Dar Williams
Issue #25
My Better Self (Razor & Tie)
By Stephanie Kinnear
Published: September 1st, 2005 | 1:25pm
"We'll kill the terrorizers and a million of their races, but when our people torture you, that's a few random cases," sings folk-rock all-star Dar Williams on "The Empire," a track off her most recent release, My Better Self. The song is a blood-boiling look at the self-righteousness of the Bush administration and its war in Iraq, and, unfortunately, is a far more convincing damnation than anything the Kerry people came up with in 2004. Don't accuse Williams of mincing words or of failing to be on message here, this is her most political album to date, and she is definitely not apologizing for it.
With her acoustic guitar aimed at George W., the Christian Right, the Iraq War, and America's political apathy, My Better Self is a sharp weapon of an album, disguised as fun and engaging folk-pop. Williams experiments with genres, moving from blues ("Two Sides of the River") to bluegrass (a cover of Neil Young's "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere") with grace, while anchoring the whole adventure with her distinctively wavering vocals.
She is a songwriter first and foremost, but in an interesting twist, one of the strongest tracks on Better Self is not an original, but rather a heartbreaking cover of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb." The song retains the desperate loneliness of the original, but with Williams' breathy, soulful delivery (and Ani DiFranco on backing vocals) it takes on an even more poignant, moving sense of disconnectedness.
If Williams ever gives up on the singer-songwriter gig there's definitely a place for her voice on Capitol Hill.
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Dar Williams' official Web site
Dar Williams' Myspace page
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