As with her previous album, the serene breakthrough Not Even Happiness, Byrne took inspiration from her travels around the country, the fleeting images she saw while watching landscapes blur outside the window. She brings a similarly balanced perspective even when discussing the themes of heartbreak and grief that animate her first full-length release in six years, The Greater Wings. She often punctuates her more philosophical musings with a comically drawn-out “ L-O-L.”
As we wander the boardwalk while teens around us film TikTok dances and tourists tear into cotton candy, Byrne maintains a lightness that keeps everything she says easy and unpretentious. But she’s also skeptical of wandering too deep into her own seriousness. “Or we could just get a margarita,” she offers, letting loose a big, hearty laugh.ĭressed in gray earth tones, the 32-year-old speaks with the calm intentionality of a poetry recitation, the same quality that has made her wise, open-ended songwriting such a soothing companion for anxious minds over the last decade. Then she notices a drink cart passing by and changes course.
As she often does on this quiet summer afternoon at Brooklyn’s Coney Island, the songwriter looks into the distance and takes a long, dramatic pause as she tries to zero in on the most accurate phrasing, as if something just out of sight might help train her focus. Julie Byrne is sitting by the beach, searching for the right words to describe the peculiar collapse of wisdom that arises during the grieving process.
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