When I hear a young artist who makes me feel good about the future -- be it Katy Otto or the gang from Wolfie -- my thoughts immediately jump to Dar Williams, and the impact of her records and shows. In song and on stage, she embodies everything that I find right about humanity. There's humor, humility, happiness and an outward sense that she actually cares about you. Her unique brand of folk-pop can sound as personal and direct as any confessional artist, but it does not navel-gaze. Instead, it reveals truths and insights that could actually pull you from a bad relationhip ("Endless Summer") or a terminal rut ("Teenagers Kick Our Butts"). Through their persuasive powers, the songs have also inspired hundreds of thousands of music fans to fingersnapping, positive goodness.

In the rather frightening world Out There, it's nice to know that Dar's music revolves around trust, hope, faith and olive loaf. She makes funny, poignant, world-minded songs that give meaning to our struggles and answers to our universe. Her body of work is proof to cynics (myself included) that optimism is healthier -- both for one's life, and for one's art.

Splendid: Spinning off the title "What do you hear in these sounds", have many revelations you've had in life come through melody and sound?

Dar Williams: Ummm, you mean not through words?

Splendid: Yeah, the music itself.

Dar Williams: Sure, sure. As you get older, you wish it happened more of the time, but certainly, I'm a big fan of sounds and melody -- I know what you're talking about -- and actually, maybe the best proof of that is there's so much great production in pop music. With some music, you hear the recording contract in it. You know how exactly how it was engineered into its final form to make it as marketable as possible, and still, there are these aspects of the production that are so cool that... So absolutely. And, you know, sometimes it's classical music, sometimes it's pop music, and anything in between.

Splendid: I loved the new live album, by the way...

Dar Williams: Thank you.

Splendid: ...And are you leaning toward having a more traditional band these days, where your backing musicians become a constant the way Joe Jackson's have been? And, thinking of it, you had Graham Maby on one of your records, didn't you?

Dar Williams: That's what I was going to say. Unfortunately, if I had my druthers, my choice would be Joe Jackson's backing band... But no, actually, we keep on experimenting. This next tour is with a percussionist and a keyboard player. Instead of doing a tour that replicates the record, even though that would make more marketing sense, it's just really my fall tour, and this (Out There Live!) just happens to be the record that's out right now.

Splendid: Is the keyboardist the guy from Southside Johnny?

Dar Williams: No, you know what? I was rallying for a bass player, and by the time a manager convinced me that a keyboard player would be better, we'd lost Jeff...possibly to Southside Johnny, actually, but, hmmm, I needed to be educated and my learning curve was too slow.

Splendid: I thought Jeff was one of the guys who brought life and nuance to some of your earlier songs (on the live album)...

Dar Williams: I absolutely agree. And also, he was great to tour with, the whole nine yards.

Splendid: I think the first line in "Alleluia" is a great example of what you often do in your songs, in that there's such enthusiasm and what seems like warm nostalgia when you sing, "Sid and Nancy rule". After this line, it's done with such enthusiasm that it almost goes against the song's unambiguous message against self-destruction. And I think it ends up giving the song an autobiographical feel, even when each line practically has a joke in it.

Dar Williams: Well, it's autobiographical, but it didn't happen to me. I think it was inspired by a kid who died in a car accident in my high school, who was a real angel... He was high, it was a stolen car, he did wrap it around a tree. He was high a lot, I think, toward the end, and he was the type of guy in health class who you'd call a bad kid, and he clearly was not. And I always wondered if he thought or felt that he was a bad kid who would never go to Heaven... And, uh, I never smoked pot in high school, so I'm very free about the whole thing. I once said, "Mo' better kid to smoke a joint than go to the mall", and got in trouble with lots of teachers and stuff...(laughs) But he was kind of a loose kid, and he was really beloved as this kid who really loved other kids, and at his funeral service, this one friend of his said how he, this dead kid, said, "Do you ever get choked up when your dad says he loves you?" (Laughs) He turned out to be, like, a superangel! And that absolutely changed my life in how I trusted various forms of authority, after the kid who died... So that's to me that song...he's also a very funny kid.

