This Is Why (song)

"This Is Why" is a song by American rock band Paramore, released as the lead single from their sixth studio album This Is Why, on September 28, 2022. It was written by Hayley Williams, Taylor York, and Zac Farro and produced by Carlos de la Garza. The song was accompanied by its music video, released the same day.

The song won the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Performance.

Background
"This Is Why" was released on September 28, 2022. It was the last song written for the album, at which point Williams was "tired of writing lyrics", although guitarist Taylor York convinced Williams and drummer Zac Farro to work on one "last idea". Williams stated that it "summarizes the plethora of ridiculous emotions, the rollercoaster of being alive in 2022, having survived even just the last three or four years" and thought that following the COVID-19 pandemic and "the impending doom of a dying planet", "that humans would have found it deep within themselves to be kinder or more empathetic or something".

Composition
"This Is Why" has been described as a funk, indie pop, post-punk, pop punk, dance-punk, alternative rock, soul, and dance song. It is the band's first title track.

Critical reception
Quinn Moreland of Pitchfork wrote that the track "builds on the funky pop that colored 2017's After Laughter, but shifts away from its predecessor's bright gloss for something muddier and vaguely threatening" and called the chorus "spiky" with instrumentation from marimbas making for a "suspense[ful]" bridge, after which "the song creeps forward, ultimately never pulling itself out of its paranoid spiral". Ali Shutler of NME described it as a "snarling, defiant middle finger to the haters" and a "giddy statement of purpose" with "newfound urgency to the party-starting music that takes influence from their angsty days as scrappy pop-punkers" accompanied by a "disco stomp". Steffanee Wang of Nylon called it a "disillusioned anthem" as well as "explosive" and remarked that it "sonically fits in the neat in-between space between [the band's] older pop-punk stuff and the electronic contemporary sound of 2017's After Laughter".

Music video
The music video was released the same day as the song, and was directed by Brendan Yates of the American punk band Turnstile and filmed in Malibu, California. It depicts the band performing and "frolick[ing ...] in the Malibu wilderness, amid the grasses, against the blue sky, and [...] in the spare interiors of a house".

Personnel

 * Hayley Williams – vocals, backing vocals, percussion, piano, composition
 * Taylor York – backing vocals, glockenspiel, guitar, keyboards, programming, vibraphone, composition
 * Zac Farro – backing vocals, drums, glockenspiel, keyboards, percussion, programming, vibraphone, composition
 * Carlos de la Garza – production, backing vocals
 * Brian Robert Jones – bass guitar
 * Henry Solomon – bass clarinet, clarinet, flute
 * Phil Danyew – glockenspiel, keyboards, programming
 * Em Mancini – mastering
 * Manny Marroquin – mixing
 * Harriet Tam – engineering
 * Kyle McAulay – engineering assistance
 * Patrick Kehrier – engineering assistance
 * Scott Moore – engineering assistance
 * Joey Mullen – drum technician
 * Erik Bailey – guitar technician
 * Joanne Almeida – guitar technician