But where do we come up with this notion of a woman in which the less space you take up, the more you’re worth?
DAR WILLIAMSBut where do we come up with this notion of a woman in which the less space you take up, the more you’re worth?
DAR WILLIAMSWhat happened on “As Cool As I Am” was, you know how in the ’90s, “the personal is political, the political is personal”? That was a really big thing.
DAR WILLIAMSI’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.
DAR WILLIAMSEvery time you opt in to kindness Make one connection, used to divide us It echoes all over the world
DAR WILLIAMS[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.
DAR WILLIAMSThere’s tons of anger and angst and peculiarity and eccentricity, and good towns know that that’s okay. But towns that are kind of bullshit don’t know what to do with all those feelings.
DAR WILLIAMSOne 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.
DAR WILLIAMSA song versus an album is not like a scene versus a play.
DAR WILLIAMSI came out of that and said I don’t want to go back to feeling depressed. So I asked myself, what can I be optimistic about, in terms of the course of the planet? And I discovered there was no end to the optimism I felt.
DAR WILLIAMSEveryone has to decide how they’re going to appear in their lives, how they’re going to put themselves out there to the world.
DAR WILLIAMSI have odometer readings, kids; all sorts of measurements of what I’ve been doing for the last 20 years. I get it. I get that it was a while ago.
DAR WILLIAMSFor 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.
DAR WILLIAMSAnd I’ll act like I have faith, and like that faith never ends, but I really just have friends.
DAR WILLIAMSThings are important to you and then they recede within a day. That’s the only thing that keeps me from believing that there’s going to be any one organic big wave; although the Americana (music) thing has been happening for a while.
DAR WILLIAMSGod looks like a guidance counselor, God’s got that smile. God says, ‘How could this be? That’s really odd I guess I’ll have to check my records, silly me, you know, I’m only God.’
DAR WILLIAMSChoices 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