Gillian Welch's musical style combines elements of bluegrass, neotraditional country, americana, old time string band music and folk into a rustic style that she dubs "American Primitive". Her music is often described as haunting or soothing. Many of her songs contain dark themes about social outcasts struggling against such elements as poverty, drug addiction, death, a disconnection from their family, and an unresponsive God.
"To be commercial, everybody wants happy love songs. People would flat-out ask me, 'Don't you have any happy love songs?' Well, as a matter of fact, I don't. I've got songs about orphans and morphine addicts." Amen.