[ SECRET POST #5266 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5266 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 36 secrets from Secret Submission Post #754.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

OP

[(Anonymous)]

This was the specific song that got me angry enough to post this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NjB6gUbAMk

I do think it's apparent in her other songs from other time periods, though, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZQeW6XPAE0 (Why is the kid so certain these benevolent authority figures must have wicked intentions, and so desperate to rebel against them? Dar Williams doesn't know, and Dar Williams doesn't care.)

Re: OP

[pantswarrior]

Hmm... I mean I guess I kind of get where you're coming from on the first song, though I take a somewhat more gentle read of that one. If I'm remembering right, she was a new mother about that time and it doesn't seem to me that it's so odd that knowing there are war orphans being taken to become child soldiers, it might hit differently now and she might write about wishing she could instead take them in and give them comfort and some semblance of a normal childhood. Obviously it's not that easy, and I'm assuming she knows that, but I suppose if you're less charitable than I am (and I admit I'm biased, her mailing list was one of my first internet hangouts back in 1995ish, hahah) it could come off as kind of... I don't know how to put it really. Sort of emotional gentrification, rather than my take which is "overly simplified fantasy"? Kind of like how Cher tweeted out recently that she wished she had been there when George Floyd was being murdered, because maybe she could have done something to stop it, and everyone was like "...SERIOUSLY?"

But also possibly because of my long history with her career (plus a couple times meeting her in person - she is super gracious and gives awesome hugs) I suspect you may be reading too much into Alleluia. That one was written about a real person - a guy she went to high school with who died in a car crash, and although all the adults said he was a screw-up and one of "the bad kids", all his peers knew he had a big heart, so she was imagining him winding up in heaven and being like "wtf how did I get here, this is obviously a mistake".

So while I couldn't say anything about "neoliberalism" (because I'm pretty sure I don't understand that concept at all, given the discussions here), I suspect we just have very different takes on her music and the intentions behind it. I mean obviously I am a longtime fan, but I also don't hold her up on some kind of grand pedestal; it seems to me that a recurring theme that shows up in her music is indeed a perhaps naive, optimistic hope that things can turn out okay. Possibly I am just less bothered by that.