Uplifting Rock Music Vol 1 - Paramore, Rise Against and Holding Absence

‘Rock Music’ is a very simple and fairly unhelpful term that covers a vast multitude of subgenres. The popular genres of rock today include Punk, Pop Punk, Death Metal, Thrash Metal, Hardcore, Post-Hardcore, and, of course, the affectionately termed ‘Screamo’, amongst many more. Most of these genres have connotations of being angry, angsty, or intense, which is fair, indeed it’s the reason why most of us love this type of music. But have these genres and this music ever been termed ‘uplifting?’ Indeed, can it be termed as such? I think so, and I’ve got some songs to prove it to you. I'll be going over three songs from the history of rock music and exploring how they can be uplifting by analyzing their lyrics, musicality, and style.

There are three ways in which I believe rock music can be uplifting. It can convey something synonymous with the emotions of the listeners through its music and lyrics, it can create and generate energy that electrifies the soul, and it can speak directly to the listener and offer ideas of navigating the avenues of heartache, almost like a loved one taking a moment to speak with you heart to heart. It is this last type of uplifting rock music that is of interest for us here because I believe the first two described have already received some attention within culture, I'm always looking for something new to say it seems.

Just as a note before we begin. I’ll be coming at and breaking down these songs from a literary perspective. I am not a musician nor do I have experience in the music industry. I am a writer and a reader, and I’ll be ‘reading’ into what I see in the songs so to speak, so forgive my lack of musical understanding. And, I'm not one for biographical readings so if there are biographical aspects behind these songs I won't be discussing them here, the songs themselves are of interest.

Paramore - 'Anklebiters' (2013)

Paramore is one of the most influential and popular bands in the emo and pop-punk scene, and although they're not the heaviest of bands, and certainly their self-titled album, which 'Anklebiters' is from, is more pop than punk, they're certainly one with a great history of emotionally resonating songs. ‘Anklebiters’ is a great example of Paramore's pop-punk style and is definitely one of their more uplifting tunes.

The song is a perfect example of how voice can provide a greatly human and deeply emotional aspect to music. Hayley Williams’s accusatory yet paradoxically kind vocals are delivered in accordance with an almost maddened ramshackle melody, which drives an uplifting message into the hearts of its listeners through tough love.

The first lyric is simply ‘Why do care what people think?’ A simple question that challenges the nature of anxiety, and accuses listeners of what they already know yet find so difficult to face. Followed later by ‘fall in love with yourself', which really does speak directly to the listeners in that heart-to-heart aspect of uplifting music mentioned earlier, the song functions as a treatise to the individual; a song about loving yourself, being yourself, and to refuse superficiality, fitting in, or ‘following the crowd’.

Some lyrics I love in this song that express this need to love yourself are: ‘someday you’re gonna be the only one you’ve got’ and ‘someday you’re gonna be alone.’ These expertly remind the listener of what they truly care about in life, or at least offers a perspective of what is important in life, self-love, by forcing them to consider the reality of being alone. The song brings about fears of regret, fears of ending up an old and lonely person, full of bitter regret for not being yourself, not loving yourself, and not living life to the full. It tries to catch you before this happens. It takes a tough-love approach at being uplifting by forcing you to understand the very real possibility of missing out on life. I think this is a very powerful way of being uplifting as it gives you no concessions, no chance to justify actions that would leave you worse off. It simply says it as it is and makes the reality of life, and the shortcomings that you can easily avoid if you chose to, crystal clear. Simply, you must love yourself because there’s no one else in the world who matters to you just as much as you.

A really interesting couplet in the song also expresses this need to love yourself in quite a poetic way. It goes:

‘What do you actually expect? A broken mirror to reflect? / You know anklebiters gave you a false perception.’

Written down, although not especially prominent in Willaims’s American accent, the words ‘actually’ and ‘expect’ have a harsh guttural song to them which regardless of accent reinforces the tough love aspect of the song and therefore carries the overall uplifting tone of the song further. The word ‘expect’ brings about notions of the future which brings about fears of the future, forcing us to react in pure revulsion against such ideas and possibilities, and encouraging us to prevent them from occurring.

Furthermore, the rhetorical nature of the first line means that the song knows that we know who we truly are and is trying to coax that knowledge from us and get us closer to releasing the mistakes around superficiality and 'fitting in' we have made. Similarly, the image of a ‘broken mirror’ suggests a reflection of the self that is distorted, untrue, and inaccurate, the very things we become under superficiality. Making the image ‘broken’, again makes us realise the ridiculousness of wanting to see a broken and untrue version of ourselves every day, a ‘false perception’. Again, the song coaxes truth from us by forcing us to see the impacts of untruths.

