Heather Aubrey Lloyd has learned to write her own hymns. Panic Room With A View is very much an artifact of the pandemic, but the focus on hope, resilience, and faith is just as relevant in 2026 as political issues loom large instead of a virus. Lloyd’s cries for hope are sometimes gritty and bleak. Sometimes they come out like a whisper. They are among the most believable tracks of their kind as a result. The inspirations are strange and specific, but the messages apply to just about anyone listening.
Looking at a music festival’s FAQ page, Lloyd stumbled across the fairly literal question ‘are you lost?’ Sitting in the very found location of her home, Lloyd was still floored by the question. Yes. In a way, she did feel lost.
“Every song I’ve ever written that sounded resilient or optimistic was the prayer I only half believed. I was writing my own hymns long before I expected anyone else to buy it,” said Lloyd. She has mixed feelings about the fact her pandemic song hits hard today. “I long to be made irrelevant, but I guess I’m on some level I’m grateful the lessons and maybe the hope transfers.”
Lloyd has tried her hand at journalism and teaching. A chat with her about songwriting and the deep thought she puts into the ethics and deeper truths of each song makes me realize she’s in the right business now. Lloyd sees other benefits.
“I get down,” said Lloyd. “Thankfully I’m a folk singer so no one expects me to be happy.”
Both teaching and having step children did lead to a serious change for Lloyd. Her personal doubts had to take a back seat to the needs of the young people around her. “I found the way and I made it through/to pass it down to you/And you will too,” she sings. Eventually, that changed Lloyd’s outlook.
“Whether you have opt to your own or not, time spent in the education or uplifting of children in your community not only forces you to care or have investment in the future, it will also heal up things in you,” said Lloyd. “I made vows to my step kids. First, I would never lie to them. Second, I would never ask them to do anything I wasn’t first willing to do myself.”
Her time as a journalist in Baltimore also deeply shaped how she treated songs for a time. The experience also reminded her that people are more alike and resilient than she imagined.
“I was going into parts of the city where people said you should be afraid,” said Lloyd. “People are people and for the most part they’re just trying to not die in some stupid way. I went into a neighborhood where they had given up hope that they were going to control the drug dealers in the area, so they had gone to public works just to ask for speed bumps so they’d at least slow down and stop hitting their kids.”
She soon was approaching songs with the fact checking attitude of a newswoman. Sometimes, like when she learned details about the settings of one of her songs, the instincts served her well. Other times, she had to remember that songs are meant to reflect a slightly more complex version of the truth.
“Where journalism and folk songs have an interesting intersection is that when I first started writing song, I was very uncomfortable not writing the absolute truth,” said Lloyd. “Songwriting says if you can find all these truths and bind them and unify them, that’s the greater truth born of the stitching of stories.”
Her new outlook allowed her to tell the story of graffiti in Aleppo, Syria without researching the people behind it. The graffiti read: “To the girl who shared the siege with me, I love you.”
“The journalist in me had to look certain stuff up because I don’t live there. Your brain says that’s a desert people, they haven’t seen the snow, and thank God I did look up the weather because they do get snow. That’s a thing journalism and folk singing both demand: I need to alter my assumption,” said Lloyd of the song. As for its deeper truth? “When we are facing oblivion, and there may be nothing else we can do, what else is there but turning to the person next to you?”
Lloyd eventually discovered that her song had a happy ending: the author of that graffiti survived, and he’s still with that girl. The raw emotions of fear and human connection remain in Lloyd’s song. It doesn’t have a clear happy ending because its greater truth was to remind listeners that it’s human to root for love and safety. “Though we would have never been so bold/between the bombs she slipped her hand in mine,” she sings.
“The songs are the way I tell myself I’m engaging in those conversations in a sneaky way. The Girl Who Shared The Siege With Me is the definition of show don’t tell,” said Lloyd. “The fear of siege for no reason other than other people’s conflicts is a universal thing. Folk songs look to tap into the universal thing to jar people who think that their problem or feeling or hatred or bias is somehow unique.”
Being an activist and a musician is a tricky line to toe. Lloyd doesn’t want to overestimate or underestimate her power.
“I don’t want to walk around like a song can change the world, but every once in a while, a song has changed me,” said Lloyd. “People are stubborn. You can talk and talk and talk, but deeply held beliefs are not easily dispelled even by logic. Music attacks the feeling. If you can get into somebody via a pathway that seems neutral enough, [they] might have to address other things within [themselves].”
The most fascinating song on her album, The Stove, is based on a dark fairy tale. In it, a girl with a secret she cannot tell is encouraged to unburden herself in a stove. A benevolent king listens through the pipes and starts working on a way to help her. For Lloyd, this bizarre setup was akin to religion or therapy.
“Years after I stopped going, I held the room in my mind this invented place I could access. I pretended sometimes that he wasn’t even real and he was always a figment of my imagination,” Lloyd said. “The unburdening of yourself is desperately important, especially in these times. I find rage eats me now. I never knew I had so much rage. I had sadness, I had anxiety, the rage is new. The stove is meant to be this place of peace, this place of lack of judgement. A place where you’re allowed to be selfish and express all of these things.”
In asking if the stove is like God, or if God even exists, Lloyd decided to explore some profound questions about the nature of religion and its utility even if it’s not true. Rather than answer questions about what she believes is out there, she focuses on how faith in something is an important salve. “I know mercy is uncertain here/but how the world it burns us,” she sings.
“If more people were vulnerable with their God, we would probably do a lot less evil in this world,” said Lloyd.
The second half of her album is more optimistic, focused on love, and is more ordinary than her skilled spelunking into the darkness of the first half. Still, one great message comes across. In her song “Hum,” Lloyd argues that sometimes it’s wise to do a little less in order to stay strong in the long run. It certainly fits nicely with some of the tougher ideas on her album. Some days we can think about the lovers under siege and scream into the stove. Others, humming along is what we can handle so we can care for ourselves and loved ones. Just as with her songs about profound pain, the relatively sweet “Hum” is an important part of healing.
Above is the full episode as aired on WUSB’s Country Pocket, including both my interview with Heather Aubrey Lloyd and the songs we discussed, starting with “Are You Lost?,” which comes from a hilariously literal inspiration. The interview begins with the second video in the playlist. You can hear the show live every Monday at 4pm on WUSB 90.1 FM or check the blog to watch it as a YouTube playlist. Visit http://www.WUSB.fm and https://www.heatheraubreylloyd.com for more.
Country Pocket 