Meet The Woman Behind Gilmore Girls’ Iconic “La-La” Vocals

We’re in the middle of Gilmore Girls re-watch season. That means the dreamy la-la-la-la-la that soundtracks Rory and Lorelai Gilmore’s lives — a musical cue known by fans as “the la-las” — might be in your head more than usual.

It’s so well-known, in fact, that when Gilmore Girls composer Sam Phillips submitted her work on the series revival, A Year in the Life for Emmy consideration in 2017, she cited the beloved musical cue. “What am I going to say, you know? It’s not that I’ve had orchestras like John Williams,” the singer-songwriter tells Bustle. “I simply said, ‘Well, my score was so loved by the audience that they named it “the la-las” and I’m so honored.’ I’m sure that got somebody a really good laugh.”

Phillips didn’t get the nomination. But in the 20-plus years since viewers first heard her gentle guitar and vocals on Gilmore Girls, they’ve only grown to love the score more — which is certainly its own kind of reward.

Several of Phillips’ original songs written independently of the show made it onto screen (most notably “Reflecting Light”) and are available to stream. She is inundated with requests to release the musical cues, too, so fans can use them for anything from study sessions to weddings. For now, the fandom has filled the gap with countless unofficial YouTube compilations — and though an official release would be up to Warner Bros., Phillips explains, she does dream of producing a high-fidelity version.

After all, Phillips has a deep connection to the show herself. She became a single mom while working on Gilmore Girls and saw herself in Lorelai. “I felt that the writers were kind of reading my mail,” she says. “And every time I would get my episode to work on, I felt like it was a great comfort.”

Later, she’d meet her husband, fellow musician Eric Gorfain, through a mutual friend — only to learn that he had previously appeared in Season 4’s “Nag Hammadi Is Where They Found the Gnostic Gospel.” (Look for the violinist at the festival where Rory sees Jess for the first time since their split and promptly runs away from him.) It’s the kind of coincidence that could only happen in Stars Hollow.

Below, Phillips talks “the la-las,” her favorite musical moment, and her hopes for a revival follow-up.

What was it like composing the sound for Gilmore Girls?

In the beginning, it was a scramble to try to figure out what the sound was. We figured out really early on that lyrics don’t work, because there’s just too much dialogue.

I wanted to have some [musical] themes that went through the series. You’re not always trying to challenge the audience with a new piece of music. Repeating some of the themes helped keep people in the story and didn’t distract from [creator] Amy [Sherman-Palladino] and her writers’ fabulous writing and the wonderful characters.

What episode do you love to re-watch — either as a fan, or from a music perspective?

My favorite scene ever — and probably because I was on set watching this go down — was in the revival, where they do the montage to “Reflecting Light,” and there’s the dance sequence. It was a really beautiful night. We went back into the master tapes of the song and added a little section just for the show. I was very proud about that.

Did you have a favorite couple or character to write music for?

Usually that is what people do — like in the big movie scores, characters usually have their themes. But I never looked at it that way. I was always trying to play to the emotion of the scene. Or because there was a lot of walking and talking, I needed to do music that the gals could walk and talk to.

The direction Amy gave me in the very beginning was “This should be the music that is in Lorelai and Rory’s heads.” So that was really specific. That’s maybe why I didn’t think of it as “There’s a Taylor theme. There’s a Luke theme. There’s a Lane theme.”

Has Amy talked to you about a potential A Year in the Life Season 2?

That is a conversation that has to be with the actors first. I would come after that, if that’s the direction that Amy would want to go — I assume “the la-las” would be part of that. She has the enormous job of trying to coordinate all those schedules, and the writing, and we had the strike, which could have waylaid that as well. But hopefully, that will happen. It doesn’t seem that people [have stopped] watching the show.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.