New Jersey to the Bamboozle music festival.
After driving down from Connecticut and dropping our bags at a 2-star hotel right off the highway, we arrived at the Meadowlands Sports Complex for a weekend of mid-to-late 2000s pop-punk and emo: Motion City Soundtrack, Cute is What We Aim For, Finch, Men, Women, and Children, Saves the Day, and to top it all off, headlining on Day 2 — Panic! at the Disco, promoting their second album.
Armed with my electric blue and pink Pumas, hoodie, plenty of water, and our shared backpack, we danced our way through Day 1 of the festival, but we would decidedly not be staying for one of Saturday’s headliners. In fact, once we heard the first few riffs of Paramore’s set, we linked elbows and made a beeline through the undulating, sweaty crowds, hoping to quickly find our car and get some rest before the next day.
Walking through the vast expanse of the parking lot, we heard the chart-topping song from 2007’s Riot! from afar, Hayley Williams’s voice echoing past the throngs of fans, merch booths, food stands, and security: “I’m in the business of misery/Let’s take it from the top.”
Most distinctly, the female wail of the chorus came sailing toward us: “Whoaaaaa, I never meant to brag…” I yell-sang along with the frontwoman, mocking her in a high-pitched warble, performing a version of the ubiquitously maligned (and subsequently defended) archetypal “shrill” woman. We burst into laughter afterward. I, for one, did not know any of the other lyrics. A couple of boys walked by us in the other direction, shaking their heads and laughing at our shenanigans. I interpreted this as approval of my dislike of Paramore.
A road trip like the one to Bamboozle was a regular activity for us; we spent countless weekends driving up and down the east coast and across the tri-state area following our favorite bands, most often our favorite, Brand New, but also Taking Back Sunday and Fall Out Boy. These adventures — and Bamboozle in particular — comprise some of my most visceral memories of adolescence.
At its core, that weekend in New Jersey is evidence of the solidity of female friendship: I have been friends with these women — the girls who went to Bamboozle with me — for twenty years. But recollecting it now, I recognize that I was hating on one of the only female-led acts within the scene. I held on to my negative opinion of Paramore for years, mistaking it for a badge of honor — an announcement that I was “not like other girls.” In fact, I remember more than one occasion on which I said aloud that I just preferred bands with men.
When I first met my now husband, he was shocked to learn that I didn’t like Paramore. Their sound aligned with all my other pop-adjacent musical tastes. He was a fan, despite not growing up at the height of emo and his tastes leaning much heavier into earlier hardcore. Over the course of our relationship, he often put Paramore on in the car or cranked it up when they came on the radio, and I rolled my eyes, groaning, “Ughhhh.”
The soundtrack of my angstiest years wasn’t anchored by riot grrrl, but by bands full of men whose misdeeds and patterns of bad behavior have since been made public. The Me Too movement revealed that despite the purported sensitivity of their emo lyrics, many members of bands like Brand New allegedly engaged in inappropriate behavior with their (often younger) fans, ranging from misconduct to full blown sexual violence, and atrocities like those allegedly perpetrated by Lostprophets front man Ian Watkins (I am mortified to admit he was an early teen crush).
A decade and a half after attending Bamboozle, my musical tastes currently lean predominantly toward female-led indie rock. In the intervening years, I have expanded my musical education, often through my primary mode of consumption: reading. Carrie Brownstein’s memoir, Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl, produced on audiobook to include snippets of Sleater-Kinney’s oeuvre, opened my eyes to the way a musician thinks about music. I was awed by the sheer coolness of Kim Gordon on her Girl in a Band book tour. More recently, Sarah Marcus’s Girls to the Front gave me an in-depth history of the riot grrrl movement. I asked my sister for a preorder of Kathleen Hanna’s Rebel Girl for Christmas, and my favorite T-shirts feature the Linda Lindas and Bikini Kill.
What changed?
A few months ago, I listened to a 3+ hour Bandsplain episode about Paramore, and I began reflecting on how I ended up here. Why did I used to “hate” this band? I love pop music! I love women who rock! My cat is named Joan Jett, for God’s sake!
Of course there wasn’t any singular turning point. Instead, as is often the case, the answer is mostly quite boring: I grew up, I went to graduate school, I met a man (who loves Paramore), I learned more about feminism, and I began to think through my own internalized misogyny.
Although “Misery Business” did not change my life in one groundbreaking moment, it represents the start of the arc of my music education. I have no idea when I heard it first, but I know that I’ve listened to it on repeat countless times since. ◆
About Diana
Diana Filar lives in Queens, New York by way of Boston, Connecticut, and Poland, along with her husband, daughter, and cat, Joan Jett. She is Assistant Professor of English at the United States Merchant Marine Academy, where she teaches writing and classes on US-immigrant literature and genre fiction.
Instagram @dbabyfilarski
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