Hayley Williams is the vocalist from the band Paramore and has previously released five studio albums with them. “Simmer” was her first single released as a solo artist, back in the spring of last year. This is an extremely powerful song that touches on themes of abuse, anger, and revenge. In the lyrics, Williams talks about her feelings of rage towards someone who has apparently wronged her. In her vocal performance, we can hear her barely restrained anger, as she fantasizes about exacting revenge against him, and yet still wishes to avoid becoming a monster herself. From her work as lead vocalist of the band Paramore, Hayley Williams has proven the inherent strength of her voice time and again, but in this song she has made the choice to hold back. This performance is much more subdued than most of her previous releases, however it is absolutely spilling over with emotion. This song is chock full of intentional decisions regarding her vocal techniques, and each of those decisions were made strictly to serve the lyrics, and the meaning behind them. With this blog post, I intend to walk through each section of the song - beginning with the verses, moving briefly through the bridge, and finally addressing the chorus - describing the vocal and recording techniques used to very effectively represent the meaning behind the lyrics.
The song opens with the line “rage is a quiet thing.” Right off the bat, we are able to hear that Williams can barely contain said rage. The word quiet is ironically the loudest word of that phrase, which I definitely believe to be a conscious choice of the production. Furthermore, “quiet” is the highest note in the melodic contour of this phrase, with “rage” being second-highest. To add to this effect, “rage” falls on the downbeat of a bar, while “quiet” falls on the third beat of the following bar. These two words are the only ones in the line that fall on strong beats. These decisions about amplitude, melody, and timing all successfully highlight these two words as the most important in the phrase. Further into the stanza, at about 0:55 in the recorded version (not music video), Williams lets out a wordless sound, guttural and rising quickly in pitch, that conveys an amount of emotion that an extra word simply could not. There is of course rage in that vocalization, but also pain. The sound is also doubled in the bass line, which is prominent throughout the whole song but especially in the verses. This is another effective way to convey that she can barely contain her emotions. Before moving onto the second verse, it is worth noting that both verses are sung with a single vocal line, not doubled and without vocal harmony. This gets across a feeling of vulnerability, and makes the emotion in her voice cut through much more clearly.
I would now like to directly compare the second verse to the first, because their relationship to each other is very interesting. Unlike the vast majority of pop songs being released today, the second verse of “Simmer” differs in melody from the first. Despite the difference in melody, the harmonic pattern of i - III - VII - iv that we have heard repeatedly thus far remains constant, tying the whole song together. The second verse is also more legato, and features longer note values, instead of the broken-up sentences we hear in the first. The instrumentation here follows Williams’ vocal delivery, as the bass begins to play a more legato line as well, and touches of gentle electric guitar are added. Where the first verse is broken up by implied punctuation (eg. “Rage, is it in my veins? Feel it in my face, when, when I least expect it.”), the second includes shorter commas, and flows more smoothly from line-to-line. I can also tie the contrasting techniques used in these verses to an SMT-V video called “Music, Poetry, and Performance in a song by Maria Schneider”, in which a poem by Ted Kooser that was set to music by Maria Schneider is analyzed. Williams uses more harsh consonants in the first verse, such as the Ss in “it’s,” “veins,” and “face,” and the halted way one must pronounce the word “expect.” This word choice breaks up her lyrics, and slows down the pronunciation, similar to the first two lines of the Kooser poem. Conversely, in the second verse there are more open vowels, and voiced consonants (e.g., “had,” “child,” “sooner,” “mother”), smoothing out the stanza. These smoother words set to longer notes contrast drastically, however, with the word “fucker,” which is sharp, and delivered almost violently, reflecting the barely-restrained rage she feels towards that person.
The purpose of a bridge is to provide some sort of relief from the instrumentation, melody, and sometimes chords that we have grown used to hearing throughout a song. In this case, the instrumentation becomes sparse, with the drums dropping out except for the kick, and we are left with bass, the guitar playing single notes, and layers of Williams’ voice swirling around in the background. The kick drum and the bass keep the tempo locked in, but without the rhythm section, this bridge would feel metrically loose, and disconnected from the rest of the song. Here Williams says “wrap yourself in petals for armour,” with many of her vocal layers. The layers themselves depict the layers of petals with which she is wrapping herself, through use of word painting. I would also like to mention a short, high, staccato phrase that Williams repeats at transition points leading into the chorus. She simply sings the words “give in,” delicately and precisely, both on the same high note. This is an instance in which we start to hear her internal conflict, which is played upon in the choruses. This little voice is continually nagging her to give into her rage, and exact revenge on her tormentor.
The chorus of “Simmer” sounds like a war is waging within Williams. She flips back and forth between trying to calm herself down, versus wanting to give into her rage and exact revenge. The words “control” and “eyes closed” are reinforced with many layers of harmonies and doubles, reflecting the effort she is putting into remaining calm, while still between those two lines are the words “there’s so many ways to give in,” doubled but without harmony. This is an effective way to represent two warring voices within the same person’s head. Another way the musical decisions of the chorus narrate the lyrics is in the melodic lines to which the repeated word “simmer” is set. The first time she says “simmer simmer simmer simmer simmer down” in each chorus, the melody moves upwards, as if she is trying to calm herself without success. The second time this line occurs in each chorus, the melody trends downward, as if she finally succeeds, if only temporarily, at remaining calm. The final words of this song, at the end of the last chorus, are “simmer simmer simmer.” The listener, at this point, is expecting the same line we have heard repeated up to this point, however Williams cuts off the last half this time. The music video—which depicts Williams running through a forest, and utilizes horror movie imagery—ends here with the sound of impact, as she hits a monster in the head with what appears to be a clay pot. The song itself simply ends with background vocals singing “uh, uh.” I believe that the impression this ending gives, is that she could not hold onto her rage any longer, and gives into the feeling.