Darling Dar

[flwyd]

I'm sorry that I left you
With your questions all alone
But I was too happy driving
And too angry to drive home
I was thinking about the easy courage
Of my distant friends
They said I could let this bridge wash out
And never make amends

Can I blow this small town
Make a big sound
Like the star of a film noir postcard
Can I just forget the frames I shared with you

And I can't believe what they're saying
They're saying I can change my mind
Start over on Spring Street
I'm welcome anytime

Well there are Spring Street storefront daisies
Floating on their neon stems
There are new shirts on the clothes racks
Should I feel like one of them
I can find a small apartment
Where a struggling artist died
And pretend because I pay the rent
I know that pain inside

Yeah, let's watch the tour bus stop and tell us
Here's the scene of a spring green life dream
Take the best part
Write it in your caffeine diary

And I can't believe what they're saying
They're saying I can leave tonight
Start over on Spring Street
I'm welcome anytime

This year April had a blizzard
Just to show she did not care
And the new dead leaves
They made the trees look like children with gray hair
But I'll push myself up through the dirt
And shake my petals free
I'm resolved to being born
And so resigned to bravery

Yeah the one who leaves this also grieves this
Too much rain on a prairie flood plain
Houses floating, love is like that
We built on the river

And that's to say, yeah I'm leaving
But I don't have to go there
I don't have to go to Spring Street
'Cause it's spring everywhere...
-- Dar Williams, "Spring Street"

"There is a metaphor between the state of Iowa and a state of desire. I was inspired by the very bosomy landscape. Imagine what I'd have written if I'd came out to the Flatirons." -- Dar Williams, in encouraging the crowd to join in the singing of "Iowa."

So yes; I just got back from the Dar Williams concert at The Boulder Theater. It was fabulous. She was backed by guitar, bass, keyboard, trap drums, and varied percussion. The same arrangement, aside from the mixed acoustic/electric guitar pairings, as the Grateful Dead. (Go go gadget sentence fragment!) She played a great mix of up rockin' tunes and slow earthy spiritual numbers. I teared up about three measures into the concert, and "The Babysitter's Here" completely reduced me to a rain spirit. I'm not quite sure why that song is the second-most reliable at getting me to cry. Not only did I rarely have a babysitter as a kid, I don't have any nostalgia for being a young girl, which is what the song evokes. Perhaps I just need to embrace my inner maiden.

Edit: Oh yeah, almost forgot. During the encore, some woman jumped up on stage, jumped around in circles for a few moments, then jumped over to Dar and gave her a kiss before being pulled off by a security guy. During the second encore (!), Dar said "I feel kind of insulted. [The keyboardist -- I forgot her name] played with Ani DiFranco, and somebody got on stage and bit her ass. I didn't get bitten on the ass." (That's paraphrased.) Also, one down note, her new CD is less than 40 minutes long. You can fit two of those one one CD. Part of the mp3 scene is a rebellion against annoyingly packaged music. In this case, the package is good and all of the content is enjoyable, there just isn't as much as one would hope. (Of course, LPs max out at 42 minutes and change, so maybe it's not too bad.)

Dar's traveling with John Eddie and SELF. John Eddie leads a country rock band and his favorite words in spontaneous speech seems to be conjugations of "fuck" -- a rather dissonant choice for an opener for a spiritual singer-songwriter like Dar. I did enjoy the song "Play Some Skynyrd" they wrote after too many country bars with audiences unwilling to expand horizons. They had some decent country and rockabilly licks, but I don't think it matched what the audience was excited about.

The Solar Energy Light Fund helps communities in "developing" countries establish sustainable and renewable (not just solar) power generation. They have a raffle for a trip to Buthan that's on Dar's tour (the raffle, not Buthan). Dar gave them props for being together and grounded. Yay for engineering non-profits!

In other summer concert news, The Chautauqua summer concert series features Hot Rize ten days after my brother's graduation, Bela Fleck the next day, and Afro Celt Soundsystem (now just Afro Celts) 33 days later, not to mention the silent film series. I can probably convince my family to go to most of those, which means I don't have to pay for tickets. Score! Afro Celts' also at The Gothic, which may be a better place to dance (I haven't been there, so I don't know). It seems absurd to expect people to sit through an hour and a half of live Afro Celts. Get off your tush and dance! Maybe I should go to both shows to make up for missing them twice -- once 'cause I was under 21 and once 'cause they couldn't make the Boulder Theater show. (Really do check out their website. You can stream their whole album.) Finally, I have two tickets to Björk at Red Rocks on August 18th. Anybody want to go? To any of these?

---

Yesterday was Beltane, for those who didn't notice. Nobody in the Pagan Student Alliance wanted to plan a public Maypole dance, even though we've got a pole painted already, so my celebration was limited to a private circle thing. We did a rather lusty meditation, I exposed people to the sensual touch of rose-on-skin (and down the bosom, in some cases), and we generally had a boisterous evening whose topic, more often than not, was fairly sexy. We wonder what the youth pastor next door did with the energy we were leaking.

I was able to be lusty and a bit flirty and a sensual aid without feeling lonely. I reflected today before the concert that it's a wonderful state of being in love with the world; a feeling I've described as love as a verb without an object; a happy form of romangst; or, if you like, In Love But Not A Piece. This is nice because, unlike some other forms of love, it's not likely to distract me from my final tomorrow, paper shortly thereafter, and semester-long project that we're doing in a week. I'm such an academic slut.

Finally, a happy birthday to akkhima. I enjoyed the snippet of time I was able to spend with y'all, and I hope you got to celebrate properly. ;-) And to everyone else, a very merry summer!

Comments

[mgeorge.livejournal.com]

Björk? Did you say Björk? Ever since Emily's culminating project, where I had to listen to it for hours on end during rehearsels, I've been a huge fan. I had thought about going to the show, but I had decided that the tickets were outside my current budget. But she totally rules.

As does the Afro Celt Sound System, btw. They have a track on the La Femme Nikita soundtrack, which is where I first heard them. They've definitely got it going on.

Just my two cents. Oh, and happy (insert name of pagan holiday here). I'm not really familiar with pagan traditions, but I feel I should be supportive of anybody that doesn't automatically bow to a guy on a cross.

[slyviolet.livejournal.com]

Wow, I'd almost forgotten just how much Bjork we did listen to during that process... Yeah, Debut was in there a LOT, wasn't it? I was trying to figure out why I associated that album with turkey bacon and avocado sandwiches. Now I remember. *hug*

[slyviolet.livejournal.com]

Mmm... Dar...

And yeah, this CD is shorter, but I haven't found it lacking in artistic fantabulousity, and so I forgive her. I love at least something about every single song on this album, which is a better track record (ooh! Double pun! Two for the price of one idiom!! That's awesome!!) than most CDs I own. :)