Splendid: Oh, were some of the jokes his?

Dar Williams: No, although his brother came up to me and said, "You know you got his...there's something in that song where you knew him better than you realized. And, you know, he had a Biology Class beauty contest, and I got second place. That kind of thing.

Splendid: Where some writers try to find subtlety via the words, I think often you have a very discernible message in the song -- like with "Alleluia" and the self-destruction -- but it's made very ambiguous and complicated by your vocal delivery, which seems to drive a point that we're strange and complicated people... Is a lot of this intentional, the approach you take to singing a song?

Dar Williams: I started out as a playwright, and I remember there was this workshop where people used to write scenes, and there was this one guy who commented on a scene by saying, "The problem was that it was only about one thing". And then, I thought, "Eh, duh...", and it didn't seem a big deal at the time, but sometimes, those simple things yield time-release truths...and I find myself wanting to create a little grist, yeah, with characters and, you know, their conflicts, and which details I would pull out of their lives. To present them, I didn't want to choose the most predictable details.

Splendid: One reason I like your records is because I can play them constantly, and that's not the case with a lot of great records, which seem to get me only when I'm in a certain mood. And I think, in part, your voice is just a distinct pleasure in itself, but also, it seems to bring out your personality in anything you perform...Since you're probably the best judge, do you think you're able to capture your own inner rhythms when you're creating? Or is your intent completely different, and to create wholly new characters, and wholly new rhythms?

Dar Williams: I probably have a pretty large army of alter egos going on in various songs, and that's a relief to me. I don't know how I come across, as myself -- you know, myself as a teenager who grew up in the suburbs, went to a college, went to Boston after college... You know, the whole thing is kind of a pedestrian route -- so it's fun to travel and to sort of find those characters in yourself that you pull out from various landscapes and cultures, and that's been a gift to explore. That said, as time passes, I notice similarities in songs I never noticed before, and the sort of style that I write, or melodies, obviously...

Splendid: I guess I find that in your faster songs...

Dar Williams: Yeah, well, I differ there. I find it more in the slower songs than the faster ones. There's some disarming similarities in the slow songs. And I have no idea that they exist when I'm doing them, so I think that one's inner bent is somehow manifested. My friends and I have always had some spiritual belief that whoever you are sort of comes out and reveals itself to you in your own songs.

Splendid: I definitely would say that with your songs...You're a very good songwriter, and it seems, with everything I read on you, that tends to be the focus... But when I listen to your songs, it takes forever for the lyrical meaning to sink in, because I'm enjoying the songs, but I'm not really hunting for the words or whatever. I feel something without the need to comprehend everything.

Dar Williams: Well, that's great...My big joke with The Green World was I wanted it to be so lush and agreeable that people can vacuum to it... It's of course one's fantasy every time, to create something that's sonically pleasing and that could stand on its own sonically. And I'm in love with melody and I'm in love with words, and I'm in love with what other people do musically with my song... You know, I hum them ideas and say, "No, that sounds orange, I need something green", and (now chuckling, not exactly laughing) they take me at my terms...which is great. So I love every aspect of it, and don't take it personally when someone says, "I don't even listen to the words." Actually, that's a huge compliment because sometimes I've wondered if people indulged my melodies or my voice because they were really more drawn to my words. From feedback I've heard, it's nice to hear people say it's not just one part.

Splendid: A couple songs that seem to imply it's more than the lyrics for everyone is the staying power of "The Babysitter's Song" and "The Pointless, Yet Poignant, Crisis of a Co-Ed". Both of them, I think could have easily lapsed -- well, let's say with Christine Lavin, there's some of her songs (like "The Kind of Love You Never Recover From", which you covered) that to me are timeless... When she tends to blend comedy with drama, the songs have a longer lasting lifespan in my stereo than when she does a song that's great in a concert setting, but almost only then.

