I am happy to do political fundraisers. I always hope that my friends will be, too. It's part of who you are and you shouldn't feel ashamed of what you believe in.

Sixties folk rock was my original muse and the folk audience-people who listen to music off the beaten track-fostered my career. I definitely don't want to abandon the genre but I also need to make sure I'm Dar Williams first.

And the ones that know you so well are the ones that can swallow you whole.

Sometimes life gives us lessons sent in ridiculous packaging.

I think the music was speaking to that opening up of whose voice gets heard and how multidimensional that voice can be.

I have odometer readings, kids; all sorts of measurements of what I've been doing for the last 20 years. I get it. I get that it was a while ago.

The rest of the songs on the album [Mortal City ] have spare arrangements on them. Steve [Miller], really loved that. He'd just come off of a project with someone who basically had to mask the fact that there were no songs there with production. He said, "Oh, my God, you have real songs here!"