As a person who is a huge music addict, I want to start up a series of blog posts where I discuss a song per week, explain it's lyrics and why it has meaning to me. Today, we're starting with a great song from Paramore's 3rd studio album "Brand New Eyes" titled Careful.

Lyrics:

To start, I'm gonna explain the lyrics and some interpretations of each part of the song.

"I settled down a twisted up frown
Disguised as a smile, well
You would have never known"

The song opens stating that Hayley has settled on keeping a "twisted up frown", basically stating she is showing a fake happiness, but the person this song is aimed at has no clue- they're oblivious to how Hayley Williams actually feels on the inside, unsure of the future and unknowing of who she can run to in a time where everything was changing.

"I had it all
But, not what I wanted
'cause hope for me was a place uncharted and overgrown

You'd make your way in
I'd resist you just like this

You can't tell me to feel
The truth never set me free
So, I did it myself"

The first few lines in this section show that while the band was extremely popular and successful, Hayley didn't have what she wanted as the thought of hope was unknown to her and never before traversed, hence the description of it being overgrown. One could also take it as while the place of hope in her head was unexplored, it was growing at a fast rate. In the next two lines, she writes about someone possibly entering her life and trying to help but she's resisting it every step of the way, leading to her saying 'You can't tell me to feel', showing that she doesn't want this person trying to tell her to have different feelings, or even to feel at all. The two lines after that are Hayley saying that while hearing the truth hasn't ever set her free, she can set herself free from all the pain and past experiences, but it'll be on her own terms, and by herself.

"You can't be too careful anymore
When all that is waiting for you
Won't come any closer
You've got to reach out a little more
More
More
More, more"

The chorus is a hard hitting one. In this, you can really feel and relate to the struggle of being close to everything you've wanted, but it's just not close enough and it's up to you to reach further out and keep going even when the odds are against you. Life has gotten them up to this point, and this is Hayley saying that if they want to progress, they have to work through their issues to go farther.

"Open your eyes
Like I opened mine
It's only the real world.
A life you will never know

Shifting your weight
To throw off the pain
Well you can ignore it
But only for so long"

In this stage of the song, Hayley has her eyes open and she finally sees everything for what it is, and wants this person she is speaking to to open their eyes too. She tells them that it's only the real world, but this person is stuck in an alternate reality and sees things in a very different way from what it really is- and she makes sure to tell them that they'll never know the real world like this. Then, a very blunt and truthful statement is made- that you can shift your weight and ignore the pain for awhile, but it can only be ignored for so long, just because you push it to the back of your mind doesn't mean it hasn't gone away. You need to deal with it before it truly fades.

"You look like I did
You resist me just like this

You can't tell me to heal
And it hurts remembering
How it felt to shut down"

Now, Hayley has escaped the situations she was stuck in during the first half of the song, and now the person she is speaking to is in that position. The first two lines draw parallels to the beginning of the song, however, they are changed to be in reference to the target of the song. She tells them that they look just like she did when she went through it, and they're resisting exactly like she did, but the person needs to hear it. The verse wraps up before the final chorus comes in by Hayley saying that she can't be told to heal as once you've gone through so much, those scars can permanently change a person. To her, it still hurts to remember how it felt for her to shut down back then, but she couldn't sit there anymore and decided to take matters into her own hands to fix things and now the person she seems to be speaking to is going through the same process Hayley went through.

Onto my attachment to this song..

This song was one of the first I heard from Paramore. Everything that this song is encapsulates my feelings and recent events in life. I always had a fake smile on, when inside I was crumbling and depressed. But no one I was friends with would've known, they didn't care. And I had it all, a girlfriend who I thought I loved, friends that seemed good at the time, but I didn't know hope. When I was realizing that I wasn't happy and I had good friends who were trying to get me out of a relationship that was tearing me apart, and were trying to genuinely help me, I resisted at times because I thought things would just work out. I didn't want anyone telling me how to feel but it wasn't much longer until I stopped lying to myself. No matter how often I was told the truth, it wasn't what saved me. I was helped by my friends and I had to force myself to do what I needed to do. Life doesn't wait for you. That fact was something I realized in the past few months. I wanted to change, and I had to make it happen. For once, I reached out for myself and I've been thankful for doing so ever since as I've gotten out, gone to games with friends, gotten into new hobbies, and life has been looking up since. Now, I have friends and acquaintances going through similar things and not realizing the same things I did. I finally had open eyes, but they didn't. Everything I had to say was just pure reality and what needed to be said, but if they weren't willing to listen, they'd never know. Lately, I've come to accept and realize I've only been pushing sadness and resentment to the back of my head, and ignored it for so long until just a few days ago, and I have been working to deal with the emotions so I can move on. Friends I have are now going through the cycle as well, and some are resisting the truth just like I had. I can't act like my mental scars and damages will disappear, I've gone through so much hell behind the scenes in the past 4 years that I've stopped caring about repairing it all. I still remember the day I just shut down and shut everyone out because I wanted it all to stop, and it hurts to know I got to that point.

Thankfully these past 2 months have been extremely good to me and I'm happier than ever, just working through a big emotional mess (hence why I made this blog post, to get some of that out lol)

That's my introspective for this song. I can really relate to this song line-by-line as I have an experience to match each one. That's a huge reason it's on my top 10 list of songs (which I will make someday).

Thanks for reading!

-Dusk