Dar Williams: Yeah, lots of people do that, but I haven't really done that yet. Well, I know I wrote a song called, "When the Revolution Comes, There Won't be Any Men Left", but my boyfriend wouldn't let me play it. (laughs) Sometimes it's tempting to write that, but it's interesting, when I started that song about the potheads, I was like, "Oh, maybe this is going to be one of those novelty songs..." but the protagonist had enough genuine angst that she had a bit more meaning for me than I expected, and, of course, I was very happy for that.

Splendid: When you perform these songs, do you approach them the same way as you do a "Spring Street", or is it more akin to a monologue?

Dar Williams: Ummm, well, nah...I approach it the same way. I mean, it's sort of like, "Okay, here we go. We're entering Song Land now."

Splendid: But on that monologue kind of riff, do you have any interest in concept records, or a Spaulding Gray kind of show, or maybe teaming up with Cliff Eberhardt and your New England neighbors on a musical?

Dar Williams: Well, I think that every record of mine is sort of a concept record, in that the songwriting chapters kind of catch me at certain times of my life. And I think this next record will be closer to what you might call a concept album -- to me, the concept's because they're deeply linked about something nobody else knows about (laughs), which isn't exactly what people do when they do concept albums -- but I think this next one...I would really love to look at the ambience and sonic scapes. Maybe look at those sounds and melodies that you were talking about, I think that would be kind of amazing... but, that said, I'm writing a book --

Splendid: Oh, you are? Fiction?

Dar Williams: A fiction book for kids, and I'm just finishing a young adult novel. One of those... and I'm sort of haunted by melodies in my head for a play that I'm writing, and I have ideas for things like screenplays. So, it's kind of a "Be careful what you wish for" thing, because at some point, I wish I could be writing in another medium that would keep me from having to tour so much. And lo and behold, I'm very haunted by these things. They are demanding some time that usually I spend writing songs for albums. Collaboration, it's difficult to say. I tried some collaboration that really crashed and burned, and it required such -- I live in New York City now -- such fastidious scheduling, that there's a part of me which would rather carry it around like my knitting project. Like I pull it out here and pull it out there, and work on it...

Splendid: Regarding your young adult novel, do you find yourself wanting to almost repeat phrases, a sort of good musical repetition, like Milan Kundera...

Dar Williams: Yeah, I don't think I do. What happens is a character says one thing and I suddenly get a sense what kind of person would say that. Like there's a character who's making coffee and an eleven year old walks in the kitchen and she says, "Want some?" And I already knew I was going in this direction with this character, but as soon as I wrote that, I thought, "Oh. Okay, this is going to be the grace of that character." In a completely annoying way, she doesn't know that this kid is a kid, but in a completely refreshing way, she doesn't know this kid is a kid. So if this kid said, "Is so-and-so dying?", she'd say "Yeah." So when this kid gets in trouble and a whole bunch of people want to help her, this character turns to her and says, "What the hell is going on?" And so it's more that the traits get repeated, not the phrases -- but just today, I was sitting on a subway next to a person who was saying the same thing, over and over again, just to situate herself: "So here we are, so here we are..."

Splendid: Well, that might be less fun to read.

Dar Williams: Exactly, but people sort of use these key phrases to situate themselves, and it does give you a sense of how careful they are. Thye always have to come to that one phrase to get themselves set up so that they can be clear and talk their jaw... but no, I don't sense, I think that it's themes that repeat and traits that repeat, and hopefully, and I know this from the playwriting, there's a point at which everything kind of flies and the theme you started with becomes reinforced and you realize, gratefully, they have been doing a lot of work on their own as you've been writing this conversation and writing this scene, so that themes deepen, as you hope they will.

Splendid: In terms of youth, one thing we seemed to share growing up was a love for the Kinks song "Better Things". That song and "Daddy's Eyes", which may have been from the same album, I just kept playing ang playing...But with "Better Things", did the love go so far for the Kinks that you wanted to drink tea to get a British accent, and have just a love affair with England?

Dar Williams: No, I never had An anglophile thing at all, and, in fact, I just loved anything you could dance to. I was pretty kinetic as a teenager. I just danced to it.

