Sharing Dar Williams

I've been meaning to post this for a while...Dar Williams is one of my very favorite artists. I was very grateful to be able to meet her last year in Seattle and thank her for her music, which has shepherded me through some great trials and tribulations in my life.

When she came out with her new album last year, Dar partnered up with TrueMajority.org (link on the right) to offer up this song, called Empire, from the album. It's a song about empire and those who promulgate it, saying it's all for our own good, pulling us along until it's too late.

And the empire fell
on its own splintered axis.
And the emperor wanes
as the silver moon waxes.

And the farmers will find our coins
In their strawberry fields
while somebody somewhere
twists his ring as someone kneels.

Dar has also offered up for free download one of the most beautiful songs I know about what it is to live with faith as an American at this time in this world. It's called I Had No Right, and it's about Father Daniel Berrigan and his compatriots who were arrested for burning draft files during the Vietnam war.

God of the just I'll never win a peace prize
Falling like Jesus
Now let the jury rise
Oh it's all of us versus all that paper
They took the only way
They know who is on trial today
Deliver us unto each other, I pray

You can download Empire here (lyrics here) and I Had No Right here (lyrics here).

Dar also has a lovely song on the new album, My Better Self, called Echoes. It's about how what we do affects the whole world.

Every time you choose one more morning
Goodness or meanness, life has one warning
It echoes all over the world

You can actually download that one, too--follow the links from the same spot as I Had No Right. I get to see Dar in a few weeks on tour with Shawn Colvin and I can't wait. Go Dar!