{"id":48708,"date":"2025-10-09T14:14:32","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T14:14:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/09\/watch-hayley-williams-perform-true-believer-on-the-tonight-show\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T14:14:32","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T14:14:32","slug":"watch-hayley-williams-perform-true-believer-on-the-tonight-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/09\/watch-hayley-williams-perform-true-believer-on-the-tonight-show\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch Hayley Williams Perform &#8216;True Believer&#8217; on &#8216;The Tonight Show&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tEarlier this month, Jimmy Fallon affirmed that <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/the-tonight-show\/\" id=\"auto-tag_the-tonight-show\" data-tag=\"the-tonight-show\">The Tonight Show<\/a> <\/em>has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/tv-movies\/tv-movie-news\/jimmy-fallon-the-tonight-show-not-political-interview-1235438742\/\">\u201cnever really been that political,\u201d<\/a> in an effort to distance his show from the conversation about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/tv-movies\/tv-movie-news\/jimmy-kimmel-suspension-late-night-hosts-react-1235430947\/\">late-night\u2019s recent rupture.<\/a> While he might keep his monologues clean, his musical guests bear no similar obligation. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/hayley-williams\/\" id=\"auto-tag_hayley-williams\" data-tag=\"hayley-williams\">Hayley Williams<\/a> took the <em>Tonight Show <\/em>stage on Thursday for the first live performance of \u201cTrue Believer,\u201d a chilling record about the sins that haunt the South and the ghosts that aren\u2019t geographically contained.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Hayley Williams: True Believer | The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sNNYei__joU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t\u201cThey put up chain-link fences underneath the biggest bridges\/They pose in Christmas cards with guns as big as all their children\/They say that Jesus is the way, but then they gave him a white face\/So they don\u2019t have to pray to someone they deem lesser than them,\u201d Williams sang. She performed at a piano draped with a canvas that read \u201cMississippi G-d Damn,\u201d a nod to Nina Simone\u2019s 1964 protest anthem. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAt the start of \u201cMississippi Goddamn,\u201d Simone makes clear, \u201cI mean every word of it.\u201d She feels the weight of Alabama and Tennessee, and of course, Mississippi, as she pleads, \u201cLord have mercy on this land of mine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t\u201cTrue Believer\u201d is born from a similar sentiment. \u201cI\u2019m the one who still loves your ghost\/I reanimate your bones\/With my belief,\u201d Williams sang. Her critiques of the South \u2014 and particularly Nashville, where her roots run deep \u2014 serve more as a warning than a complete condemnation. But hard truths aren\u2019t always easy to swallow. \u201cThe South will not rise again\/\u2019Til it\u2019s paid for every sin,\u201d Williams continued. \u201cStrange fruit, hard bargain\/Till the roots, Southern Gotham.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tThe depth of the record was amplified in its live form by a 12-piece band, including a string section that brought a deeper intensity to William\u2019s harmonies. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t\u201cTrue Believer\u201d appears on the Paramore frontwoman\u2019s latest solo album,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-album-reviews\/hayley-williams-ego-death-at-a-bachelorette-party-review-1235417437\/\"> <em>Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party<\/em>. <\/a>\u201cI mean, I\u2019m never not ready to scream at the top of my lungs about racial issues,\u201d Williams recently told <em><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/10\/01\/arts\/music\/hayley-williams-paramore-popcast-interview.html\" target=\"_blank\">The New York Times<\/a><\/em> about the song. \u201cI don\u2019t know why that became the thing that gets me the most angry. I think because it\u2019s so intersectional that it overlaps with everything from climate change to like LGBTQIA+ issues.\u201d<\/p>\n<section class=\"brands-most-popular \/\/ recirculation-modules trending-in-article lrv-u-margin-tb-2 lrv-u-border-a-2 u-box-shadow-5-5 lrv-u-padding-lr-1 a-span1 u-padding-b-1@tablet u-overflow-hidden\">\n<h2 id=\"section-heading\" class=\"c-heading larva  lrv-u-text-align-center u-border-color-black a-font-theme-primary-xxs lrv-u-color-black lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase u-letter-spacing-0063 lrv-u-padding-t-050 u-padding-b-0375@tablet lrv-u-padding-b-050@mobile-max lrv-u-border-b-2\">\n<p>\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tShe added: \u201cI reference this neighborhood in Franklin, really close to where I grew up, called Hard Bargain, that this formerly enslaved man bought from his former enslaver. It\u2019s still there, predominantly Black families, and it\u2019s protected now. But of course, Franklin and Nashville are being gentrified all the time. The reason I was writing about Nashville a lot is that we came home from tour and I thought, \u2018Well, I\u2019m gonna go to L.A. \u2014 get me outta here. Trump just got elected again, and I don\u2019t wanna be in a red state.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tShe stuck around Nashville, anyway. There was more work to do there. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/hayley-williams-true-believer-the-tonight-show-1235443668\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this month, Jimmy Fallon affirmed that The Tonight Show has \u201cnever really been that political,\u201d in an effort to distance his show from&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":48709,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop","article","has-excerpt","has-avatar","has-author","has-date","has-comment-count","has-category-meta","has-read-more","thumbnail-"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}