“F*** it” Paramore add “Misery Business” back to setlist after four years

Paramore removed arguably their biggest hit, “Misery Business”, from any future live performances around four years ago. The decision came in 2018 after an ongoing debate was created due to the song’s message being deemed by some as “anti-feminist”. And it was all because of one line that sang: “Once a whore, you’re nothing more, I’m sorry that’ll never change.” (cue the eye rolling emoji).

Well, that was then and this is now. On October 2, 2022 at their California show, Paramore performed “Misery Business” for the first time as a band since removing the song from setlists (Hayley Williams previously performed the song with Billie Eilish earlier this year at Coachella). And before breaking into their iconic hit, Hayley introduces the song with two words: “Fuck it”.

During the song’s interlude, Hayley Williams addressed the decision to unretire the song: “Four years ago, we said we were gonna retire this song for a little while, and I guess technically we did. But what we did not know was that just about five minutes after I got cancelled for saying the word ‘whore’ in a song, all of TikTok decided that it was ok. Make it make sense.

“I remember a time when we had a MySpace and we were still a really small band. We were really small. We hadn’t even put out this song and we had noticed that kids were calling themselves ‘Parawhores’. We were like, ‘Eugh, that’s weird!’ But I guess what I’m trying to say is, it’s a word, and if you’re cool you won’t call a woman a whore because that’s bullshit. We can all learn from ourselves, right? Just for the record, 90% of you said whore tonight. That’s all I’m gonna say. I’m not gonna preach about it. I’m just gonna say thank you for being nostalgic about this because this is one of the coolest moments of our show and it’s very nice to feel like there’s a reason to bring it back that’s positive.”

Good decision, Paramore! Watch the performance below!

Paramore also performed their new song “This Is Why” live for the first time.

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