Written by: Oliver Heffron
British-born, Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Lily Williams knows how to hit a listener in the feels. Her debut project, How The Story Ends, paints an intimate and refreshingly sweet portrait of love through cinematic details of falling in and out of love.
Whether it’s wishing an ex thinks of you at the dreaded DMV (“I Hope You Think Of Me”), appreciating the sweet intensity of breaking up (“Kinda Like The Heartbreak”), or breaking out into unplanned tears in the middle of CVS (“What If I Still Miss You?”), Williams expresses a world of mid-20s heartache that feels real and vulnerable through her attention to the little things.
Lily Williams sat down with Nuance to discuss her musical upbringing, the inspiration for her debut project, and where her story goes from here.
Growing up in a small town 40 minutes outside of London, Williams was introduced to classical and orchestral music from a young age by her mom:
“I grew up playing classical piano. My mom really wanted all of us kids to play classical piano and then choose another instrument as well. So I grew up playing piano, and then I was in a lot of orchestras where I played clarinet. So, I did that my whole life growing up until I was 18. So I think a lot of orchestral music and classical music influenced me musically growing up.”
Meanwhile, her father introduced her to classic pop music from across the pond, remembering, “my dad, on the other hand, had no interest in classical music at all, but he loves the Beach Boys and Elvis Costello, so he would always be singing and playing those songs.” As a result, Williams attributes her current sound to her parents’ influences, which combines orchestral movements with classic pop melodies: “I think it’s like a mixture of those two influences that I see now. It definitely did shape my taste and the way I write in my songwriting.”
Photo Credit: Graci Burdick
After a musical childhood, Williams was accepted to the highly-acclaimed Berklee College of Music and decided to move away from England for the first time. Describing Boston as her “first home in the states,” Williams found her friends and future musical collaborators while honing her writing and composition skills before ultimately moving to LA.
Along with classical and pop, Williams’ songwriting adds a cinematic touch. Growing up watching classic Disney movies on VHS, her favorite being Sleeping Beauty, and later inspired by old Hollywood expressions like La La Land, these nostalgic influences show up in her music, with movements and narration that could fit seamlessly into a classic musical score: “I think I’m quite a nostalgic person–I definitely get that from my dad. But that feeling of longing for like an old time, I think kind of comes through in my music and in the production and the way we create it.”
Writing the songs that ultimately became How The Story Ends during the isolation of 2020, Williams found inspiration and a growing following the more she shared snippets of her ongoing work on TikTok. Pairing the lyrics and melodies with creative visual mood boards. Williams remembers the idea came about naturally from her nonmusical creative outputs: “I think I did that because I love montages. I love Pinterest and I’m always taking photos and videoing, and so I think just adding that visual element to my songs is something that creatively I found really fulfilling.”
Williams soon found her songwriting connecting with people more than expected as she shared personal, vulnerable moments with the world through song. For example, Williams remembers how the track “What If I Still Miss You?” was inspired by sharing and receiving feedback from fans.
Photo Credit: Bryce Glenn
“So I had just moved to LA, and I went to a CVS, and honestly, I was just really overwhelmed that day, and I remember crying in the CVS. I was like, I think this might be like a low point; crying in CVS in West Hollywood is just not a good vibe. I remember thinking that, and when I went home, I was like, ‘that’s a funny first line for a song.’ And then I saw this Pinterest quote, “what if I still miss you in a year?” And so I put the two things together to write a story about how sad it was to cry at CVS and a previous heartbreak. But when I posted on social media and Tik Tok, many people reacted to it, especially to crying in public. So people started commenting like ‘it’s the Target parking lot for me,” just like commenting the most horrible, embarrassing places they’d cried. And so I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I have to finish this song.’”
While the “I Hope You Think Of Me” similarly touched her new local fans right in their DMV-hating and supermarket line-waiting souls, Williams explains that the track’s lyrics revealed to her old British friends just how American she’s become:
“With ‘I Hope You Think Of Me,’ it’s like, ‘I hope you think of me in hallways, at DMV on airplanes, and parking lots and grocery lines.’ So then my British friends were like, ‘What are you saying?’ Because, in England, we don’t have a DMV…. I don’t even know if we don’t have a name for it; we don’t call it ‘grocery lines,’ we call it ‘supermarket queues’; we don’t call it ‘parking lots,’ we call it ‘car parks.’ So everyone was just like you’re so American now.” Or, as Williams puts it, “Californianized.”
Expanding on these ideas, some of which directly affected her fans’ feedback, Lily Williams put together an impressive debut project with How The Story Ends, which tells a cohesive narrative following the development of a crush, the mad fall into love, and the final heartbreak in which it all falls apart. Wanting to creatively present the project’s cohesive narrative, each track’s visualizer pulls and loops a piece of the “How The Story Ends” music video that depicts the whole arc of the story.
Despite its title, How The Story Ends presents a compelling introduction to a talented musician just beginning to share her story with the world.