I have to ask readers who follow this series to indulge this week’s edition on feminist folk/pop artist Dar Williams. Dar has a gift for pop hooks and catchy songs of female empowerment. As a father of three daughters with independent minds, I’m on board with her just that far.
I first saw Dar in person with Lucy Kaplansky and Richard Shindell at St. Catherine University’s O’Shaughnessy Auditorium in the folk supergroup Cry Cry Cry when they came through Saint Paul on tour in 1999. Dar took the lead vocal on REM’s “Fall On Me,” the opening track of the group’s self-titled album (1998). It was also the number with which they opened the show that we saw in Saint Paul. The lady can sing.
I became aware of Dar when she toured with Joan Baez in 1995 and 1996. Joan picked up Dar’s “You’re Aging Well” and invited her to sing it with her live on Ring Them Bells (1995). Dar had originally recorded it on The Honesty Room (1993). You can hear Dar’s feminist outlook resisting the traditional messages on “the signs that the signmakers made” in the lyrics, but you better believe I urged my daughters to ignore the suffocating political messages of the “signmakers” at the schools they attended. You can also hear Dar’s gift for melody and Baez’s beautiful harmony singing on this recording.
Revisiting Dar’s body of work over the past month, I thought some of her songs could be turned into country hits. Then I happened on to “Slippery Slope,” her duet with country artist Jim Lauderdale. Dar wrote the song with Lauderdale for Emerald (2015).
“As Cool As I Am” is from Mortal City (1996). It seems to me the kind of feminist song a guy like me can sing along to: “I will not be afraid of women.” And I appreciate the self-deprecating audacity of the title.
“If I Wrote You” originally appeared on End of the Summer (1997).
Dar declares “I Won’t Be Your Yoko Ono” on The Green World (2000). I like everything about this song. I think it’s hilarious in a serious way. We don’t think of Yoko as subservient to her husband.
“The Beauty of the Rain” is the title track from her 2003 album. The beauty of the song…
Dar drew on themes from ancient Greek mythology for In the Time of Gods (2012). “I Am the One Who Will Remember Everything” is from the recording. Hearing it on one of WUMB’s morning shows last month sent me back to Dar.
And I keep coming back to “Summer Child” from that disc.
“Hummingbird Highway” is the title track from her new recording (2025).
On “After All” Dar conveys her struggle with depression. It’s from The Green World.
On the song you can hear her struggle had a happy ending. On the wildly catchy “What Do You Hear In These Sounds,” Dar expresses gratitude to her analyst.
Let’s go out with Dar’s cover of “Whispering Pines,” by Richard Manuel and Robbie Robertson. Cliff Eberhardt joins Dar on this one.