Splendid: Oh, okay. But on this cover of "Better Things", it is very interesting, with the accordion bringing a whole new flavor to it.

Dar Williams: Isn't that great? That was the idea of the producer who put it on one of my albums, and he said, "I really wanna do this song but...accordion and slide guitar", and I was like, "Absolutely, that's exactly what I was thinking!" (laughs) And that's how we recreated it live, but I love it that this British guy was saying, "Oh Ray Davies. Accordion and slide guitar." And I was like, "You are so on the map." Yes, and Jeff really hit it there. It's a very hopeful-sounding instrument, right up there with the song.

Splendid: And also the title seems to tie in with New Orleans...

Dar Williams: Correct. Well, it's a very Americanized version of it.

Splendid: Would your ideal for yourself as a songwriter be a person who writes standards, able to be sung by anyone, or songs that have your shadow all over them?

Dar Williams: Both, I think. Joni Mitchell wrote songs that were very personalized and delivered them in a very personalized way, and that's awesome, and at the same time, like when I was doing this Cry Cry Cry project that was cover songs, we were really trying to pull out songs that people had written that were just channeling...because there was such a universality to it. Like the Buddy Mondlock song, "The Kid", and it is very personal but it is so translatable and everybody could sing it...and everybody has sung it. We struggled with the fact so many people had sung it, but we thought it was that kind of classic that deserved it, a song that everyone should pick up... When you write about stuff that could be anybody and it really hits you, where your jaw drops open, that's a pretty special moment.

Splendid: To me, both "End of Summer" and "If I Wrote You" seemed to be pivotal points in your songwriting, and that your third album marked a point where you were branching out a lot.

Dar Williams: I think you're right about those two songs, absolutely. Especially on "If I Wrote You". I mean, Joan Baez picked that one up immediately.

Splendid: By the way, I'm a big Townes Van Zandt fan, so I was thrilled when I read it was dedicated to him in the liner notes. But where does he play into the song?

Dar Williams: It's not a song about Townes. My manager was a huge fan, and I did start writing it in Austin, and I was writing it in the South, and it had that kind of vibe. And I think I said to my manager, "The way you described Townes -- my manager had only met him a couple times; Charlie Hunter, but not the jazz musician -- and Charlie said that --"

Splendid: Do you have to say "Charlie's not the jazz musician" every time you mention his name?

Dar Williams: Well, to you, I think.

Splendid: It's just that, in preparing for this, I read an article on the Internet today where you mentioned, "Charlie, not the jazz musician..."

Dar Williams: Oh that's hilarious. Some people say, "That's just what she (Dar) says, but actually, he is the jazz musician." I thought that was hilarious. Charlie hates jazz. But I said to him, "The way you described Townes both personally and professionally, it seems like his songs were like his letters to his us, his postcards to us." It seems like, when you were in his company, it was very hard to relate to him, and so it's almost like you needed him to send these missives, and in that way, it did remind me a lot of him in the song. To my mind, the song's about two people with a substance abuse thing going on. And one of them takes off into a different direction. And writes this song basically saying, "I didn't get straight to mock you or tell you what to do with your life. You know, I'm much happier now, but I'd love it for you to feel that you're special, and I need to be honest about the fact that I'm in a much better place than I was, but I don't want to put you down for being where you're at. I never did." And so that's the kind of song you'd want to sing to Townes, 'cause, you know, he did have a big drinking problem. So maybe the thing you'd want to say to Townes is, "I wish you could understand how great you are, and maybe put down the booze," but, then, I'm not on this planet to judge you. And that's why I would never bring it up.

Splendid: Yeah. He was so loveable on stage. He's been the only singer -- and I had never met him -- whose death really crushed me.

Dar Williams: Yeah.

Splendid: When you were part of Cry Cry Cry -- and I got to see you all, by the way, when you played at the Birchmere with Julie and Buddy Miller...

Dar Williams: Nice! Yeah.

Splendid: Since I felt songs like your cover of REM's "Fall On Me" had the power to attract both rock and folk communities, is there regret that you, Lucy, and Richard were marketed as a "folk supergroup"?