Now onto the ‘Anklebiters.’ Usually, a slang term used to refer to short children or dogs, the word is used to make those who force superficiality or encourage us to praise it highly into small and insignificant creatures. The song belittles those who would bring us down to their level. Simply, but wonderfully done, this one word expresses an awesome sentiment.

Apart from the lyrical aspects of ‘Anklebiters’, the musical aspects have a wonderfully uplifting nature. The music is filled with loud snares which carry home the guttural, tough love nature of the song between light and almost jazzy guitar riffs which deliver fiery energy. Each stanza is accompanied by a chorus of singers who all sing in unison ‘Anklebiters’ which grants listeners an almost public space within the song to shout and sing with it. This space provides an opportunity to be confident, energetic, and joyful in the song if you sing with it. Anyone who has yelled with a crowd until your voice breaks know what I mean. The end of the song also exhibits this public almost party-like atmosphere with the band laughing and cheering together, almost offering an insight into what confidence and action can provide you.

I fell in love with this song before I went to university. It was a time when I was very anxious about the future and scared of what might happen, and I almost refused to go to university at all. But I was also scared of missing out and not being a part of something great. I was confused, frozen, and anxious about the future of my life. This song was the kick up the backside I needed. I did not want to be alone and I did not want to hate myself but that was the road I was going down if I chose to not go to uni. So, because of this song, I chose to give myself the chance to be better and live a fuller life.

Paramore was a trailblazer. The simple fact of their existence and popularity did for female singers and artists in the rock genre what Siouxsie and the Banshees did for Pop. Many female-led bands are compared to Paramore because of this and that isn't always fair as every band is different, but if you do like Paramore, especially their older rockier phase, then I'd recommend bands like Doll Skin, Eat Your Heart Out, The Nearly Deads, Envoi, and The Pretty Reckless.

Rise Against - 'Tragedy + Time' (2014)

I will say this now, Rise Against is my favorite band. They are fantastic in every conceivable way and I've loved everything they've ever put out. 'Tragedy + Time' [2014] is another example of their excellence in the punk genre.

‘Tragedy + Time’ combines punkish revolt with personality and loss. Like many of Rise Against’s songs, ‘Tragedy + Time’ involves lyrics akin to confessional poetry. Tim McIlrath sings from a perspective of personal experience, which regardless of its accuracy to his or any of the band members’ lives, offers a powerful voice that really drives home the emotional power of the song. McIlrath, in other songs, sings through personas, a refugee in ‘Prayer of the Refugee’ (2006), a member of the LGBTQ community in 'Make it Stop' (2011), and a working-class impoverished American in ‘Re-Education Through Labour’ (2010), and in ‘Tragedy + Time’ his persona is a person chronicling the heart aching struggles of a loved one struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts. The song carries the listeners through heartbreaking times but also offers hope for the future in the switching of the lyrics in the final chorus.

The song begins ‘On the edges of the sharpest knives/ In the middle of the darkest nights/ Always knew that I would find you here/In a puddle of the bravest tears.’ Aside from being a truly beautiful and melancholy image, the idea of brave tears suggests that to physically shed tears is in itself brave, it suggests that to cry shows courage and bravery, not weakness. Another great lyric is ‘when faced with tragedy/ We come alive or come undone’, similar to ‘Anklebiters’, this line forces the listener to consider the future and it pushes them, hopefully, into recovery, to become alive, to find truth.

The line ‘So, don't look back, let it shape you like an ocean’ creates a very nice, uplifting image. The image of water here suggests flowing and unrestrained change, it encourages one to be open to new experiences, a new life in fact, as one's very ‘shape’ becomes like the ocean, malleable and changing, evolving even. The persona desires his loved one to be equally free and not frozen or petrified by their sadness, by the fear of what their life had become under their struggles. This line is certainly uplifting as it not only desires freedom from sadness it also offers a fresher, attainable alternative to the petrifying strictness of sadness.

Furthermore, the song employs a chorus change which further drives home its enlightening message. The first and repeated chorus goes:

‘And nothing matters but the pain when you're alone The never-ending nights when you're awake When you're praying that tomorrow it's ok There will be a time to crack another smile Maybe not today or for awhile But we're holding on to laugh again someday Now we're holding on to laugh again someday'

It details how pain becomes all-encompassing in isolation, it results in restlessness, it results in pleading and bargaining, similar to the grief process: the grief of one's own life. However, even in this chorus which details someone’s suffering, there is still an inclination of future escape from grief, with the idea of ‘holding on.’

