Hayley Williams dives into loneliness and nostalgia with the vibrant, emotionally charged “Glum” music video.
Late last month, Hayley Williams surprised fans with 17 new solo tracks, later released on streaming platforms.
Her latest single, ‘Glum,’ now has a nostalgic, colour-saturated video co-directed by Paramore’s Zac Farro, capturing her inner feelings of isolation beneath a contrasting bright exterior.
Williams’ lyrics on ‘Glum’ cut straight to the heart of solitude and yearning.
Lines like, “Do you ever feel so alone / That you could implode and no one would know?” and “But you wanna go back to wherever we’re from” frame a quiet desperation beneath the video’s kaleidoscopic visuals.
The song balances raw vulnerability with a sense of nostalgic reflection, capturing the tension between outward brightness and internal melancholy.
Her use of vocal presets subtly shifts her voice, emphasising the disconnection and introspection at the core of the track.
It’s a meditation on loneliness, memory, and the longing for connection, showing Williams’ ability to translate deeply personal emotions into something universally relatable, all while maintaining the idiosyncratic, genre-defying style that defines her solo work.
The video, co-directed by Paramore‘s Zac Farro with AJ Gibboney, is shot on 35 mm Kodak film. The grainy, nostalgic lens captures the yellow-haired musician strolling through a garden, sitting pensively in an attic, wandering through an empty house, and strumming a guitar from a hallway as she sings along to the track.
Perhaps this method is in itself a reflection. Tactile and timeless, the quality reinforces its nostalgic, late-’90s energy.
The grain and texture of the film create a sense of intimacy, making Williams’ moments of solitude feel more immediate and raw.
This use softens the colours in a way that contrasts with the saturated wardrobe and settings, echoing the tension between outward brightness and inner melancholy.
The slightly imperfect, organic aesthetic of 35mm mirrors the emotional honesty of the song itself, suggesting that both the visuals and the music are unfiltered reflections of memory, longing, and vulnerability, beautifully imperfect, like the feelings at the core of “Glum.”
Listen here to Hayley Williams’ several new standalone singles.
