We’re not quite sure how long is too long to wait for a new Dar Williams album, but six years is surely more than enough. We’re not quite there yet, ‘I’ll meet you here‘ isn’t released until October 1st, on Dar’s new label Renew Records, which is an imprint of BMG. Dar Williams has an unusual comparison to draw when discussing the binding theme of the album- it’s rather like an unruly lawn that failed to be a meadow. How’s that? Well, Dar Williams explained it all. Seems that she’d attempted to turn her yard into a meadow – unfortunately, the wildflower seeds she scattered on the grass around her home, in New York’s Hudson Valley, didn’t take. Now she just has an unruly lawn.
“It kind of has a crazy-lady look. I’m on a corner in a village, so everybody sees it. I do all this remedial stuff; it’s not really working. But I know why I did it, and I know what I was going for. Generally, people are saying ‘I see what you’re trying to do.’ And I’m sure some people are shaking their heads. And I’m OK either way. At some point you have to meet life where it meets you … I think what the songs all have in common is the willingness to meet life as it arrives.”
There’s a sample of the new album in the newly released song ‘You give it all away’.
Oh, and the failed meadow problem? We pooled the brains of the greatest greenfingers of Americana UK and the best idea was to start not just with scattered seed but with a few pockets of actual plants – either home nurtured from seed or bought in. You’d think weeds (sorry – wildflowers) would manage anywhere, but everything can use a helping hand in life sometimes.
