Talk:Dar Williams

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Dar is not bisexual. That Toronot report was from a magazine that mis-quoted Dar. She's corrected that on many occasions. This line should be removed.

Should she be listed under "gay icons"? She's got quite the lesbian following. (anonymous comment from User:68.46.22.195)

Absolutely not. The "Gay icons" category needs to go away entirely. Kelly Martin 01:06, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)
Maybe it should, but while its still here, its important that we keep it accurate and add this article to is.
Was that one of Yoda's grammatical constructs? I don't know what qualifies one as a gay icon. I guess I don't understand why the category is helpful. All sorts of folks like Dar. -MrFizyx 04:02, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Dar's Work under 'Songs'

I thought the 'Songs' entry was rather lacking in substantive discussion of Dar's work, so I wrote some. I hope it meets Wikipedia standards... -—Preceding unsigned comment added by Marshall.Moseley (talk • contribs)

Hi Marshall. What you have written is a very good analysis of Dar's writing, it is interesting and entertaining to read and is a nice piece of work. It is in general a good boost to any article about Dar. There are some issues, however, from a wikipedia standpoint. Here are a few points:
  • There are some style issues, albums are to be in italics as you've done, but song titles go in quotes. There should be more linking to other wikipedia articles. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style for details. I may fix some of these since this is easy to do.
  • There is sometimes a fine line between stating what is obvious and supported by the songs you are citing and original research (see Wikipedia:No original research). It would be great if you could cite some articles about Dar. If you need help with this I could recommend some articles in Sing Out!, and some interviews with her in the book, Deep Community by Boston Globe journalist, Scott Alarik.
  • Writing for the 'pedia is different than writing a magazine article. Regarding the encyclopedic tone, see Wikipedia:Describing points of view. For exampel, statements such as "it's a good Christmas song, it's good gay/lesbian song, and it's a good family song," make a lot of assumptions about what is "good". If you have a source you can say, "Journalist X says it is a good...", otherwise it might be better to say, "The song simultaneously deals with themes of Christmas, family and homosexuality all while telling a coherent story."
  • I hope you are interested in doing more work here. Do you think some of the in-depth analysis of the songs might be better placed under articles about her various recordings? Sadly, right now most of the articles in her discography are either unwritten or just track listings.
I hope these suggestions help. -MrFizyx 14:15, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for the style fixes and all the links. I'm pretty new to writing for Wikipedia; I will try to be mindful of them in the future.
  • I changed the line you cited (Christians/Pagans) to be simply descriptive, rather than offer an opinion. I've written for magazines and my own books and screenplays, but never in an encyclopedia style. I suppose have to make any analysis more grounded. Drat. :)
  • I am interested in doing more work. I think my next step would be to look at what I've written and cite references that support my assertions. Because the plain truth is that I just wrote what I thought was kind of factually obvious. I suppose I need to see if there's some kind of critical consensus...
  • Re: in-depth analysis of songs. I don't consider what I've written there as in-depth, but merely the use of quotes to touch on the themes Dar returns to again and again. That being said, extensive song quoting could certainly be moved...but I think someone reading the Wikipedia article might not read the entry to the point of track descriptions. And a primary goal in educating anyone on Dar's work should be, I think, to convey how deeply poetic her lyrics are -- you do that by offering up the poems (songs) themselves. Nothing speaks as well as the work. Just my opinion.
  • Whatever I do, it will have to be sporadic. I probably can't get back to anything here for several weeks.

[edit] Category:People with glossophobia

She has been added to this category. The article does not comment on this. I've read about her several times (even met her once) and don't remember hearing of this. Google just returns copies of the wiki. Does anyone have a source? -MrFizyx 15:35, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Then again, the article does discuss her stage fright in the Boston coffee house scene which is supported in some articles [1][2], still it seems weird to categorize this with a clinical term. -MrFizyx 15:43, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
This category has since been deleted: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 January 15 -MrFizyx 16:08, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Overuse of Lyrics, tone issues, original research, POV

The overuse of lyrics to trace the path of her career and personal development might be a style problem, and definitely doesn't have the tone of an encyclopedia. Phrases like "jewel of the album" are also POV -- we need to be careful not to be expressing things line that in the article. My first inclination would be to gut that section, but it'd be better to try to rework it into something more appropriate. --Improv 07:55, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I am a huge fan of Dar Williams, and I agree with virtually everything that was said in the relatively recently added sections about Dar's earlier and later work. However, I agree that large portions of it do not seem appropriate for an encyclopedia. However, because I am relatively new to Wikipedia editing (and because I am a Dar fan), I can't be the one to remove the material! --PJMweb 21:01, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