Then the final version of the chorus goes:

‘Nothing matters when the pain is all but gone When you are finally awake Despite the overwhelming odds tomorrow came And when they see you crack a smile And you decide to stay awhile You'll be ready then to laugh again’

This chorus juxtaposes every aspect of the previous, the ‘pain’ is now ‘all but gone', as in it has become the thing now isolated and separate, separated from the mind. The restless night becomes one of rest, ‘finally awake’ emphasising how needed the rest must have been and that the person has evolved into a new, more alive, and awake form. I like the line ‘against the overwhelming odds tomorrow came’ as it pays tribute to the awful situation depression and sadness can put us in, its overwhelming tide crashing into us, yet it offers the chance and possibility that depression can be defeated and the bright welcoming sun of ‘tomorrow’ can finally be seen. The final image of laughter is also very powerful and uplifting with its emotional juxtaposition to sadness and universal appeal. The change in this chorus offers a great uplifting aspect to the song by leaving the listeners with uplifting imagery and reappropriations of previous scenes of woe.

Musically, the song has all of the aspects a modern rock masterpiece needs. It's heavy enough for its style, genre, and message, something that Rise Against are able to pitch perfectly in their songs. There are fantastic ‘headbanging’ moments particularly in the bridge before the final chorus and the final chorus has brilliant group backing vocals like in ‘Anklebiters’ which similarly creates energy and sparks movement and uplifting emotion.

My personal relationship with this track is somewhat similar to ‘Anklebiters.’ I discovered it at a time in my life, during college, when I felt that I didn’t connect with anyone or properly find my ‘tribe’ of people as it were. And I was very down. But this song reminded me of the possibilities of the future and that, for me, there will be a time to smile and laugh, although it might not have been at that time it was going to arrive. And you know what? It did.

There’s no band quite like Rise Against, they are individually exceptional, but if you like Rise Against (why wouldn’t you) I'd recommend Anti-Flag, Pennywise, Misfits, Billy Talent, and Strike Anywhere.

Holding Absence - 'You Are Everything' (2019)

Holding Absence has been on the up and up since their first debut single in 2017 and have consistently released brilliant, genre-defining music in the post-Hardcore scene. They've enjoyed quite comfortable success and are gathering a very enthusiastic fandom. Their first debut album Holding Absence in 2019 is a fantastic collection of heartbreakingly powerful songs about grief and loss but there are also some brilliant songs about survival. One, ‘You Are Everything’ (2019), is a powerful song about perseverance and determination in the face of failure and fatigue.

‘You are Everything’ comes from a persona struggling with self-doubt and the tiresome road of life getting them down, but it is also following the challenging journey of perseverance in the face of such opposition, and the journey is a powerful source of inspiration.

However, the majority of the song follows the disturbing tale of life’s fatigues, the chorus chronicles hardship, the persona's ‘fingertips’ are now merely just ‘blood, nerve, and bone’: worn away, the sensitive skin eroded and leaving a rough and coarse core, much like the damage caused by life’s hardships. The persona has a ‘devil’ on their shoulder which suggests the awful, almost evil, nature of their current situation. Interestingly, the devil is described as a ‘drone’ implying that this evil, difficult nature of life is just run-of-the-mill for the persona, normal, everyday existence for humankind.

But, even in this chorus, there is an inclination that struggles and hardship pay off somehow. All the dedication to life that wore away the persona's fingers doesn’t make the persona give up, rather it encourages them to continue, with the hope of achieving something greater at the end of it. The vocalist, Lucas Woodland, shouts, in a very hardcore way, the line ‘there is more to life than this.’ That in itself surely makes the song uplifting, the sheer power and passion of it generating positive emotions due to the powerful dedication towards life’s struggles. It's certainly inspiring at the very least.

The most uplifting section of the song, however, is the second verse, which in itself re-contextualises the chorus and makes it more moving. The verse is so beautifully written I have to quote it all in full:

‘It's been a thousand weeks of grinding my teeth The salt of the earth has started tasting bittersweet A silver spoon will only choke you in your sleep I earned my heart, I'm proud of every beat And if you hear through the grapevine that I fell from a great height The fire in my heart has lived a lifetime So I don't mind. No, I don't mind I'm still here to make my loved ones proud To make everyone who ever walked away, turn around From dust, we must return to the ground You owe it to yourself, you are eternally bound To face the facts and face the truth That the hand that you're dealt is determined by you And if the breath in your lungs isn't reason to sing... Realise you're enough. You are everything’

The verse goes between an action or experience that requires dedication and hard work to a line that details the payoff of such dedication. The ‘thousand weeks grinding my teeth’ has such a positive impact on the person's life, regardless of the difficulty of doing it, that it changes senses, elements, even the world, or at least the experience of the world, the ‘salt of the earth [...] tasting bittersweet.’ However, the salt becomes ‘bittersweet’ meaning that the difficulty of the action is still very much in the mind of the persona, it almost sours the final achievement. I would argue that this doesn’t negate the power of the action in the song and the impact dedication has on life, and it doesn't take away from the positivity of the sentiment. It's more realistic than nihilistic.

