Dar Williams – The Green World

Dar Williams has never been afraid to see herself as a work in progress, and, as usual, it makes for fairly good art. Her acknowledgement of an ego apart from the Earth Mother most other female folkies bow to allows Williams to have true familiarity with her subjects and narrators — usually different parts of herself.

The title of her fourth album, The Green World, is derived from a Shakespeare class at her alma mater, Wesleyan. The “green world” of the title represents the intellectual realm where most of the true learning was done (often literally represented by a forest), which was to be brought back to the rather staid “closed world” of Elizabethan court life, ostensibly to kick-start social and artistic change. Never one to shrink from a challenge, Williams even goes for pop production here, perhaps hoping to infiltrate the closed world of radio programmers.

Is it successful? ‘Tis questionable. While “I Won’t Be Your Yoko Ono” treats Ono as a sympathetic figure, one who gave up her own promising career in part to be with her husband, it’s better seen as Williams’ own stern warning against anyone who might ask her to sublimate herself. “What Do You Love More Than Love” and “We Learned From The Sea” work nicely as single thoughts delivered cleanly. The lone problem? The breathy-in-multiple-octaves vocals that tend to give one a sugar rush after four or five songs; like Sarah McLachlan, one imagines Williams could emote about a broken nail.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.