Songfacts®:

• After completing the tour supporting After Laughter, the three Paramore band members embarked a hiatus. For four years, Hayley Williams took a break from the pressures of being the frontwoman of a world-famous band. She spent her time in her own house, enjoying a simple lifestyle of keeping appointments, cooking, and seeing family. Here, Williams explains why she reveled in her quiet domesticity.
  
  This is why I don't leave the house
  You say the coast is clear
  But you won't catch me out
  Oh, why?
  This is why
  Better have conviction
  'Cause we want crimes of passion
  Survival of the fittest
  You're either with us or you can keep it to yourself
  
  Williams keeps her mouth shut in a world where everyone's got noisy opinions and stays out of the tribalistic mudslinging on social media. It saddens her that despite the pandemic and all the other tumultuous events, hostility and paranoia still prevail. "It summarizes the plethora of ridiculous emotions," she explained of the song. "The roller coaster of being alive in 2022, having survived even just the last three or four years. You'd think after a global pandemic of f--king biblical proportions 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."
• Williams' solo track "Cinnamon" also finds her relishing her freedom and independence when she's alone at home.
• "This Is Why" is Paramore's first release in over five years. It was also the last song they wrote for their album of the same name. By this time, Williams was tired of writing lyrics, but guitarist Taylor York convinced her and drummer Zac Farro they should work on this last idea. It resulted in the first-ever title track for the Nashville trio.
• The antagonism and distrust that runs through the United States post-Trump is a theme that runs through This Is Why. When Williams watches the news and looks at the internet, she feels like her nation is in a Lord Of The Flies scenario. "When I was writing the lyrics, I was like, this social experiment – the internet – has been going wrong since day one," she told The Guardian. "It exposes and exploits the general population's blatant disregard for nuance."
• Brendan Yates of American hardcore punk band Turnstile directed the video. Filmed in Malibu, California it depicts Paramore cavorting in the wilderness and in a house. "I've known the Turnstile guys for a little while and was so psyched to have our worlds collide in this way," said Williams. "There's a cool kinship between the way our bands do things."
• "This Is Why" became Paramore's first #1 on the Billboard rock radio charts when it topped the Alternative Airplay tally dated February 4, 2023. It was the band's second radio #1 overall, after "Ain't It Fun" reached the Adult Pop Airplay summit in 2014.
• Paramore threw caution to the wind when they wrote and recorded "This is Why." "It was all of us being together, trying a different verse, maybe stripping it down to drums and bass, [then] Hayley came in and Taylor added his parts," Farro recalled to NME. "It became these cool building blocks and that was refreshing. With the other songs, we knew what we wanted, but with this one, we were following the song."
• "This Is Why" won the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Performance at the 2024 ceremony. The album This Is Why took the trophy for Best Rock Album.
  
  Paramore became the first female-fronted band to claim the Grammy Award for Best Rock Album. "It's an honor for Paramore to be a small but constant reminder for people to keep pushing these rock and alternative spaces to be more inclusive," commented the trio.