DAR WILLIAMS

Like many other artists, I first heard Dar Williams from my friend Cos who played Are You Out There? for me when we were sitting around at the studio of the Brandeis University radio station. (I have this bad habit of winding up as a guest DJ at radio stations of colleges that I'm not affiliated with. C. W. Post, Brandeis . . . you never know where I'm going to pop up next.

Dar's songs are full of things that touch off memories, or familiar, deeply honest emotions. I think the first song of hers I was aware of was The Christians and The Pagans which someone played for me in college, and I heard When I Was a Boy at some point too, before I became really aware of Dar as an artist. These are still two of the songs I play for people who haven't encountered Dar before. Usually followed by Are You Out There? or The Babysitter's Here

I've been lucky enough to see Dar in concert with the Nields, who are vastly talented too, but when they sing together, it's great, because the harmonies seem to multiply. They did a set together at the 30th anniversary concert for the MIT Women's Studies program and they did an amazing live version of I Know What Kind of Love This Is, in something more like the Cry Cry Cry style than the usual Nields two-way harmony.

Other favorite Dar songs include The Great Unknown, The Babysitter's Here, which actually features a Fisher Price xylophone (I had one of those once).

DAR LINKS:

The Dar Web
The official website.

The Transcription index
Chords and lyrics for many of Dar's songs

Buy Dar's music
Mortal City, The Honesty Room, End of the Summer,
Green World and the new CD The Beauty of the Rain are available.