Hayley Williams 2025 single “True Believer” is a powerful reflection on the transformation of the Southern United States, confronting issues of religious hypocrisy, gentrification, and deep-seated racism. The song mourns the loss of authentic culture and memories in places like Nashville, as venues beloved by youth are replaced by chain stores and luxury apartments. Through vivid imagery like tourists stumbling down Broadway and hardcore clubs replaced by Domino’s Williams paints a portrait of a city losing its soul to profit and modernization.
The lyrics pull no punches in criticizing how institutional religion has been co-opted by greed (“Giftshop in the lobby, act like God ain’t watching, kill the soul, turn a profit”) and how faith is often weaponized to support bigotry rather than unity. Williams specifically calls out the whitewashing of religious icons and the way some use Christianity to justify excluding those they see as ‘lesser.’ She references historical trauma with lines like “Strange fruit, hard bargain”—an allusion to Billie Holiday’s iconic song about lynching—emphasizing that the South cannot truly rise until it has paid for its inherited sins. Despite this darkness, the chorus radiates hope: Williams chooses to honor and “reanimate” the lost spirit of the South through her belief, remaining a “true believer” in a more genuine, loving faith.
Lyrics: “True Believer” by Hayley Williams
Tourists stumble down Broadway
Cumberland keeps claiming bodies
All our best memories were bought and then turned into apartments
The club with all the hardcore shows now just a grayscale Domino’s
The churches overflow each Sunday, greedy Sunday morning
Giftshop in the lobby
Act like God ain’t watching
Kill the soul, turn a profit
What lives on, Southern Gotham
I’m the one who still loves your ghost
I reanimate your bones with my belief
I’m the one who still loves your ghost
I reanimate your bones ’cause I’m a true believer
They put up chain-link fences underneath the biggest bridges
They pose in Christmas cards with guns as big as all the 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
The South will not rise again
’Til it’s paid for every sin
Strange fruit, hard bargain
Till the roots, Southern Gotham
I’m the one who still loves your ghost
I reanimate your bones with my belief
I’m the one who still loves your ghost
I reanimate your bones ’cause I’m a true believer
(Chorus repeats)
Song Meaning Explained
“True Believer” stands as a critique and call to action: Hayley Williams reflects on how her home—and the broader South—remains haunted by unaddressed injustices, masked by both commerce and shallow religion. She’s critical of institutions that use faith as a cover for greed and exclusion, yet she retains her own sense of true belief, tied to honesty, justice, and love. By “reanimating your bones,” she means keeping the memory of a better, more genuine South alive, refusing to let it be erased or sanitized. Ultimately, the song is both a lament for what’s been lost and a show of stubborn hope in the possibility of change, making Williams’ version of belief a radical, loving act of memory and resistance.
