I would encourage people to bridge broadly and creatively in their communities, not just because that creates the most fun and resiliency, but also because it creates the most points of access for people to be part of the community, which is what democracy is at its best.
[Mortal City ] was also the beginning of the reality of the fact that I was going to have little pieces of my personality identifying with all of these different parts of the country.
I would push for more production and Steve Miller would say, “Why do you want to have more production when you have real songs? You don’t want to cover up the song.”
For my 50th birthday I just want to make it all make sense [being exactly half introvert], and then a couple of weeks later do the blow-out with all my friends.
One of them looked at me and shook her head, like “Don’t do that.” I think she was doing it to say, “It doesn’t work.” She didn’t say anything but it was this cautionary moment. I knew it didn’t work. There are just so many other words to choose from.
A lot of the songs are pretty unmasked. If you listen to “As Cool As I Am,” it’s not all that different from what you were hearing from Ani DiFranco and some of the other indie women artists of the time. It was still in that context, still seen as folk music.
I’ve watched towns and cities evolve and become very resilient, and fun, and unique, and prosperous on their own terms. And the secret is bridging. It’s when the local church has a fun clothing swap fundraiser with a temple, and then the next year they bring in the mosque.
You fly all over the country opening for these other people. You pay a publicist to get some press while you’re establishing yourself and you will be solvent in this career forevermore.
A straightforward capitalist society would’ve cut them off and let them die. So I was saved by my friends and by my family and by people who cared about me, and by modern psychotherapy that cared about women.
There was one tour where I thought, “If I can’t get this feeling back of being excited to be on the stage, then I will quit.” Because I have friends who have dialed it in and I watch their concerts and shake my head. I’m sure the audience can tell, too.
Choices you made about how you recorded and what instruments you used and how much real versus how much synthetic. Those were choices that were seen as very political at the time.
![Dar Williams Quote - [Mortal City ] was also the beginning of the reality of the fact that I was going to have little pieces of my personality identifying with all of these different parts of the country.](https://minimalistquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/mortal-city-was-also-the-beginning-of-the-reality--683x1024.jpg)
![Dar Williams Quote - For my 50th birthday I just want to make it all make sense [being exactly half introvert], and then a couple of weeks later do the blow-out with all my friends.](https://minimalistquotes.com/images/for-my-50th-birthday-i-just-want-to-make-it-all-ma.jpg)
