Strange Fruit, Hard Bargain - An Analysis of Hayley Williams' "True Believer"

Julianna Concepcion | Staff Writer

On August 28th of this year, Paramore singer Hayley Williams released her newest solo album, Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party. The album features various songs about love, struggle, and her past, but one track that has been stirring up conversation on social media called “True Believer” shifts away from the other songs, directly calling out hate and hypocrisy.  

Motifs of Southern Christianity, Greed, and Racism

“True Believer” seems to be more of a jab at Southern Christianity, the religion in which she grew up with. The first verse within the track speaks directly to Tennessee, the state Williams grew up in: “Tourists stumble down Broadway / Cumberland keeps claiming bodies / All our best memories / Were bought and then turned into apartments / The club with all the hardcore shows / Now just a greyscale Dominos / The churches overflow each Sunday greedy Sunday morning”

There is much to unpack here—she is speaking on the very real commodification of Nashville, where the uniqueness of it has been stripped away through not just businesses, but also the ways in which the commodification of religion has influenced this. Williams and Paramore themselves have always been highly critical of the use of hatred in Christianity, which is seen in songs like “Playing God”. In the verse, she also speaks of the deaths that have occurred at the hands of the Cumberland River, which I suspect is her way of calling out the cursedness of the Tennessee land, almost as if these deaths are some sort of sign or bad omen.  

One of the other verses speaks about the racism and hatred connected to Southern Christianity: “They put up chainlink 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’t have to pray to someone they deem lesser than them”. The chainlink fences she speaks about are bridges that prevent the homeless from sleeping under them. Williams is calling out the hypocrisy of spreading the word of God while not being charitable or empathetic to the poor and struggling. Many of them, possibly Republican politicians such as Lauren Boebert, have also been seen posing with guns for family photos with their children, an irony, seeing as gun violence has been a leading cause of child death since 2020.  

Williams is trying to say that many of those who speak and follow the word of God are not actually spreading the word at all, but instead are enforcing harmful ideologies, one of them being that Jesus is white. This is a common misconception, as most depictions of Jesus were painted by Europeans who didn’t take into consideration that he was described in the Bible as having bronze skin. She feels that this has been a disservice in Christianity, as this misconception is one of many examples of the ties between European Christianity and White Supremacy.

Speaking Directly to the South

The verse makes the song progressively makes more assertive claims against White Supremacy: “The South will not rise again / Til it's paid for every sin / Strange fruit, hard bargain / Till the roots, Southern Gotham” The rising of the Southern United States is connected to the Civil War confederacy, where Southerners fought for “state rights,” one of those rights being the ability to own slaves. Williams does not wish for white supremacy to get to this point ever again, especially since there are various sins against Black Americans that still exist.

She makes it a point to reference Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit,” a protest-driven song about racially charged lynchings in the South at the time. Holiday compares Black bodies to fruit hanging from a tree, painting a tense scene to match the true darkness of Southern racism, where Holiday also calls out the hypocrisy connected to Christianity in the south, two of the lines contrasting one another: “Pastoral scene of the gallant south, / The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth”, making Holiday’s song a piece of history that should be honored for its realistic view.

When Williams says, “Hard Bargain,” she is talking about an African American neighborhood in her hometown of Franklin, Tennessee. This neighborhood was established by a former slave in the late 1800’s to act as a supportive and safe environment for Black people in the area, offering systems to help them with housing and other basic needs. Hard Bargain was created in reaction to racism, and Black Americans needed to band together to live fulfilling lives.  

Direct Message to God, or Her Home?

In her chorus, Williams sings, “I'm the one who still loves your ghost / I reanimate your bones / With my belief / And I'm the one who still loves your ghost / I reanimate your bones / 'Cause I'm a true believer”, which can be interpreted in a couple of ways. In an unreviewed annotation from Genius, the annotators state that the verse is meant to express the love and appreciation she still has for Tennessee, remembering her home fondly and what used to be.  

Personally, I think this is a great interpretation, but I think that there might be a bit more to it. Almost like a double entendre, she is both speaking to her home and to God. What this means is, Williams is attempting to speak to Him in a way that shows Him that she sees Him for who he really is—a forgiving, loving God. She calls herself a “true believer” because of her openness to others’ differences, comparing herself to Christians who exploit the religion and use it to push harmful ideologies. It seems to me that Williams means this more ironically than anything, because she sees their holier-than-thou ideas and wants to point the finger back at them, showing just how ridiculous it is to think you are better than someone else.  

Moving Forward

Listening to this song as a long-time Paramore fan makes me very proud to call myself a fan. Hayley Williams has been a role model to many, including myself, due to her love and acceptance of other people. I feel that a lot of time has passed since we, as Americans, have stood up to harmful ideology through art, and to me, this song release is a sign that it is only going to become more prevalent. While the song itself is bleak and realistic, it gives me hope for the future and hope for the next generations who wish to make progressive works of art.  

| "Next time you point a finger, I'll point you to the mirror" - Playing God, Paramore