Sunday 13 June 2010

"Southern California Wants To Be Western New York" by Dar Williams

5 comments:

  1. This has always been one of my favorite Dar Williams songs! Such clever, poignant lyrics. Hardly anybody ever mentions this track anymore, probably because it's among her earliest. I first heard her perform it live in February of 1994, at a coffeehouse in the basement of a church in Providence, Rhode Island, back before anyone even knew Dar's name. I still have my autographed copy of The Honesty Room that I purchased from her that night.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's great! Yes, there are a handful of Dar songs that I really love: her observations can be so fresh and original. "As Cool As I Am," "Iowa," "The Babysitter's Here," "When I Was A Boy" and "If I Wrote You" are among my other favourites.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love all of those songs by Dar as well, Alex, and I'd add the following eight to my list:

    "Alleluia"
    "February"
    "Are You Out There?"
    "What Do You Hear in These Sounds?"
    "Playing to the Firmament"
    "Spring Street"
    "Calling the Moon"
    "Mercy of the Fallen"
    "I Saw a Bird Fly Away"

    But my very favorite songs of Dar's are the two times that she's experimented in a full-on pop mode: "Closer to Me" and "Echoes." I like the strange tension created by placing a folk singer in a pop context, similar to what happened with Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car." Aside from its brilliant lyrics, impassioned delivery, and euphoric chorus, I think that's part of what makes Chapman's song such an enduring classic.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I still need to hear several of these! Two I forgot about were "End of the Summer" and "Teen For God." I was also quite taken with "Holly Tree" from the last record, which I reviewed for Wears The Trousers.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'll be sure to check out your review of Dar's Promised Land, Alex...and I need to listen to that disc more myself! I think I've played it only once or twice since it was released.

    ReplyDelete