Article by Ey@el and music & lyrics by Hayley Williams

Original en français

Less than a month ago, I wrote about the importance to work on our divine feminine et divine masculine (see Related articles). Incidentally, I stumbled upon (though we all know there is no such thing as chance) this song by Hayley Williams, lead singer of band Paramore (from Nashville) who has just embarked into a solo career. I found it interesting that she uses a flower metaphor to talk about femininity. Besides, this a perfect song for spring!

“Every woman in my family on my mom’s side, they’ve all been abused in almost every sense of the word”, she says. “I’ve always felt like something was wrong with me or I was an underdog or I had something to prove.”

“But I kept thinking about, what is it to me to grow up in a man’s world, in an industry that I’m surrounded by men all the time” she goes on.

For information, Hayley had a troubled childhood. Young divorced parents; an abusive stepfather; she and her mother fleeing to another state and living in a trailer; bullied at school and resorting to home-schooling. Then she joined a rock band to sort of recreate a family and success came while she was still a teenager. Then she repeated the toxic patterns she inherited from her parents, got divorced and sank into a serious depression at the age of 30. Money and fame definitely can't buy you happiness.

“I am a woman. How can I own that without shame? How can I just be proud about my feminine side, all of my feminine sides? Because I got masculine sides too. Everyone’s got both sides of it. I feel like I’ve been so comfortable with this other side of myself that is so not feminine, that what does it feel like to step into femininity?”

And she concludes wisely: “As long as I’m staying soft to those things and I’m open to letting those things in and out of me then I actually can survive the world a lot easier than if I stay hard and with my fists up all the time.” (Source)

Roses/Lotus/Violet/Iris

I have seen your body
And I have seen your beauty,
They are separate things,
Pretty, pretty, pretty things.

But I am in a garden,
Tending to my own,
So what do I care
And what do you care if I grow?
Ooh, if I grow...

Roses, roses, roses, roses, roses
(Roses, roses, roses, roses, roses)
Show no concern for colors of a violet.
Lotus, lotus, lotus, lotus, lotus
(Lotus, lotus, lotus, lotus, lotus)
Hopes it won't spark envy in your irises.

Think of all the wilted women
Who crane their necks to reach a window,
Ripping all their petals off just 'cause
"He loves me now / he loves me not".

I myself was a wilted woman,
Drowsy in a dark room.
Forgot my roots, now watch me bloom.

Roses, roses, roses, roses, roses
(Roses, roses, roses, roses, roses)
Show no concern for colors of a violet.
Lotus, lotus, lotus, lotus, lotus
(Lotus, lotus, lotus, lotus, lotus)
Hopes it won't spark envy in your irises.

And I will not compare
Other beauty to mine,
And I will not become
A thorn in my own side.
And I will not return
To where I once was.
Well, I can break through the earth
Come up soft and wild.

Roses, roses, roses, roses, roses
(Roses, roses, roses, roses, roses)
Show no concern for colors of a violet.
Lotus, lotus, lotus, lotus, lotus
(Lotus, lotus, lotus, lotus, lotus)
Hopes it won't spark envy in your irises.

(Roses, roses, roses, roses)
(Roses, roses, roses, roses)
(Roses, roses, roses, roses)
(Roses, roses, roses, roses, roses)

© Hayley Williams, 2020