Next Monday, New England welcomes back a favorite daughter whose singer-songwriter skills have launched her to the top of college students' playlists across the nation and garnered her the laurels of music critics everywhere.
Dar Williams recently spoke with The Dartmouth about her upcoming goals and her career.
Educated at Wesleyan University, Williams' music blends a coffeehouse mix of folk, punk and powerful lyrics that tell the story of characters she has concocted herself.
Williams started off at the beginning of her career with visions of being a playwright -- she directed and wrote plays and operas in Boston for some time -- and says this background helps inform her songs.
While at Wesleyan, she said, "I learned a lot about narrative, I got really excited about storytelling in general and I learned about character development as well.
"I love that stuff," Williams said. "I love stories."
Her songs portray her sentiments well. From "What Do You Hear In These Sounds," off her "Mortal City" album, to her "?," each lyric tells the tale of a character with whom many fans identify.
Williams' "As Cool As I Am" has all but become the anthem of college women on both coasts.
Raised by decidedly liberal parents in Chappaqua, N.Y., Williams has honored her roots by boycotting Wal-Mart stores and praising the results of Napster.
"I thought [Napster] posed a healthy challenge to the industry, the major music industry; it got people excited about sharing and spreading music," Williams told The Dartmouth.
With Napster users trading Dar Williams songs through the miracle of cyberspace, Williams said her satisfaction faded when "I discovered it was affecting me financially."
"But then I said, 'No big deal,'" Williams added.
"I'm the kind of person who buys underdog brands or things made by small businesses just for the sake of not wanting to play into the monopolies. So how can I get upset about Napster for taking such a step at the recording monopolies?"
Music lovers who buy Dar Williams' CDs also confess a weakness for the Indigo Girls, Ani Difranco and Sarah McLachlan.
Sexuality is often a topic of discussion during interviews with these artists -- Emily Saliers and Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls have been out of the closet for years, while Difranco's ambiguous lyrics have culled a healthy bisexual and lesbian following for her -- and Williams has not avoided this particular media net.
"I've always wanted the emphasis to be on love, not on the specifics of who you love, because whatever the orientation, it's just hard.
"I just think it's really rare to fall in love with somebody and I think a long time ago, I saw that there are qualities of commitment that are poetic to me that are completely free of one's orientation," Williams said in explanation, though she offers no specifics regarding her own sexuality.
Of being locked into a Lilith-fair-attending, bra-burning fan base by the media, Williams said she finds the common tendency "unnecessary."
"It doesn't serve anybody to ask an artist to restrict their growth to the genre that they've been assigned," the musician said. "It's one thing to use genres for convenience, it's another thing to ask a person to hold themselves to one or another."
Difranco received a dose of negative fan feedback when she expanded her recording options, though she has remained wedded to her own label.
To the prospect of facing "sellout" accusations, Williams said she is not worried.
"People just want to know if you made an honest album or not," she said. "That's all they care about, they just want to know that you did an album because you had to -- for the sake of the music -- as opposed to for the sake of trying to buy a second house or a really fancy car," she continued.
Of course, she said, "You might get a second house or a fancy car, but I think as long as that's derived from the success of the music and not from the manipulation of music towards financial ends, then it's fine."
As to her goals for her musical future, Williams is open-minded.
"I realize that it's up to me to really find the next moment, to really expand as I see fit, into new genres, into new media, and ultimately I can do exactly what I'm doing for the rest of my life and perhaps not even write another song.
"I have the potential to grow enormously, it's just between me and what I choose to do when I get up every morning."
Williams's new album, "The Green World," was released to rave reviews in August 2000 by Razor and Tie.
