Dar Williams, The Green World
Razor and Tie
2000

I've always thought of Dar Williams as the introverted half of the female folk "thing" that happened in the early and mid nineties, opposite Ani Difranco. With The Honesty Room, Williams' first full-length release in 1995 and the song "When I Was a Boy", she seemed to stake a leading place in the world of tender, inward-turning - and largely obscure - singer-songwriters.

The Green World, Williams' fourth disc, breaks the mold. The lyrics are still sometimes personal, but more often spiritual in an intelligent way. This is a refreshing thing.

          Well when my love felt like another addiction
          I held my breath and packed my bags
          And I went to the land of the monastery
          And the sunshine children and the prayer flags

               - from "What Do You Love More Than Love"

"When I Was a Boy" let you know right off that Williams was a writer with a flair for allegory, but here she expands her reach. A recent article/interview in Mother Jones makes the point that, for Williams, the personal is the political. This is true, but a lot of her earlier overt politicism is gone, and in its place is a mature use of the language that can bring you up short.

          Yeah let's watch the tour bus stop and tell us,
          "Here's the scene of a spring green life dream,
          Take the best part, write it in your caffeine diary."
          And I can't believe what they're saying,
          They're saying I can leave tonight
          Start over on Spring Street
          I am welcome anytime.

               - from "Spring Street"

Fans of old school leftist folk songs won't be disappointed with The Green World either: one of the most bracing tracks on the disc is "I Had No Right", the story of poet and Jesuit priest Daniel Berrigan who, with others, burned Vietnam War draft records in Catonsville, Maryland. (Suggested reading; Daniel Berrigan and Contemporary Protest Poetry by Harry J. Cargas, College and University Press, 1972, which I fear is out of print...) The disc is rounded out with perfectly balanced production (put the headphones on to listen to the harmonies) and Williams' own rich alto, making this an excellent addition to the collection.

*

On Single Gun Theory and Napster

Cheryl came home a few months ago with a CD by a group called Delerium, entitled Karma. I hadn't heard of Delerium, but it turned out to be a techno project - all digital sampling overlain with the gorgeous vocals by various female singers. I got to be addicted to the disc.

One of the vocalists on Karma is one Jacqui Hunt, about whom the liner notes included no additional information. A Google search, though, told me that Ms Hunt sings for an Australian techno group called Single Gun Theory. "Well," I thought, "I'll just pick up a Single Gun Theory CD at my local music store."

Nope, I wouldn't. My local music store doesn't carry Single Gun Theory, and had never heard of them. Amazon had heard of them, but didn't have anything available at the time. Several fan sites exist and from them I learned I should get a disc called Flow, River of My Soul, but I knew not from where. And I didn't want to buy it without listening to it some first.

Fortunately, Napster revealed a bonanza of SGT tracks. I'm just beginning to get into techno, but I was able to find mp3s of all the tracks on Flow, and I liked them. I listened, I considered...and I ordered the disc from the band's label.

I'm not going to say that Napster's perfect, but I think that the recording industry needed to come up with a more creative response to its existence than a lawsuit. Napster's technology model - peer-to-peer file sharing - allowed me to research a band about which I knew almost nothing and to then make the decision to buy the product.

As for Single Gun Theory, I haven't gotten the disc yet, but am playing the mp3s a lot. It's not for everyone, but it's fun and manages to be human. And there's that voice. The band's site is here.