For those unaware, Dar Williams’ lyrics contain bouquets of optimism, delivered on melodies alternating between beguiling lightness and understated gravity.

Williams strongly believes that all of us possess our own power and ability to achieve, and she rejects the exceptionalism that encourages us to “admire that yonder star,” while making us feel small and insignificant; unworthy of shining on our own but hoping to catch enough distant light to inspire some tiny accomplishment.

Williams has always been very interested in how to control our future and her brand new album I’ll Meet You Here (out October 1st, 2021 via Renew BMG) has to do with the fact that at some point, you just can’t.

Like everyone else, Williams spent 2020 in that state of non-control. She and longtime producer Stewart Lerman tracked most of the album, her 12th studio recording, in November of 2019.

In late February of 2020, she cut the title tune in Woodstock with bassist Gail Ann Dorsey and Larry Campbell, who produced the track and played guitars, pedal steel and twangy baritone guitar.

When told they had to postpone a mid-March mixing date, Campbell said he wasn’t feeling well anyway. Turns out he’d contracted a serious case of COVID-19.

That was a clear sign that at some point, you have to meet life where it meets you - the common thread throughout that these songs, the willingness to meet life as it arrives.

Dar Williams was always in the right place at the right time for the success she’s had over a 25+-year career. She rose out of the vibrant mid-90’s Boston scene, inspired by the eclectic influences of alt-rockers, Berklee jazz musicians, slam poets, and folk artists, like Patty Griffith, Melissa Ferrick, the Throwing Muses, Vance Gilbert, and Jonathan Brooke.

After a year of touring non-stop with her first album, The Honesty Room, in 1994, she was invited by Joan Baez to tour in Europe and The United States.

“Good and bad things happen, and it’s not necessarily a reward or indictment. I’ve just got to meet it.” Williams observes.

“Like, I’m bringing my whole life to this moment; it will surprise me, challenge me, show me where I was wrong, even make a fool out of me, but my job is to show up and not take adversity personally.”

“Real happiness doesn’t have to feel like Snoopy dancing with Woodstock; it can just be knowing you have the resilience to meet whatever comes to you. I will call that a good life.”

1. Time, Be My Friend
2. You Give it All Away
3. Let the Wind Blow
4. Magical Thinking
5. Little Town
6. Berkley
7. Today and Every Day
8. I Never Knew
9. Sullivan Lane
10. You’re Aging Well

Opening on the flavorful mid-tempo milieu of Time, Be My Friend and the absolutely mesmerizingly ambient, melodious summers breeze of You Give it All Away, those are seamlessly backed by the lusciously lazy, ambiently hazy Let the Wind Blow, the beautiful, translucent gossamer of Magical Thinking and then one of my own personal favorites, the silken storytelling of Little Town.

Next up is the gentle foot-tapper Berkley which is in turned followed by the upbeat, dancefloor twirl of Today and Every Day, and then comes the feathered strokes of I Never Knew, with the album rounding out with the gently buoyant Sullivan Lane, closing (all too soon, in my humble opinion) on the pleasingly layered piano complexions of You’re Aging Well.

Official You Give it All Away - Dar Williams Music Video

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