It's starting to look like that section isn't going to get the rework that's being asked for. Perhaps it should just be removed? Even if it is pretty good Dar interpretation, it's pretty bad encyclopedia work. If no one is going to step up and rework it to be appropriate (a project that sounds pretty daunting to me, if possible at all), we need to dump it. --The Hanged Man 01:36, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm the guy who wrote that section. As I said above, "I think someone reading the Wikipedia article might not read the entry to the point of track descriptions. And a primary goal in educating anyone on Dar's work should be, I think, to convey how deeply poetic her lyrics are -- you do that by offering up the poems (songs) themselves." One could argue that taking the POV that her songs are...well...good, might not be encyclopedia style. I think that an article on Bob Dylan would be rife with positive adjectives. As the Wikipedia article is, with terms like "a haunting reverence," and "an apocalyptic intensity".
That being said, *I've* never seen extensive quotes in an encylopedia entry. I'll wait a few days for more feedback, and if more people chime in, I'll change it... --Marshall Moseley
I'm not concerned with it being POV so much as OR. --The Hanged Man 22:04, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't know what 'OR' means in this context...
Original research --The Hanged Man 00:52, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
This is a concern that I brought up earlier. Giving sources for this article takes work, but thats what we do. You might start with some of the articles here, the articles/interviews from Sing Out! and National Public Radio are likely free and of a high quality. Also, if your library has the book, Deep Community, you can find a lot of material there. I've slowly been building up articles on Dave Carter and albums by John Gorka. Doing this really takes time, but it allows the wikipedia to be a more reliable source for info. -MrFizyx 20:04, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough. I will do the requisite research and change it. Probably next week. --Marshall Moseley
I'm working on it, since nothing's been done yet (got up to "Later Work"). I suggest that someone tackle the music side of it to balance out the heavy focus on the lyrics, or that we cut the lyrics analysis even more. ALSO: it should be made clear that Dar Williams is not the one who wrote "Echoes." Right now it looks like she is getting praise for the lyrics (?). Ansate 08:35, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Good point about "Echoes." In the context, the article's commentary about "Echoes" applied mainly to the songwriting, not to the performance, so I removed that portion of the article. -PJMweb 21:25, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV or Press Release?

"It is not an exaggeration to say that Williams is one of the finest songwriters working today. But the real miracle is she seems to have achieved her success without mortgaging even a portion of her soul. She is true to her values, has a sense of humor about the world and herself, and keeps putting out world-class work."

Oh, come on. That's her publicist writing, isn't it? (GLG 1/23/07)

[edit] Weasel words

Someone made a laudable attempt to clean up the POV problem by adding he words "considered by some to be" to the following sentence:

Dar's slightly whispery voice and deadpan delivery is considered by some to be perfect for that seventies anthem of alienation.

Adding weasel words isn't the solution to the problem. -PJMweb 07:35, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

The sentence quoted above is no longer part of the article. It was replaced with a neutral sentence. -151.197.243.239 05:17, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category: Vegetarian

Stumbled across several citations saying that Dar is not a vegetarian. They're old, but I found nothing more authoritative.

Removed Dar from Vegetarian category. -PJMweb 07:30, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cry Cry Cry

Can't find anything that ties Dar's Cry Cry Cry with the song Cry, Cry, Cry. This interview mentions the genesis of Dar's Cry Cry Cry without every talking about the song. I'm removing the reference to the song from the Dar article. -PJMweb 07:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

  • According to this link, with a song listing of Cry Cry Cry (band)'s one CD, they didn't cover the song Cry, Cry, Cry. I know they only produced the one CD, and don't seem to be performing together (or recording) anymore, so I think it is safe to disassociate Richard, Lucy, and Dar from the song. --Deltopia 13:56, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Photo

I have a free photo of Dar that I took at SUNY New Paltz. Should it be used instead of this copyrighted one? I think it's also a better photo for this article in so far as that it shows her face better. RadicalHarmony 04:51, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I've reverted back to an earlier photo that appears to have a creative commons license (Image:Dar-Williams-2004-07-18.jpg), I think it looks better than Image:DarW368BSheehan.jpg anyway, which is copyrighted. If you have another good photo and want to release it under a free license, I'm sure it will fit in there somewhere. -MrFizyx 16:01, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
An editor, Velourmusic (talk · contribs), has changed the photo back to the copyrighted image and indicated that this was done at the request of Dar Williams. The problem is that this is against wikipedia guidelines (see Wikipedia:Non-free content). If nothing is being done to correct this problem, we will need to return to the earlier image. -MrFizyx 16:01, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree with using the free-content picture, firstly because it IS free content, and secondly I think it looks better. —ScouterSig 04:13, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
I've reverted Velourmusic again, he/she does not seem to understand the problem. Is there another free image of Dar available for which there would be less objecton? If Dar (or anyone else) doesn't like the "Concert under the stars" photo the thing to do is release another photo under a free license. I don't see the problem with the free photo. I think it is comparable to Dar's photo on a recent issue of Sing Out!, but If she doesn't like it we should try to find another. -MrFizyx 14:38, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References