Dar Williams: No. No, I think, if anything, the REM was our way of pushing the envelope, but everything else was directly the sort of thing that we would call folk music. And also, we were trying to -- you know, there's this whole sort of nerdy association with folk music, which is too bad -- and it has defined this off-the-beaten path treasure trove of music. And, you know, there's a lot of people who are totally cool, and have completely aberrant behavior, who call themselves folk musicians as a way of keeping themselves and their audience honest. In that, they are people. They are folks. And so it was our intention in Cry Cry Cry to say, "You might dis it for being folk music, but this is where the action is."

Splendid: I guess I brought that question up as it seems like there are many great groups, marketed as folk or as rock, which seem like they could attract the same people. Like Ida, for instance. And I was wondering, with things like the Michigan Women's Music Festival, is that a way to sort of bring the two together?

Dar Williams: Yeah, Michigan is definitely one of the places. In fact, one of the girls from Le Tigre came up to me, and she said, "Hi, I'm a fan, I just wanted to say hi." And I told her, "Oh God, I thought you were just gonna think I was a big nerd." And she said, "No, we thought you'd find us a bunch of weirdos." So it's definitely important to reinforce the breaking down of barriers, but that said, I guess there are plenty, for I've never heard of Ida.

Splendid: Did you get to meet or talk to Sherman Alexie when "Road Buddy" was used in the film Smoke Signals?

Dar Williams: Sure, it was because we were in touch and we were friends that he... He liked the song "When I was a Boy", and he sent me Reservation Blues, and I became a big fan of his, so we really enjoyed each other's work. I actually wrote "Yoko Ono" for another film of his that never got produced, but that was where that song came from. But we really enjoy -- I mean, we're both basically indie artists.

Splendid: Would you like the opportunity Aimee Mann was given, to be able to create music for the films of a favorite director ?

Dar Williams: Yeah, that would be really lovely. I would love to do that. I mean, one of the greatest inspirations for writing this book is they say that, if you take a year to write a book, and the book never gets published, it doesn't matter because the things you learn about yourself when writing that book is worth it. So if somebody said, "Discover yourself through this lens, or this medium", and it was somebody you respected, you'd be insane to not do it. In fact, the thing to do is just say, "Yes", before your brain has a chance to doubt itself.

Splendid: Some friends have been perplexed that you haven't written a song, or cycle of songs, about cats. Do you not happen to think about cats that much?

Dar Williams: Unfortunately, I think songs about cat belongs to eighties folk music, and there's a real danger to writing about cats, because it is such a stereotyped phenomena.

Splendid: So you've taken that question seriously? (laughs)

Dar Williams: Yes...I avoid cats at all costs.

Splendid: You once wrote a book/guide on all the vegetarian and vegan restaurants you've visited on your travels --

Dar Williams: Natural food stores. They're not restaurants.

Splendid: Oh, okay. I'm not actually, I'm a meat eater, so...

Dar Williams: Yes, so am I.

Splendid: I was curious, though, if you had any restaurants these days that stood out as a favorite?

Dar Williams: Well, I just got engaged to this guy who's a real connoiseur of restaurants. I would say, for vegetarian food, Zen Pallete is a great place to go.

Splendid: Is that in New York?

Dar Williams: Uh-huh. And, for vegetarian if you want, there's this great place called Carmine's in New York City. Oh, gosh, there's a great place called Soba in Pittsburgh. I believe it's close to Carnegie-Mellon, and that was a great meal! That was like three years ago, but I still remember it.

Splendid: Thank you. Do you not tour much through Kentucky because of the cuisine?

Dar Williams: I have been touring less and less. I think I was a touring machine for a long time. The music that I do is definitely what they call "Blue State" music. You know what blue states are?

Splendid: Nah.

Dar Williams: They're states that Bush won, versus the states that Gore won, and they call them blue states and red states. I tend to do well in the states that Gore did well in. (laughs) But I get eveywhere. I go everywhere.

