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Ella Williams, the Chicago singer-songwriter who makes emphatic indie rock as Squirrel Flower, is back today with a new one-off single. "Wheels" harks back to classic Americana ballads — or as Williams describes it, "the voices and sounds of my childhood" — and it was heavily inspired by Trio, the 1987 collaborative album between Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris. To help her flesh out the track, Williams recruited her friends Babehoven and Billie Marten.
Of the "Wheels" backstory, Williams explains in a press release:
"Wheels" was recorded live at 12am in a makeshift recording studio that we built in one day in Door County, WI. The final vocal take was the original scratch take, sleepy and loose.
While on tour a couple years ago, a gas station attendant said to us, "may your wheels stay on the ground." I thought that was so beautiful + it inspired the song while driving through a harrowing snowstorm between Boston and the Hudson Valley in February 2025. I had my Townes Van Zandt live cd playing, and sang this song into my phone mic while listening to Townes, dodging ice on the highway. I really wanted to write a song that let my voice shine in a way that my heavier songs don't always allow. I got to the Babehoven house in Hudson and played it for Maya. She wrote a stanza ("You said you wanted/ Something I don't/ I am always coming/ Just as you go"), helping me finish off the song.
It's sounding really lovely so far, and you can hear for yourself below.
English (US) · 