“It kept me from getting all deep and dark which is actually an easier place, internally, for me to dwell,” Hayley Williams shared about the prospect of writing about an “ordinary” topic like time management
Hayley in Wonderland has a nice ring to it. In the music video for Paramore’s latest single, “Running Out of Time,” from This Is Why, frontwoman Hayley Williams slips into a guitar case that doubles as a portal, desperate to get away from the studio instruments that have somehow come to life and grown ten times their original size.
When Williams emerges on the other side, it’s in a vibrantly colored world where the time-related anxieties she sings about in the song don’t necessarily disappear, but she ends up with one hell of a good excuse for running late.
“When we first started writing the album I wanted to challenge myself to write about ordinary things,” Williams shared in a statement. “I am horrific at time management and that feels about like the most mundane thing anyone could talk about… seemed like a fun challenge.”
But the “Running Out of Time” video is far from ordinary. Williams, Zac Farro, and Taylor York find their limbs extending further and further from their body while surrounded by reminders of time passing. There are clocks and hourglasses scattered around, but no one seems to be in much of a hurry.
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“Why we gotta be in a rush?” Williams asks, sand pouring through the gaps in her fingers like a living hourglass. “My watch is just for decoration.” Throughout the video, she pays homage to the late fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, donning a vintage corset from her 1990 “Portrait Collection.”
“It kept me from getting all deep and dark which is actually an easier place, internally, for me to dwell,” Williams shared, explaining her approach to writing about the topic of time. “Then again, expanding on those feelings isn’t all that different from the anxieties a lot of us feel about living on planet earth in 2023.”