I just changed the in-line references into footnotes, for consistency with other footnotes. In this exercise, I noticed a potential problem with the references: Several of the references refer to news articles that have been reproduced on a website other than the original source's website. To me, this at least reduces the validity of the reference. I wonder whether this should be mentioned in the footnote, and if so, how? An example is Finding a New Approach. -PJMweb 15:39, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not too concerned about this. First, you can verify that an article on Dar Williams did appear in that issue by looking throught the contents of Performing Songwriter back issues (its now out of print). Second, I could point you to numerous other writing on Dar Williams by the same Boston journalist, Scott Alarik (e.g. in Deep Community). Finally, I don't know see the motivation for Dar Williams posting false aritcles about herself on her web site. -MrFizyx 04:04, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for cleaning up the references. Note that DarWilliams.net isn't actually maintained by Dar Williams. I've also noted this in the Dar article. -PJMweb 14:58, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Food is Not Love

Someone added a link to Food Is Not Love Interview Episode S2 Premiere in the Links section. I removed the link because I don't think this is a good place for it, for two reasons: 1) The link does not point to a page that is dedicated to Dar Williams, or even focused on Dar Williams in a signficant way, and 2) The link doesn't point directly to the podcast in which Dar Williams is interviewed. However, this made me realize that the Food is Not Love link had somehow disappeared from the Dar Williams article. Investigation showed that it was still in the article, but a glitch was causing it not to be displayed. I fixed the glitch, so now the Food is Not Love link again appears in the References section. -PJMweb —The preceding signed but undated comment was added at 03:15, August 25, 2007 (UTC).


[edit] Haiki

how is the lyrics to Beauty Of the Rain a haiki? Who wrote that? Do they even know what a haiki is? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.242.111.198 (talk) 05:41, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

  • Good point about haiku. That description was part of a much larger revision made on September 8, 2006. Several discussants subsequently pointed out many problems with the revision (see Discussion sections: Dar's Work Under Songs; Overuse of Lyrics...; POV or Press Release?; Weasel Words). The hope was that the original contributor would fix those problems, but over time various contributors have whittled away at the problems, though they clearly still exist. -PJMweb (talk) 15:09, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cry Cry Cry name origins

Not sure where a eye-witness account fis into the wiki philosophy, but based on attending a couple of concerts (Berkeley and San Juan Capistrano), I can attest to a link between the song and the Band name. The Berkeley concert included the song on the set list, and it was stated that this was the inspiration for the name. It was not on in the SJC set list. Straylimey (talk) 04:29, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Slash and burn

I'm cutting a huge chunk out of the Later Work section. It's nice writing for a fansite, but it has nothing to do with the way that wikipedia writes about musicians. If anything, it should be on the relevant song's pages. Here it is:

The Beauty of the Rain features some of her most accomplished songwriting to date. The title track is almost a haiku, discussing how an unnamed person operates from fear in a relationship, and thus loses his or her partner, and how this person fails to understand that the process of relating is what love is:

You don't know the next thing you will say This is your favorite kind of day It has no walls The beauty of the rain Is how it falls, how it falls, how it falls


Williams addresses the subject of motherhood in "The One Who Knows," although she would not become a mother until two years after writing the song:

All the things you treasure most will be the hardest won. I will watch you struggle long before the answers come. But I won't make it harder, I'll be there to cheer you on.


And the chorus:

You'll fly away, but take my hand until that day. So when they ask how far love goes When my job's done you'll be the one who knows.


In "The Mercy of the Fallen", she makes the assertion that those who have erred and been damaged, who have been humbled, bring a worthy lack of judgment to relationships:

There's the wind and the rain And the mercy of the fallen Who say they have no claim to know what's right There's the weak and the strong And the beds that have no answer And that's where I may rest my head tonight


Her most recent CD, My Better Self, features two covers: Neil Young's "Everybody Knows This is Nowhere", and Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb". Williams believes that it is all too easy for people to get lulled by the comfort of their routines, and so chose to record the latter song as a "reminder to wake up" and take responsibility for the problems in our world.[6]

She returns to her folk roots with "Teen for God", an upbeat, thoughtful, skewering of the probable reality of teenage Bible camps:

Dear Lord, I plan each day By the things I will not do or say But I'm driven by a passion Is it only there to tame?

 Over and out.  Ethan Mitchell (talk) 22:39, 27 February 2008 (UTC)