Dar Williams gives fresh twist to ancient stories

Folk/rock singer and songwriter Dar Williams has built up a loyal following in America since releasing her debut album, My Better Self in 1995. Currently on a tour of Ireland New York-born Dar plays Monroe’s Live next Saturday, February 15 when she will be showcasing songs from her latest LP, In the Time Of Gods. 

She explains the background to the first song she wrote for this album.
“It’s called This Earth and it has to do with a renegade biker based on the Greek god, Hermes who is the messenger of the dead,” she said. “It was inspired by a beautiful, icy, silver, desolate highway in Canada.”
Dar ran with the theme of Greek mythology for the album, as she found these ancient were relevant to modern society.
“There were these ancient stories, epic stories of pride, hubris and jealousy, and civilisation,” she says. “During a recession in the United States, those themes turned out to be really easy to write about. But I didn’t want it to be academic; I wanted these stories to be inspiration for the album, not a thematic ball and chain.”
On her website biography Dar Williams has written, ‘I’m interested in power right now.’ What does she mean by that?
“You had these precipitous falls of larger-than-life people in the financial world, and they were these horrible epic stories about losing everything in a weekend, because of your arrogance and greed,” she says. “But also, we all had to choose to rebuild, to find the energy to keep our faith in education and justice going. There’s a lot of power in holding to your principles and finding ways to get things done.”