Dar Williams

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Protesting From the Heart

Dar Williams on Life and Love

Before most of us were born, there was a very special decade known as the sixties. My history books told me of a decade filled with conflict and change. There was a great civil rights movement that focused on minorities and women. There was a horrific war going on in a little place called Vietnam.

Those who lived through this time will tell people our age that the social upheaval was fueled by protest music. But that time is gone, and so is the music. In fact, my dad once told me that there were no good songs written after 1972. I beg to differ.

Yes, every generation has its share of Brittany’s and Backstreet Boys. But each generation also has musicians with a conscience that try to change what is going on around them. Dar Williams is one of the leaders in our generation’s protest music.

One of Williams most touching songs about having a social conscience comes from the story of a protester of nuclear testing. “So I walked out into the Gamma fields/Out in Mercury, Nevada/Where I stood in circle and that circle/started to pray/And the wind at the nuclear test sights floats the data at the radiation/From the underground testing/Cross the line, you'll get arrested/And we came from all over in a silent appeal/As the drill comes down like a presidential seal.”

Still, she tries to present both sides of the issue, ending the verse with, “And we stand for the living, and we stand for the dead/And we looked out to see our enemies/And we see that you're looking back at us instead.”

Williams was born in 1967 in Mount Kisco, NY, and raised in Chappaqua. Her parents were both well-educated and very liberal, and she was surrounded by books, music, and poetry. According to CMT.com, she learned how to play the guitar when she was nine, and wrote her first song at eleven. In high school, she became active in drama and wrote plays.

Her lyrics today still reflect this theatrical background, often telling a story through the eyes of one character. In the song “If I Wrote You,” Williams introduces a character who left her friends and family to go out into the world to do volunteer work. “We drew our arms around the bastard sons/We never would drink to the chosen ones/Well you know the way I left was not the way I planned/But I thought the world needed love and a steady hand/So I'm steady now.”

The song does not end with a happy note, stressing what someone might have to give up when they pick up and move their life around, “And I'm so happy/I had to tell you/And I love you/And you will not write me again.”

After earning a degree from Wesleyan University, in Connecticut, with a double major in theater and religion, she moved to Boston and worked in musical theater, according to Launch.com. Her voice coach encouraged her to hit the coffeehouse circuit, playing in small venues, including several small university venues.

During this period, she recorded three self published albums in her bedroom with nothing but a microphone and a guitar. The first two didn’t find an audience, and then she recorded “The Honesty Room”. It caught on and was picked up by a small label called Water Bug Records, then was released in an expanded version by Razor and Tie Records, who she’s been with ever since.

Since “The Honesty Room”, Williams has released four more original albums, “Mortal City”, “End of Summer”, “The Green World”, and “The Beauty of the Rain.” She has also released a live album, and a collaboration with prominent modern folk artists, Lucy Kaplinsky and Richard Shindell, called “Cry, Cry, Cry.”

Part of being socially conscience means being brave enough to stand up and question the world around you, and Williams encourages her listeners to ask questions in the song, “Play the Greed.”

“So ask why there's only forty songs on a station/And ask your cafe about their coffee's plantation/And why is it Arizona hasn't gone solar?/And tell your print shop that hemp grows faster/And it doesn't mean a back room clear cut disaster/The market doesn't care but it wants to understand/And you can play the greed right into your hands.”

Williams’ songs reflect her commitment to environmental and social justice issues. According to Launch.com, she donates her time and efforts to causes she believes in, such as a solar-powered music festival in Vermont, The Nature Conservancy, prisoners’ rights and legalizing industrial hemp. She’s also published two editions of The Tofu Tollbooth, her directory of natural-food stores for travelers.

Not every song Williams writes is about protest. A good portion of the time she writes about life and love. In the song, “Beauty of the Rain,” she sings about how it’s our flaws that make us unique. “And you can't deny this room will keep you warm/You can look out of your window at the storm/But you watch the phone and hope it rings/You'll take her any way she sings/Or how she calls/The beauty of the rain is how it falls,”

Sometimes, she just writes about finding yourself, like in the song, “O Canada Girls,” where she writes, “If I drove up eighty-seven/Up past Montreal/Following the bluest veins/Following through icy rains/Would I emerge in the present/And know just where to begin/I'm so sick of forgetting myself to remember who I am”

I wanted to try to avoid too much interpretation in this review. I didn’t want to write about what Williams’ music means to me. It’s obvious it means a lot, or I wouldn’t be writing about it. I think what is important is what you take away after reading her lyrics. I hope that everyone sees them and interprets them for themselves. Art is one of the few things I think is relative, but I still hope you walk away with a sense of where socially conscience music is going, and I hope you are inspired. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll go out and buy an album or two.

Dar Williams: A Smart Cutie

By Amanda Evans

Date: 04/14/05