There is also a wry criticism of those born with 'silver spoons' in their mouths, as the saying goes, suggesting that they will 'choke' on it, stating that to truly live and appreciate life, you have to earn it.

I particularly like the line ‘I earned my heart, I'm proud of every beat.’ It’s a beautiful lyric that perfectly encompasses the journey of hardship, perseverance, and dedication. It’s a melancholic way of saying that if you work hard you achieve, but it's more beautiful and emotional than that. It's about your very heart and everything that fulfills you and what you love.

The verse goes from a series of end lines lyrics into an enjambement of lyrics in the latter half, functioning as an inspiring, moving, and personable speech on the sanctity of individual experience and existence. The verse builds to the heart-achingly powerful lines: ‘And if the breath in your lungs isn't reason to sing/Realise you're enough. You are everything.’ These lines encapsulate the uplifting nature of the song, the simple wonderful fact that the ‘breath in your lungs', the very fact of your existence, is ‘enough’ of a reason to be alive and chase your dreams, even if you don’t believe it to be. The song wants you, needs you, to realise that the result of your dedication and determination is every positive and powerful thing in your life right now, it is because of you, you are everything in your life and you need to believe your power and ability. See all you have done and experienced and accomplished and know it was all because of you and your strength.

This verse also functions as a recontextualization of the chorus. It makes the struggles of the persona in the chorus more moving as we know their experiences more in-depth. It makes the journey and the struggles of their lives more uplifting because we know where they are heading and how they believe in themselves. They know they are everything, they are ‘making their loved ones proud.’ The hardship they experience is now in the context of achievement, it in a way makes it worthwhile. And it is that which makes the song powerfully uplifting.

Musically, this song is a prime example of the post-Hardcore scene. Post-Hardcore is a newer genre that involves all the intensity and rawness of the hardcore era while mashing it with more creative and emotional expressions of experiences. Rather than being something wholly aggressive and angsty, it's more personal, itself being interested in a much larger range of topics and emotions. The term, like many in the modern music industry, has been applied very liberally and to a large number of bands, but a definition like the one above certainly applies to Holding Absence. The shouting and screaming of the choruses twinned with Woodlands soft and emotionally driven vocals in the verses create something very emotionally heartfelt yet intense and powerful. Other songs by Holding Absence share this relationship between emotion, lyrics, and vocals, ‘Saint Cecilla’ (2019) and ‘Afterlife’ (2021) being great examples. In terms of if this makes the song uplifting, I would argue yes as the emotional meaning of the lyrics gain clarity and aesthetic power through the intensity of the music and its hardcore elements.

The music video, as any good music video does, expresses the same notions that the song strives for. It’s a fairly common video, with footage of concerts Holding Absence has done, them meeting fans, fans wearing their merch, having Holding Absence tattoos, and with footage of the band bonding and spending time together while on tour. It shows the story of the band and what they have accomplished, the joys and splendor of their careers and lives today, which, given the context of the song, also shows the product of hard work, dedication, and perseverance and ultimately the result of believing that you are everything.

Like almost everyone in the world, except members of the Tory party, I spent the better part of 2020 stuck inside with very little social interaction, doing not much other than very little. I was also having to deal with an extra difficulty with lockdown as it occurred just as I got back from a curtailed semester abroad in Canada (the lockdown was announced the day after I got home). Like anyone in such a situation, like all of us, it was a difficult time, and my mental health deteriorated. It was around this time when I discovered ‘You Are Everything.’ I had already loved Holding Absence before 2020, playing ‘Saint Cecilla’ (2017) over and over a lot when it dropped, but like I do I only discovered the song a while after its release. It didn’t fix all my problems, but it didn't have to. It soothed me and my time alone, it gave me the kick up the arse I needed to get some important things done, like writing and creating. And since then, I've become a published author, I've explored more of the world and I'm a believer in my own self-worth. Looking back on my history with this song reminds me of all the dedication I have put into my life and what I received from that.

As said, Holding Absence is one of the best examples of the post-Hardcore scene, and, as a scene in its relative infancy, there aren't many bands that share this particular brand of rock but a few I'd recommend are Dream State, Thousand Below, Savage Hands, and The White Noise.

Paramore - Paramore (2013) Rise Against - The Black Market (2014) Holding Absence - Holding Absence (2019)

Here were just three uplifting rock songs and there are honestly so many more to choose from that I'll be doing a few more posts like this. You’ll probably be seeing some more Rise Against and Paramore on these posts but I'll also give some recommendations and love for some lesser-known bands too.

Thank you, and happy listening.