Bring in the Noise

MICHAEL HALSBAND FOR TIME
A SERENER WILLIAMS: The singer-songwriter's new album brings the noise and the pain

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This kind of equanimity and focus are not what Williams is famous for in her personal life. As a child she spent time in Chile and Mexico, and as an adult she has a habit of changing locations and lovers every few years. (The bass-player thing is real: Richard Price, her former bassist, was the inspiration for much of 2001's Essence and several songs on World.) Happiness hasn't always been easy to come by, and her fans make such a fuss over her in part because they think she's too devoted to her work to have a clear shot at contentment.

Williams isn't interested in talking about her romantic travails, but she recently relocated to Los Angeles, and she feels that her new work reflects a sense of peace with the dualities in her life. "There's this photo of Leonard Cohen that came out during his last record," she says. "And everybody'd been talking about how he'd been in this monastery for a while. And there he was, lounging on this couch, and he had a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other. There's a tendency to feel like 'If I say this one thing, then I can't do this other thing.' I finally realized I don't have to pick. There aren't any rules."