By Devin Patrick Hughes
When arts journalist and musicologist Tim Greiving set out to write John Williams: A Composer’s Life, he had no guarantee he’d ever speak to his subject. What followed instead was a five‑year odyssey—one that led to rare, unguarded conversations with the most influential composer of our time, revelations even Williams himself didn’t know, and a portrait that reframes film music as one of the great artistic achievements of the last century.
I sat down with Tim on One Symphony to talk about the book, the man behind the music, and why John Williams’ melodies feel as if they’ve always existed.
The Cassette That Changed Everything
Tim’s origin story begins not in a concert hall, but in the back seat of a car.
“I was eight when Jurassic Park came out,” he recalls. “I hadn’t seen the movie yet, but my cousin had the soundtrack on cassette. That was my first real encounter with film music.”
The experience was transformative. “John Williams became my new favorite band,” Tim says, laughing. “That was it. I went home and bought the cassette. The music spoke to me before I ever saw the film.”
It’s a story that mirrors how an entire generation encountered Williams—through sound first, image second.
Writing the Definitive Biography
Tim approached the project like a scholar writing about a long‑departed composer.
“I didn’t have access to him at first,” he explains. “So I treated it like I would Beethoven or Mahler—archives, interviews, newspapers, transcripts. I had nearly a full draft before John ever agreed to participate.”
His discipline was monastic. “I wrote every morning from 5:30 to 8:00 a.m., every single day, for years. One year researching, one year writing, one year rewriting.”
When Williams eventually agreed to talk, everything changed.
“It was elation. Relief. And disbelief,” Tim says. “I was sitting in his bungalow at Amblin, next to the piano where Jurassic Park was written, just talking. It wasn’t a formal press interview. It felt like sitting with my grandpa.”
A Genius Who Is Also Just a Guy
One of Tim’s central goals was to humanize a figure who has become mythic.
“He’s elegant, dignified—almost like a man out of time,” Tim says. “He doesn’t own a computer or a smartphone. But he’s also incredibly grounded and very human.”
Williams’ humor surprised him. “He loves dirty jokes,” Tim admits. “And he’s deeply focused on craft. He doesn’t act like a god, even though people treat him like one.”
That humanity is why Tim refers to him simply as John throughout the book. “I wanted readers to feel like they knew him. Not ‘Williams the monument,’ but John the person.”
The Grandfather Revelation
One of the most extraordinary discoveries in the book involves Williams’ own lineage.
“His paternal grandfather, Thomas Nagel, was a music director in silent movie theaters in Canada,” Tim explains. “He was essentially a proto–film composer—arranging and performing music live to picture.”
The revelation stunned Williams himself. “When I told John, he said, ‘Tim, you’re making this up.’ I had to show him the documents. It was one of the reasons he agreed to work with me on the book.”
For a composer who would define film music, the coincidence feels almost mythic.
Not Born Classical
Despite his symphonic voice, Williams did not grow up immersed in classical music.
“Classical music didn’t enter his life until his teens,” Tim notes. “His earliest influences were jazz and the Great American Songbook—Gershwin, Kern, Irving Berlin.”
That background explains his gift for melody. “He writes song‑like tunes. And he learned early how to arrange—how to take an idea and transform it.”
Williams is, Tim says, “a sponge. A supercomputer. He absorbs styles and synthesizes them into something unmistakably his.”
Reviving — and Perfecting — Hollywood’s Sound
By the 1970s, orchestral film scoring was falling out of fashion. Williams brought it roaring back.
“He revived the classic Hollywood approach,” Tim argues, “and I think he perfected it.”
European émigré composers like Korngold and Steiner had brought Romantic opera into early film scoring. Williams, working with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, reactivated that language at exactly the right moment.
“It was against the grain,” Tim says. “Synths, pop songs, irony—that was the trend. And suddenly here comes Star Warswith this unapologetic orchestral score. It reset Hollywood.”
A Church Composer for the Modern Age
One of Tim’s most striking observations reframes Williams entirely.
“I think John Williams is closer to a church composer than anything else,” he says. “Hollywood became the patron of the orchestra, the way the church once was.”
The ritual is familiar: lights dim, audience gathers, awe follows. “The music elevates,” Tim explains. “It creates transcendence and wonder.”
Williams himself noticed this atmosphere in Europe. “He described German audiences as ‘spooky’—so focused, so transported. There’s something sacred about it.”
Popcorn Symphonies and the Art of Economy
Tim describes Williams’ film scores as “Popcorn Symphonies”—a term he uses affectionately.
“They’re not symphonies in the technical sense,” he explains, “but they have symphonic thinking—development, variation, architecture—done with incredible economy.”
Film music’s limitations become strengths. “You can’t be busy. You have to go straight to the idea. And John is the master of that.”
Themes are introduced, whispered, hinted at—until they finally erupt. “By the time the bikes fly over the moon in E.T., your brain is already prepared.”
The Inevitability of Melody
Williams famously compared writing themes to sculpture.
“He chips away until he finds the melody,” Tim says. “It feels inevitable—like it’s always existed.”
Spielberg once joked that Williams “has a deal with the notes guy,” but Tim is clear: “He labors over it. That’s the hardest part of the job.”
The result is an astonishing catalog of melodies that lodge permanently in our memory.
Why He Endures
Most film composers, Tim notes, have a shelf life.
“John Williams doesn’t,” he says simply.
Part of it is adaptability. Part of it is Spielberg and Star Wars. But most of it is timelessness.
“He hit one generation in the ’70s, another in the ’90s, another in the 2000s,” Tim says. “He was never just your dad’s favorite composer.”
And the connection keeps deepening. “The more you live with his music, the better it gets.”
Final Thoughts
When asked where Williams might place himself in history, Tim pauses.
“He doesn’t think about it much. He’s humble. But he knows his music means something to people—and that orchestras keep playing it.”
A century from now, no one can say for sure. But if history is any guide, the melodies will still be there—inevitable, waiting, and somehow familiar.
John Williams: A Composer’s Life by Tim Greiving is available now from Oxford University Press.