Fans Are Obsessed With This New Political Hayley Williams Song

By Maria Serra, Idobi

After sharing her surprise single “Mirtazapine” on Nashville’s WNXP to show support for public radio, Hayley Williams has officially dropped 17 solo singles on streaming platforms.

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“True Believer” navigates her Southern Christian upbringing and the hypocrisy of some so-called believers. She sings, “They put up chain-link fences underneath the biggest bridges/They pose in Christmas cards with guns as big as all their children/They say that Jesus is the way but then they gave him a white face/So they don’t have to pray to someone they deem lesser than them.”

Then, the pre-chorus notes, “The South will not rise again/’Til it’s paid for every sin/Strange fruit, hard bargain/Till the roots, Southern Gotham.” Uniquely, the phrase “Strange Fruit” refers to a poem by Abel Meeropol, who wrote about the violent, racist lynchings on Southern trees.

One listener on TikTok shared, “Whewww. As a pastor’s kid AND a Black woman, listening to Hayley Williams’ ‘True Believer’ felt like someone read my journal and turned it into a Southern Gothic hymn. She said everything I’ve screamed in silence about the church, about whiteness in religion, about the performance of faith over actual healing. That line about white Jesus? That part about churches overflowing while souls stay empty? Yeah. That’s the part that hit. This wasn’t just a song—it was a whole deconstruction sermon wrapped in melody. A Black girl like me has felt that tension forever: between belief and betrayal, between what they preach and what they protect.”

The original article has listening links to this and other new songs by Williams.

Stop by our memorial to the victims of lynching to learn about the real people who were murdered this way.

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