Following the release of Gravel and Sugar in Your Coffee, Breaking Up Ain’t Like the Movies continues the next chapter of songs born from Ziller’s year long songwriting project The Long & Writing Road, where she co wrote 52 songs in 52 weeks with collaborators across Australia and the United States.
Recorded with producer Damian Cafarella at Ziggy Tone Studios, the track strips the Hollywood gloss off heartbreak. A slow-burn rocker laced with banjo, it pairs classic country hooks with Americana grit, Ziller’s powerful voice front and centre. Breaking Up Ain’t Like the Movies was one of the very first songs written for The Long & Writing Road. Ziller took the idea into a Nashville writing room with hit-makers Phil Barton (Lee Brice’s US number one A Woman Like You) and Kylie Sackley (Faith Hill’s Sunshine and Summertime) while in the United States on the CMAA Academy of Music Scholarship, and it sat at the top of her recording list from the day it was written.
“Nobody hands you an umbrella in the rain and rolls the credits,” Ziller says. “Real break-ups are quieter and messier than the movies make out. There’s no big speech, no airport chase, just you figuring out how to get on with it.”
Where Gravel explored the courage to step into the unknown and Sugar in Your Coffee found humour in perseverance, Breaking Up Ain’t Like the Movies, truer ache of moving on, continuing Ziller’s focus on honest songwriting and everyday resilience.
The single arrives with an official music video directed by Arlo Dean Cook, premiering on release day.
