All We Know is Falling

To start my analyses of books and music, I thought I'd start from the beginnings of my love for both. To do this, I have to talk about Paramore and their first album "All We Know is Falling." I first listened to this album as a fourteen-year-old girl in my basement. As soon as the first guitar chords blasted through the speakers, my taste in music was irrevocably changed. Buckle up, because we're going into the recesses of mid-2000s pop-punk for this analysis.

Paramore was formed in 2003 by then-teenagers Hayley Williams, Josh Farro, Zac Farro and Jeremy Davis after Williams met the Farro brothers at school and bonded with them over their shared music interests. It was only a year after their formation that Hayley Williams was tapped by Atlantic Records and signed to a record deal, with the full intention of making her a Kelly Clarkson/Avril Lavigne type. However, Williams insisted that she wanted to make music with a band. Soon, the rest of the band was flown to Orlando to record their first album. A wrench was thrown in their plans, however, when Jeremy Davis decided to leave the band. The album became a tribute to how much it affected the band. With new rhythm guitarist Jason Bynum, Paramore set out to record their debut.

While Williams claims that this album is mostly about Davis's departure, it's obvious from the lyrics to each song that the whole album is about various parts of life falling apart with the coming of adolescence. The album is raw, in lyrics and instrumentation. Paramore claims the influence of Jimmy Eat World, Sunny Day Real Estate, Fall Out Boy and the Foo Fighters and all are easily heard in this debut. The heavy guitars are reminiscent of the alternative rock they drew from, the lyrics straddle the fine line between emo and pop punk while the guitar chords give power-pop vibes throughout. While the album didn't get a ton of attention at its release, each song reeks of potential from each band member.

The album opens with "All We Know", a song that reiterates the album's title. The opening guitars blast through your speakers, giving the song a heavy feel straight away as Williams laments the absence of their bassist, "It takes some time to let you go/And it shows." The album continues its breakneck pace with the single "Pressure" that similarly addresses Davis's departure with the final line of the chorus proclaiming, "We're better off without you." The two songs are well played by the Farros and Bynum. It's sometimes hard to believe that the drummer was only fourteen at the time of this recording with his command over the rhythm.

The rest of the album then shifts away from Davis's departure and into general aspects of life falling apart. "Emergency" tells of a teen witnessing parents divorce and the bad parts of so-called love. "Brighter" is a tribute to a friend of Williams's who had died, with the sentiment of "You shined brighter than anyone." "Here We Go Again" is probably the the poppiest part of the whole album, with smart power chords played under the verses. It's a song you could find yourself bopping around to even with the slower chorus and the dismissal of an ex, "I'll write you just to let you know/that I'm alright/Can't say I'm sad to see you go/Cuz I'm not."

"Never Let This Go" is probably the first slower song on the album. The lyrics tell of a girl not willing to give up on a relationship to a person she feels she no longer knows. This was my favorite song on the record for years and even to this day it's a strong song with lyrics like "Some day you'll get sick of saying that everything's alright/and by then I'm sure I'll be pretending just like I am tonight" sticking out especially. The seventh track, "Whoa" is easily the weakest song on the whole album. Williams wrote the song with guitarist Josh Farro, where they admitted Farro wrote the chorus. The chorus isn't bad on its own but the lyrics don't quite match up with it. The song ends up going from a girl wanting change to saying she has the crowd singing along with her. It's a mismatch and its unsurprising that Paramore hasn't played this song much past the year 2007.

The eighth song on this track, "Conspiracy", is the first song that the young band ever wrote together. Taylor York, now the lead guitarist of Paramore, gets his first writing credit here with Williams and Farro. The song is slower and details Williams's frustration with the feeling that her parents are turning against her. It's very adolescent but for a song written by a fourteen year old, this is unsurprising. A tribute to the band's hometown city of Franklin is the basis for the next song. What I love about this song is the utilization of Farro and Bynum on backing vocals through this song. In fact, the whole album features solid backing vocals that, unfortunately, stay only on this album. It's something to enjoy while it lasts though.

The last song, "My Heart" is a love song, though it's general enough that many have speculated on it being a religious song from the devout Christians. It's a solid, slow closer that features Josh Farro integrating some screaming behind Williams's voice. It works and even though it's the last time Farro ever screams on any record, it's an interesting glimpse into the music that these Tennessee natives were inspired by.

Overall, the album displays a lot of potential from a band whose oldest member was eighteen at the time of recording. It's definitely an album that demonstrated a adolescent flair to the alternative rock/pop-punk scene as well as introducing a front woman for the first time in many years. At the time, Hayley Williams was one of the only females at the pop-punk summer tour, Warped Tour. Not only did this album give these teenagers a solid jumping-off point, but it also opened the door for many women to front their own pop-punk bands. In that way, you have to appreciate what Paramore has done for their genre by releasing this album in the first place. Even though this album would soon be surpassed by their subsequent albums, Paramore's debut opened the door for this quartet to take the next step.