Stella Lefty Wrote A Song About Her Crush, & The Universe Listened
The country-pop darling, who makes her Lollapalooza debut this year, is now dating the subject of “Boston.”
Stella Lefty believes songs have power. Case in point: The 23-year-old is now dating the guy her breakout single is about.
“The whole thing started because I agreed to go on a writing trip in Nashville, where a boy I had a crush on lived,” Lefty tells Elite Daily. “I had 15 minutes before he was picking me up, so I was sitting at the piano and wrote the chorus. I posted it on my TikTok account, not thinking anything of it.” Her first snippets of the song garnered millions of views, with commenters begging her to finish and release it.
That same energy — a girl, a piano, a song she believes in — is taking her to her biggest stage yet. On Aug. 2, Lefty will make her Lollapalooza debut, and it'll double as a homecoming: She grew up just outside Chicago, in Glencoe. “I've been going to Lolla since I was 15 years old,” she says. “Playing there was something I always dreamed about and never thought would happen.”
The Lolla slot caps a wild few months. “Boston,” which Lefty released March 27 and which interpolates Noah Kahan's “Stick Season,” became her first Billboard Hot 100 hit, peaking at No. 51. She's opening for Tucker Wetmore and Myles Smith on tour this summer. And — yes — she got the guy.
Music wasn't always the plan for the public health major from Tulane University. “I didn’t know anybody that was an artist,” she says. Despite having written songs since she was 5, she didn’t take a chance on her music until her junior year of college. “I started posting when I was abroad [in Amsterdam], and I was posting all the time because I was depressed. That was my form of getting out of my head,” she says. Shortly after graduating, Lefty started writing songs for other people before moving to Los Angeles in September 2024.
Miley and Taylor were the first people that made me fall in love with music and writing.
In the 18 months since, she’s racked up several viral hits on TikTok, including “Thinking ‘bout You,” which she co-wrote with fellow musicians Grace Enger and Sadie Jean. She also has “something more exciting than an EP” in the works.
Below, Lefty shares the four artists who shaped her sound.
Miley Cyrus
Growing up, Lefty says she listened to all of Miley Cyrus’ songs but was particularly obsessed with Hannah Montana. “She’s everything to me,” Lefty says. “I really thought, when I was younger, that I was Hannah Montana. I thought I was living this double life.”
The 2009 Hannah Montana film made a lasting impression. Lefty still references the movie’s iconic visuals in her work to this day. After watching the 20th anniversary special, Lefty rewatched the OG on a flight back from Austin and went home and made her family watch it with her again. “I was like, ‘This is making me feel things.’ I was crying the whole day, just on the flight bawling my eyes out.”
Taylor Swift
“Taylor Swift taught me how to write a song,” Lefty says. As a kid, she studied Swift’s early albums to figure out what made them so captivating. One of her first songwriting memories was scribbling new lyrics over melodies like “Back to December.”
“Miley and Taylor were the first people that made me fall in love with music and writing,” she says.
Lefty won’t commit to a single favorite Swift song, but she’ll cop to a top three: "Fifteen," "Betty," and "Picture to Burn."
“I had a best friend growing up who has red hair, and on the way to school freshman year, we’d blast that song with my dad in the car when he was dropping us off.”
Carrie Underwood
Lefty blasts Carrie Underwood’s “All-American Girl" with her windows down, screaming the lyrics as she heads to a recording session. “Her voice is insane. She’s someone that I look up to so much vocally,” she says. Beyond her sheer talent, the American Idol winner is a reference for how Lefty hopes her own career succeeds. “Her music is so fun to listen to. It’s so digestible. I love putting it on. I love singing the words, and I want people to feel that way about my songs.”
Keith Whitley
A newer obsession for Lefty is ’80s country music star Keith Whitley. “Since college, Randy Travis and Keith Whitley have been on my rinse and repeat,” she says. Lefty says the songwriting on tracks like “When You Say Nothing At All” and “Don’t Close Your Eyes” is some of the best she’s ever heard. “Whenever I’m sad or in a weird spot, I’m always putting on a Keith Whitley song. Always.”
