Anklebiters

Hayley Williams told MTV News that this song came from a period of deep introspection and its subject matter helped frame the entire Paramore album. "The title came first, which never happens, but I just thought, I liked the term 'Anklebiters,' when you're talking about kids or babies," she said.

The song addresses people who can't think for themselves. Williams told Spin magazine: "To me there was this thread throughout the album of wanting to be able to grow up and move forward. And when you do that in your life, there's always people that are going to try to hold you back. Or they're going to try to tell you, 'You don't need to do this, because this is the right way to go.' Or you don't need to grow up, because this or that. And it's about those people, and it's about not listening to that but listening to your heart, and what do you want out of life? Who do you want to be? Versus all this outside influence that I think we get so caught up in, especially in the age of the Internet and all the different opinions that we hear so loudly every day."

Brewer's Dictionary of Modern Phrase & Fable defines an ankle-biter as, "a jocular but altogether friendly term for a small child, reflecting the anarchic violence of which such diminutive persons have been deemed capable." The term was first recorded in 1963 in America.