Songwriter Dar Williams's new album, ''My Better Self," is at once her most personal and most political album. It is also her most melodically confident and lyrically mature offering. Alongside eloquent flashes of populist anger, there are love songs and meditations that display an enlightened contentment about her imperfect place in an imperfect world. That may reflect changes in her own life. She is married, and gave birth to a son last year.
Q. So what is your better self?
A.My better self is a less planned self, a less intentional self. When I was pregnant I was talking to a friend about the fact that I just wouldn't have time to be neurotic about whether or not I was a good mother, and that it would be really selfish to get neurotic about that. Luckily, I've lived long enough that getting neurotic isn't my first impulse, anyway. The luxury of getting over yourself -- that's my better self.
Q.There have always been topical shadings in your ballads, but you seem more explicitly political this time.
A.It wasn't my first impulse to write more political songs, but if you're taking a temperature reading, you find yourself writing about Christian teenagers, empire building at the expense of your civilization, and ''Beautiful Enemy," where you're looking at the city-state of yourself, and realizing this is a good time to look at our personal need for conquest, competition, and revenge. The times call out for you to recognize your personal context in a more political way.
Q.How has becoming a mother affected your songwriting?
A.It's just made me more organized, because I have to write on the baby sitter's schedule. When I'm following [my son] around, things kind of ferment in my head; but when it comes to the hours when my hands are free, I find I'm able to fit into structures of writing more than before. I mean, I love him, and I'm sure there's very wonderful, invisible ways he's affecting my life; but I would say that, as an artist, I recognize his presence the most as an organizing principle. Poor little dude.
Q.You can still write so acutely about the adolescent experience. How do you stay in touch with that?
A. When you're pregnant, it's like being the antithesis of a teenager. Hormonally, it's a time when you feel a lot of love for the things around you, as opposed to a drive to get the world's approval. . . . Now that I'm married and have a kiddo, I look differently at how people complicate their lives. I'm sure I used to think, ''Well, a little therapy will fix that." Now I think, ''No, no, that's the whole enchilada. That's life." There's something fun and exciting about twisting ourselves up in knots, creating dramas that don't have to be there, or hating our size, even though we say, ''Bad, bad, you should be more self-accepting." I'm more interested now in how that ain't gonna happen, so what do we do with that?
Dar Williams performs at Sanders Theatre today and tomorrow. Call
617-496-2222 or visit www.multistage.org.
