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Oct 24, 2024 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Col Elmore

Tomorrow, Austin-based singer/songwriter William Harries Graham is set to share his fourth full-length album, Annie’s House. Over the course of almost a decade, Graham has styled himself around a rootsy blend of rock, folk, and Americana, painting hazy, golden-hued vignettes with his 2015 debut, Foreign Fields, his 2019 follow-up, JAKES, and his latest record, 2023’s there are only endings.

Graham sees Annie’s House as another expansion upon his diaristic and plaintive writing style. As he explains, “Whenever I’m writing, I envision the songs as movie scenes or vignettes. The music is like nostalgia, because you’re thinking back on a memory. In the same fashion, it’s hazy and altered, but there’s a serious element to it. Annie’s House isn’t based on a single thing in my life, but it’s telling a thematic story of love, growing up, and getting older. ‘Annie’ isn’t necessarily a single person either, yet the running concept is more like an avatar you can relate to.”

Today, ahead of the album’s release, Graham is sharing an early listen to one of the record’s highlights, “Yourself,” premiering with Under the Radar.

“Yourself” is a reflective folk ramble, colored by a chiming guitar riff, winding slide guitar, and shimmering keys. The track feels warm and breezy, eventually twirling into a blur of guitar solos and playful piano grooves, but Graham also weaves the track with a gently nostalgic sheen. His lyrics offer a wistful tour through hazy, half-remembered portraits, sketched via Graham’s worn and weathered vocal melodies. The most poignant moment comes as Graham turns his lyrics away from past memories to address himself: “You’re not living with yourself / You’re just living with a memory / When you look in the mirror, tell me what do you see? / Someone staring back at you.”

Graham says of the track, “‘Yourself’ is one of the most joyful songs on the record to me. It’s written from a deeply introspective place thinking about the very beginning of what some might consider adult life. The trials and tribulations associated with that. Essentially, it’s about idealism about the future but from the strangeness of looking back.

It’s also told through little snippets, vignettes over the years. I was really fascinated by the idea of telling stories through disconnected scenes and how you get a full picture of someone or a period of life through that non-linear storytelling.

I had no idea that it would be the opening track on the album when we finished it, I’d always loved the guitar/piano riff and how catchy it was. But once we finished the album and I was listening through everything again and again, I realized that it was the beginning of the whole story.”

Listen to the track and watch the accompanying video below. Annie’s House is out tomorrow on October 25th via Strolling Bones Records.