Splendid: I certainly don't think the Beatles would have changed so much musically in their last records without having given up touring. If this live record of yours became this decade's Frampton Comes Alive, and sold millions of copies, could you see yourself ever just concentrating on just the creation aspects of your art? Or is touring like a pep pill for your songwriting, and encourages the process?

Dar Williams: I do love touring. I do love performing, and I do love the fact that I have done the tour so long. That said, I don't know if I could continue to do it. Whether or not if I sold a million albums, I think it's going to --

Splendid: Well, it seems like your life's going to soon radically change.

Dar Williams: Yeah, pretty radically. The first few years I toured, I did about 150 gigs a year. And then, the next year was 120. The next year was a hundred. The next year was a hundred again, I think, and this year, it's going to be a little under a hundred. And again, in a very "be-careful-what-you-wish-for" way, these other genres have been poking out. And I hoped for that. I hoped more stay-at-home projects would assert themselves, and they did, with a vengeance. So it's almost like my unconscience is corraling me in to do stuff. Plus I moved to New York City, which is just an endless gift. There's a gazillion musuems, and Central Park is like a hundred parks. I live near Columbia and St John's the Divine, and here you have a moving mosaic of all the people who live in New York City. It's a city that matches, and then far exceeds the worldliness that I've gotten from travelling, and that worldliness means something to me. I've beaten all those dusty paths, and learned so much about different people, it's sometimes not fun to bring that back to the same small town that you've been for eight years. Which was what was going on with Northhampton, even though Northhampton is quite endlessly beautiful, with really great stuff going on. Unusually high amount of great stuff for such a small town area.

Splendid: Another cover you did was David Bowie's "Starman". Ignoring the fact that any great song deserves a cover, and that your fans chose it for you, it still surprised me, in that Bowie is fascinated by image and rock star glamour, and I've never gotten that impression with you. Is there no real desire or interest to dress like a Björk, or just shyness behind your fashion choices?

Dar Williams: Well, I sorta Björked out a couple of times. But it's like a person who's interested in language and then music and then voice, and there's an aesthetic to that. I mean, Laurie Anderson is not Björk, nor is Suzanne Vega, and the simplicity of their presentation is offset by the complexity of what they're doing, and I actually prefer, you know, to glitter but not to distract. As for David Bowie, the "Starman" thing, and what really struck me about Bowie's music and that song in particular, was his interest in teenagers. Which is something I'm very interested in. And that was the common ground which made "Starman" a very easy interpretation for me. I feel "Starman" was synonymous with a kind of glitteriness that drugs had to offer, at a certain point. And, you know, I'm pretty ambivalent about teenagers and pot, but I've watched teenagers destroy themselves with other drugs... and we don't live in a climate when there's a lot of glamour associated with those drugs. It's more racy than transcendent, in any way. So I imagined and did a little speech in the beginning of it where grownups had come along and faced drugs through all sorts of propaganda campaigns through teenage life, and then built a shitload of malls, and offered nothing but corporate ties to replace the drugs. So to my mind, "Starman" is the icon of anything that cuts through all the hypocrisy and corporate machismo and manipulation and I think hatred of kids that adults tend to show. And that really speaks to teenagers in a way that redeems their hopes and ideals, and so, even if their hopes and ideas are really shallow, they still glitter. And so I actually loved, really loved having a whack at "Starman".

Splendid: I guess that's a good way to end our conversation, but, well, I'll ask this. You do have a wonderful head of hair; has Neutrogena ever approached you to be a spokeswoman ?

Dar Williams: That's very kind, I just had it done at Aveda today! (She laughs) No, Neutrogena has never approached me... Why, because I have that kind of clean look?

Splendid: No, no...

Dar Williams: I do have big hair... I usually, actually stick it up in a bun these days. For convenience, especially in the summer. But it's sort of unusually big. When I was touring with Ron Sexsmith once, and the audience did not treat him well, I said, "That's it. I'm going out with gigantic hair." I don't why I thought it was going to punish them, but I made my hair so huge that night...